Showing posts with label Royal College of Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Royal College of Art. Show all posts

Raw meat/Long after the days

Long after the days and the seasons


As a part of the piece 'Let me sleep! Let me boil, On the altars of Solomon; Let me soak the rusty soil' London, 2013, duration: 12 days. I re-enacted Arthur Rimbaud’s poem Barbaric.

I chose this poem, because (as I find in many of Rimbaud’s poems), the words does not only change into images in my head, but into acts/actions I know how to perform on and with the clay. The whole composition of the poem is shaped as choreography of movement and motion of material, not only as a gesture, but driven by spirit.

When I study the words: - being beyond mere language, they have that rare quality of carrying saturated materiality. Not only is the poem loaded with materiel, it furthermore achieves to describe materiality in lyrics. In words depicting the actuality of the world - both as incomprehensible phenomenon and as the heavy solid soil - within manageable images we can bring with us.










 
 
 
 


 
 


-- Oh! the banner of raw meat against the silk of seas and arctic flowers;



(they do not exist).-- Bliss! Live embers raining in gusts of frost.--



 
 
 
Bliss!-- fires in the rain of the wind of diamonds


flung out by the earth's heart eternally carbonized for us.
 
 
 
 
 
 
-- O world! (Far from the old retreats and the old flames, still heard, still felt.)
 
 
 
 
 
Fire and foam. Magic, veering of chasms and clash of icicles against the stars.






 
 

O bliss, O world, O music! And forms, sweat, eyes

and long hair floating there.







And white tears boiling,--








 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Photos by: Kirsten Abildgaard & Alida Sayer


Kingbird: Let me sleep, let me boil...


 
 
Here are some of the images from the piece 'Let me sleep! Let me boil, On the altars of Solomon; Let me soak the rusty soil' London, 2013, duration: 12 days.

I have previously posted the intentions I had with the piece. (Which you can read here). Since the actual construction of the piece was taking place during the show, I didn't have any images of it until after the show. Looking at and organising these images is always an interesting process, where new aspects of the piece are coming alive, well, in a way, it is point where I actually realises what I have made.
 
I am going to show you images from the performance chosen and arranged in relation to the different topics and poems, of which, they were inspired and conceived. It will be an on-going process and things might change a bit from time to time.      
 
The chapters or topics are:
 
 

 
 
Beneath the bush a wolf will howl
Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl:

Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered


 
Let me sleep! Let me boil
                                              On the altars of Solomon;
                                                                                            Let me soak the rusty soil,

 
 

Fruits and grasses spend their hours; The spider spinning in the hedge
Eats only flowers. 

SHOW 13, Royal College of Art

SHOW 13, The piece I am showing:











The title 'Let me sleep! Let me boil, On the altars of Solomon; Let me soak the rusty soil' 2013 is from a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, the piece is a composition of performance, sculpture, clay, hides, wood, tools, light and human. Dimensions 4 x 5 m, Duration: 12 days.
 
The piece I am making for the SHOW 13, is an affair with both 'weightiness' and sculptural qualities in a ritual handling of the material, and the vitality of performance. Bringing out the better of these two processes, I am persuading them to tell stories and reveal what is buried in their matter, as well as in mine.

The installation consist of a compositions with two floor based platforms, one referencing a table/alter, the other one a bed/grave. The bed is for resting and table is for consuming

The table top it is made of leather. Clay elements will be sculpted on the skin of my body and then laid to rest on a bed or table of skin. Lamp shades will be hanging from the ceiling, transporting the activity into the homely sphere of a private space.

On the bed and table platforms an enduring process creating sculptures of clay will take place throughout the show. Using my whole body as a sight for producing sculptures, a confrontation between the clay and the artist’s body is taking place, blurring the boundary amongst the artists’ endpoint and the beginning of the sculpture.

The clay will change shape, colour, character, returning all back to the starting point, for then starting all over again: revisiting the act that happened the day before, rearranging the elements of the sculpture. Cutting them open, so they blossom in complete transformation, revealing an inside, traces of its origin is to be found.

Dough up from the ground, using clay in this work, has the sense of a folk melody or story, opposite of shining in novelty, it seem to have existed there all along. The energy of the soil, that with softness record and absorb every act it is put through, every little stroke and every brute force.



Artist statement


When I wake up in the morning


 


 
 
 
I am in the most poetic way sure that my work is about love and softness, during the day this changes, entering the night I am certain it is about sex and death.
 
Also being a philosopher with a background in the harsh Nordic melancholic and strict minimalistic, yet spiritual and mythical culture, in my works I always seems to be drawn to the core of life’s existence in itself.  

Imagining nothing is ever lost, nonetheless everything is always moving, most likely to return at some point if we allow it. All the stories of the world is surprisingly alike, also on top of ruins something flourishes and there will be fostered.

Moving through the effort of creating, for then leaving it and letting it go by giving, not claiming ownership or requesting anything in return, history and myth can be opened up, letting past experiences replay themselves, placing us in this present layer of time, linking everything that have ever been and everything that will ever come.

No one should dream of turning into dust, but after all we are all visitors to this time, to this place. We are just passing through. We can observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we will return.  



 

Upoming exhibition: SHOW 13, Degree Show at Royal College of Art

SHOW 13



 
Show RCA Battersea
 
Open to the public: 20–30 June (closed 28 June)
12 noon – 8pm daily
 
Free admission
 
Dyson Building, 1 Hester Road, London SW11 4AN
Sculpture Building, 15–25 Howie Street, London SW11 4AS
Sackler Building, 14–22 Howie Street, London SW11 4AY
Moving Image Studio, 1–11 Howie Street, London SW11 4AS
Testbed 1, 33 Parkgate Road, London SW11 4NP
 
Students from Ceramics & Glass, and Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery will exhibit in the gallery of the College’s recently opened Dyson building in Battersea, as part of Show RCA Battersea. They will feature alongside the Fine Art programmes of Painting, Photography, Printmaking and Sculpture. The College will make use of the neighbouring Testbed 1 space again this year to exhibit Architecture students’ work. Critical Writing in Art & Design and Curating Contemporary Art programmes' exhibits will include opportunities for commentaries and discussion spaces.
 

Show RCA Kensington
 
Open to the public: 20–30 June (closed 28 June)
12 noon – 8pm daily
 
Free admission
 
Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU
 
Show RCA Kensington will include students from the programmes of Critical & Historical Studies, Design Products, Design Interactions, Fashion Millinery, Footwear & Accessories, History of Design, Innovation Design Engineering, Textiles and Vehicle Design, who will all exhibit in the Darwin Building. Students from Animation and Visual Communication will take over the adjacent Stevens Building, using the studios to display and sell their work.
 

Surrealistic Ball

The last ball of the season


helle kingBIRD bjerregaard



You see, there are no way out of this situation, the subtitles of the movie we are in says, my friend Ester noticed. It's almost ironically true and now I guess there isn't. One year into the RCA experience and still with one more year to go, we are located exactly in between the end and the start of this adventure.

We went to the last party at the Royal College of Art for this year. Luckily we still have a year more to go, so it wasn't our last party. It's difficult to comprehend that we've already been here a year. Well, in a way it feels like, I've known all my friends forever, but at the other hand it still feels like the first week, where we all meet and the 2nd year students was about to start their final year. I can't believe what we saw them go through - and to know that would be us next year seems even more strange.

The theme of the ball was 1920's surrealism and everyone was dressed up and the setup and staging was fantastic. Here are some images of my class mates and me.

Sketch - With finitude life becomes present

My rotating studio desk

Some sketches of miniature duve and pillow and other stuff on my desk in the studio. 


Secret Santa

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

I know these aren't the first party pictures I've shown here. Just to make sure - we do work very hard in between going out! ;-) So a few days before the 1st term ended, we had yet another brilliant party: the Christmas party. Everyone had brought a dish from their native country or region and as you see Secret Santa was there too.

Our amazing technical staff at our department (Ceramic and Glass, Royal College of Art, London) made sure that Secret Santa was invited to the Christmas party. It's impossible not to feel at home!
Santa did also have a present for me.




We spend the afternoon decorating the plaster workshop, so it was ready for the festive celebration.


If you are at an art college make sure always to check out the bins.
In them,  we did find some paper waste who made the much 
adorable snow ball ornaments. 
The very first step in the transformation to winter wonderland

Enjoying the fruits of our work. The moustaches was the feature of the night. My moustache is in my forehead - it wouldn't stick while eating :-)

Halloween

My friends and me at Halloween party at Royal College of Art. It's Royal Albert Hall in the background.