One place after another
In my first blog post I would like to start political. Waking up this morning, then reading in the news that I live in a country where 13 % of the voting people vote for a racistic party makes me sick!!! There are a few things which I will never understand in my life, and one of them is this. I am not allowed to vote for the government in Sweden because I still have the Dutch nationality, so there for I use this blog to express my vote and my worries for the Swedish country. Sweden is a rich, peaceful and beautiful country and what is better then sharing this with everybody! So please all Swedish people, help to keep it like that and fight against this negative, racistic, hate spreading party and people. In the end it will destroy the society. And if readers of this blog vote for this party, please try to explain me why?
Back to my basic…art. Last week opened in Eksjö museum the exhibition One place after another. This exhibition which I have together with my lovely sambo Greger Ståhlgren shows works related to the theme how we look and experience nature. In my work I am fascinated by how we act, feel and see when we are in a natural environment. In the Netherlands the ’nature’ is designed. All the green areas are planned, no wilderness is left, even when it sometimes feels like that. In the Netherlands you could say, are humans the one who control everything, not nature. But when you look closer maybe nature wins after all. The sea takes it place again, and when humans will not do anything plants grow everywhere…
In Sweden the nature feels less designed, and it seems to me that Swedish people are closer to nature. It started for me simple: when it is raining cats and dogs outside, school children have to play outside anyway. They just dress up for that! Before I moved to Sweden the forest was something almost scary for me. I could not see the sky anymore, the sky which you always see in the Dutch open landscapes. I slowly started my discovery journey in the forest, and I begin to like it more and more. When I have discussions with Greger about our works then I can see the difference in how we look at the forest. Greger sees the bigger picture, I focus more on the details because the bigger picture is to big for me at the moment, to chaotic!
I will show some pictures of my work in the exhibition and I would like to invite you all to come to Eksjö and have a look. The exhibition is there until 12 oktober!
This is the Swedish text about the exhibition:
ONE PLACE AFTER ANOTHER
”One place after another” handlar om förhållandet till naturen och hur vi ser och inte ser den.
Hannah Streefkerk och Greger Ståhlgren undersöker platser och material i ett historiskt sammanhang och försöker förmedla vad tiden och naturens kretslopp innebär för skogen och landskapet.
Harry Martinsson beskriver i en dikt hur vinden fortplantar sig och leker i ett träd. Det lekfulla och överraskande i naturen är något vi sällan observerar själva, eftersom naturen – som oftast verkar obeveklig och autonom – inte förställer sig för att vi är på besök utan alltid är just bara natur.
Hannah Streefkerk undersöker det textila uttrycket i relation till naturen, ofta med hjälp av stygn. Omhändertagande är ett ledord i sammanhanget. Hon arbetar också med landart och installationer, där känslan av att naturen är viktig lyfts fram. Hennes textila arbeten visar på hur naturen behöver synliggöras och ibland repareras. Detaljer i naturen accentueras.
Arbetsprocessen är central. Det får ta tid att hitta detaljer. Det är viktigt att visa upp det ofta typiskt kvinnliga textila arbetet som något tidskrävande.
Greger Ståhlgren arbetar med foton och installationer. Fotografierna beskriver skogens variationer, detaljer och sammanhang. Bilderna är dubbelexponerade och tagna direkt i naturen. Ljuset är väsentligt. Mångfalden och direktheten inför landskapet är viktigt att försöka gestalta, lugnet och rörelsen likaså.
Antika formelement dyker ibland upp som en del av en installation. Relationen mellan trädens former och typiska arkitektoniska formelement bidrar till att bildernas innehåll kommunicerar och beskriver ett tidsperspektiv.
the overview picture
the local newspaper
the work Mended Leaves, all the leaves are mended with stitches, some close ups:
the work Circulation, the leaves are dancing!
The installation A time fore. Made a pieces birch Bark, sewed together.
The installation Twisted. This work is inspired on the plants in South Korea, where I worked one month this summer. It seemed to me that a lot of plants are growing so fast there, they take over the country.
