The visitors can join me to make fake travel duo-selfies. Since we all soooo love to make photos or ourselves. For the duration of the performance and further lasting on photographs, I will be their fffff; Friendly Foreign Fake Female Friend.. With this artwork, I exemplify and react to my current reality living in China as a white, blond, unmarried female artist of 45 years old with no kids. But most probably it will become a memory. Since more and more, not status quo foreigners are coming to China and the spectacle effect will diminish over time. The visitors can join me to make fake travel duo-selfies. Since we all soooo love to make photos or ourselves. For the duration of the performance and further lasting on photographs, I will be their fffff; Friendly Foreign Fake Female Friend.
With this artwork, I exemplify and react to my current reality living in China as a white, blond, unmarried female artist of 45 years old with no kids. But most probably it will become a memory. Since more and more, not status quo foreigners are coming to China and the spectacle effect will diminish over time.
What is the role of technique in your practice? In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating?
Via art, I seek methods to connect with people (or try to deal with disconnection) and use the medium that I believe fits best with it. I think in the (absence of) meeting with another through conscious reflection, development (or deterioration) can take place. More positively speaking or ideally, my works are about self-development, critical thinking, and condition of being human. I feel free and comfortable with the medium video and the computer. I also like making books of the artworks. I also enjoy showing my work on the different online channels we have now at our disposal. There is maybe one parameter I have with my ongoing Bridge-Performances. During the performance, I give my camera to another person I don’t know. What I like about this, is the ephemeral trust exchange on a bridge somewhere on the world between two complete strangers.
I coined these temporary encounters of co-creating the Bridge-Performances. These are performances documented by photographs taken of me by randomly chosen people who happened to be on the bridges. To me the bridge is a wonderful stage to work on since it stands as a metaphor symbolizing; connection, movement, and transformation.
How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?
To me, a great work of art is one that touches the heart and the brain. My works are participatory, either in bodily involvement or by immersive or intimate watching. My latest book is called The New Score - Collective Creation for Visual Artists. In which I combine my knowledge in creative methodology and art practice. I wrote this book during a 31-days exhibition in the Netherlands in March this year. My work was an over eight-meter-long installation consisting of 31 black letter trays. Everyday day via (digital) post I sent a new version of The New Score - Collective Creation for Visual Artists. This updated version was then printed and placed in the assigned letter tray for visitors to read. Returning visitors could follow day-by-day the progress of the document. Exposing the writing in its development was also part of my work for this exhibition. The meters-long line of letter trays externalized the many lines of words written inside of the document; as well the interpersonal closeness yet the physical distance between the sender and the reader.
Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Kim. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
What is great art and how to show this? These are questions I am currently thinking about. Presently I also very much like to create books. Books are as a private exhibition for the viewer. They can look at it alone. No one is watching them or overpeering them like a guard might do during a museum exhibition. They can sit back comfortably at any time and can take the amount of time they want and immerse themselves in the work. Visiting the sometimes-huge museums are more like an activity or entrainment in itself. I like both and I think that an artwork can be viewed in several ways. To me, an artwork can be like a diamond with many angles that shine their own colorful lights because of the different external viewing angles. So, I want to explore not just one way of presenting my works but experiment with the different angels an artwork can take by the context they are placed in.
Another side project I am doing now is Art Park—Intimate Gatherings. Which are 4 intimate gatherings in April and May of this year in the Taiziwan park in Hangzhou. With each time 1 poet and 1 contemporary artist whose work is influenced by living in China. This is followed by an open discussion. Creating these kinds of projects give me joy. I love making a small booklet of it afterwards. So, I like these kinds of settings where there is room for intimacy and that the work can go deeper by communication and shared information. At the same time, I also want more people to see and experience my work. So how does intimacy work when working with a larger number of visitors?
Currently, I have a solo-exhibition from 3 May to 3 July 2019. It is an art project in the Yibox in Jingning, meant to disperse Contemporary Art feely and available to the Chinese people from Jingning and beyond. For this project, I am showing Sun-Penetrations - The Experiencing Body. In my art, there is always some sort of intimacy involved by alone making the private, public. Since it is real and personal: It deals with inner thoughts, the body, and social interactions. It can be exposing and thus vulnerable. So, I want to create intimate-sort of spaces within a public space. So that it can have a sort of particular private/public feeling to it. For this solo exhibition, the work is presented in two accessible boxes. The boxes are placed inside a bigger space. This is also super exciting to me since the estimated number of visitors during only the May Day Holiday are > 100.000. So, the number of visitors in China is huge!!
For future exhibitions, I wish to make my works better and better. My intention is to create powerful manifestations of life. Possibly envelop visitors in a temporary state where they can transcend and see things in a more general or helpful perspective.