Something to Begin with
with Charlotte Boddaert
Exhibition OHK Oostende 2022
Exhibition OHK Oostende 2022
An intense collaboration with Belgian writer, visual artist and philosopher Charlotte Boddaert (Ghent/Brussels) in my studio in Molenbeek and a week in situ at OHK Ostend.
With 'Something to begin with' we've explored the archaic question of end and beginning. An exploration of repetition, the circular movement and the meaning that arises from it. A research that has already been done several times. When does repetition starts and how can we break through it? We didn't attempt to find answers, nor to put forward the repetition itself as an act or performance. What was shown at the exhibition was the result of our reflective search in image and word. By reworking the same form over and over again, in reusing the same material and by reworking earlier work.
The result of our collaboration, big drawings/collages, a booklet and a video, was on display at the entrance to the old swimming pool in Ostend, OHK Ostend.
This video is the result of a recorded talk we had at my kitchen table, mixed with a text that was written and exchanged as some kind of letter and with extracts from texts we wrote while working on our drawings. Analysing and reflecting about the process, in a poetical, tactile and visual way. Strongly tending towards our personal work:
'what are we doing? what do we see? what is happening? How can we describe what we are feeling? what is repetition? How do you work, begin, end?...' at the end we sat together to talk about it. Rewrite the whole piece, and record it again and again and again...
A loop of sound, image and audio. Where does it begin, and where does it end? Where do I begin, and where do you end?
"Imagine.
Everything already exists.
Everything has already been done.
It all begins again and nothing stops.
It all comes together, but touches barely.
The lines we've been drawing became a circle. From me to you, from you to me, or the other way around. Like the sea to the sand, the sand to the sky, the sky to the sea. Round and round. When does something new emerge?"
Video edit by Lieve Shukrani Simoens
Text written by Charlotte Boddaert & Lieve Simoens
Soundscape by Lieve Shukrani Simoens
Project support: OHK Oostende, Stad Oostende
Text written in Dutch/English
With 'Something to begin with' we've explored the archaic question of end and beginning. An exploration of repetition, the circular movement and the meaning that arises from it. A research that has already been done several times. When does repetition starts and how can we break through it? We didn't attempt to find answers, nor to put forward the repetition itself as an act or performance. What was shown at the exhibition was the result of our reflective search in image and word. By reworking the same form over and over again, in reusing the same material and by reworking earlier work.
The result of our collaboration, big drawings/collages, a booklet and a video, was on display at the entrance to the old swimming pool in Ostend, OHK Ostend.
This video is the result of a recorded talk we had at my kitchen table, mixed with a text that was written and exchanged as some kind of letter and with extracts from texts we wrote while working on our drawings. Analysing and reflecting about the process, in a poetical, tactile and visual way. Strongly tending towards our personal work:
'what are we doing? what do we see? what is happening? How can we describe what we are feeling? what is repetition? How do you work, begin, end?...' at the end we sat together to talk about it. Rewrite the whole piece, and record it again and again and again...
A loop of sound, image and audio. Where does it begin, and where does it end? Where do I begin, and where do you end?
"Imagine.
Everything already exists.
Everything has already been done.
It all begins again and nothing stops.
It all comes together, but touches barely.
The lines we've been drawing became a circle. From me to you, from you to me, or the other way around. Like the sea to the sand, the sand to the sky, the sky to the sea. Round and round. When does something new emerge?"
Video edit by Lieve Shukrani Simoens
Text written by Charlotte Boddaert & Lieve Simoens
Soundscape by Lieve Shukrani Simoens
Project support: OHK Oostende, Stad Oostende
Text written in Dutch/English
