Middelburgse Atelier Stichting ‘Atelier Trailer’, voorjaar 2010

Nanda Runge en Annemieke Fanoy hebben hun ‘Atelier trailer’ beschikbaar gesteld voor inspiratie voor de (in totaal) negen kunstenaars in de Middelburgse Atelier Stichting (MAS) gebouw.

Barbara Jean heeft een installatie gemaakt met als uitgangspunt ‘Nomads and Settlers’. De installatie bestond uit drie onderdelen:

1. Op de caravan: twee krantenartikelen ‘Rompkabinet is Balkenende V’ (Think Tank) en ‘Nomadenstam krijgt voor het eerst elektriciteit dankzij Nederlandse zonnepanelen’
2. Op de gang: foto’s ‘The Tired Contessa’ (Tabbert), ‘Look back in Anger’ (Antwerp), ‘Aside’ (caravan stalling Bergschenhoek), stenen uit Normandië en boek ‘The meeting of East and West’
3. Binnenin de caravan: twee foto’s:  ‘Wherever I hang my hat is home’ en ‘Year of the Dragon’ (detail Chinees bed = staande caravan) en een aantal bladzijden uit ‘A Day in the Life intersperced with Reminiscences’, een doorlopend ‘essay’ van mijzelf (zie tekst beneden)
Foto: 'Year of the Dragon'

NOMADS AND SETTLERS

     “I’d rather be uprooted than rooted”, Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) once said when asked why he immigrated to Ann Arbor, Michigan from Russia instead of to Europe, for example. He said he spoke some English, no Dutch, French, Spanish or Italian; besides he came from a big country, it was logical to go to another big country.100 % unknown. At the time of his emigration from Leningrad in June 1972, England expelled hundreds of Soviet spies. He did not want to continue to live in a realm so much penetrated by the Soviets. So Europe was out of the picture. However little he knew of Europe, he did know one thing and that was the quintessence or serious reason: “European sensibility is terribly structured. The idea of limitation is infinitely built into the psyche of every European; the European mind is extremely hierarchical. You know in Europe that after 600 miles there is another country, another order, and system. I always felt myself being a nomad rather than a settler. The nomad compromises the idea of horizon that the settler has. I had the idea that in the vastness of that continent I could feel myself more at home.”
Result: “the same, unable to get back to Europe in the full sense.” 3
I can identify with the nomad concept, however my experience is different, coming from a large country to small country. Experiencing freedom within limitations here.

Gypsy at Heart: I seem to oscillate between the nomad and the settler my entire life – thus the ‘in-between’ (situation) prominent in my work. Is this a universal thing or does it weigh heavier for some than for others? Or does it have more to do with city versus country? A hunkering for both -& more? The best of all worlds.

Nomads and Settlers: in his book The Art of Ancient Europe, Herbert Kühn explains the nomad/settler situation in terms of art. Back to Altamira. Nomads were hunters with a quick eye and had to be sharp, alert, mobile. Attune with & in the environment.
They were figurative.
Every 50 years or so a new or revised theory appears about the grottos, the ‘artists’ there. If the works were made by women, as part of religious rites, as example – ‘like pin the tail on the donkey’ - or simply an expression of experience physical & spiritual – is not the issue here. (The inner need to express I would like to think, however practical example and ultimately survival are basic). Nomads had the word, stories, legends, music & were on the go.
Years come & go. After the nomadic period when people became settlers with permanent dwellings, pottery etc. and became farmers abstraction appeared, geometry and decoration. All in relationship to the temporal lines, boundaries, seasons, certainty and reoccurring patterns. Traditions but more with the feet firmly planted in the ground (in the well-known ground).
Briefly in the period of the impressionists the example was taken from nature, in nature. The fast eye movement, tja spirituality and light were rediscovered – out of the dark, (literally and figuratively). Out of the dark conventional studios with life imitation and into the real world.
Da Vinci was a researcher par excellence. Art & Science.
But what is spirit? Not everything fast is esprit. Over before you know, faster than the speed of lightning or a whiff of a cigarette or alcohol that evaporates. Too many spirituous liquors (spiritualien) can even corrode rather than clarify the mind.
And not everything that remains is dull, boring. Discover the unknown in the ‘known’.
The ephemeral as well as the permanent can have lasting value.
The circle and the straight line. The helmet and the sword – one without the other?
The combination, as always is the clue, the magic.

From this the poem springs, that we live in a place that is not our own, much less not ourselves
Wallace Stevens

Home > Nieuws > Installatie Barbara Jean: "Nomads and Settlers" in...