Marie sur Tech
Arles sur Tech Pics: Piere Lobstein
France
September 2023
In 2011, after breaking up with my then-boyfriend, I was on a three-week artist in residence in Arles sur Tech. On my tour of France in September 2023, I visited the place again and stayed there for a week.
With the new work I am referring to the work "Triste Marie" from 2011. At that time, Marie, dressed in black, embodied different stages of suffering. The tomatoes represented living feelings such as sadness, pain but also love. The heavy stones in the river, washed by water/life, symbolize unresolved injuries, separations, losses.
In this performance I mark the stones with a charcoal(fire) and draw archaic patterns on them, which mean to me that I perceive them, that they sign my life, but that I can also leave them behind me. I put on the black cape and pointed hat, relics of the 2011 performance that my curators have kept since then, whenever I feel like I can't deal with such a "loss."
In German, the saying "Tomaten auf den Augen” (tomatoes on your eyes) means that you are unable to see something. So I leave behind a lot of “stones” that I can’t sign. These unprocessed feelings will probably appear again in my life.
Finally, starting with the largest stones, I try to move them with a rope by my body strength, which I don't succeed in doing. After all, I can only move smaller stones.
This teaches me to accept humbly life's events that we cannot control.
France
September 2023
In 2011, after breaking up with my then-boyfriend, I was on a three-week artist in residence in Arles sur Tech. On my tour of France in September 2023, I visited the place again and stayed there for a week.
With the new work I am referring to the work "Triste Marie" from 2011. At that time, Marie, dressed in black, embodied different stages of suffering. The tomatoes represented living feelings such as sadness, pain but also love. The heavy stones in the river, washed by water/life, symbolize unresolved injuries, separations, losses.
In this performance I mark the stones with a charcoal(fire) and draw archaic patterns on them, which mean to me that I perceive them, that they sign my life, but that I can also leave them behind me. I put on the black cape and pointed hat, relics of the 2011 performance that my curators have kept since then, whenever I feel like I can't deal with such a "loss."
In German, the saying "Tomaten auf den Augen” (tomatoes on your eyes) means that you are unable to see something. So I leave behind a lot of “stones” that I can’t sign. These unprocessed feelings will probably appear again in my life.
Finally, starting with the largest stones, I try to move them with a rope by my body strength, which I don't succeed in doing. After all, I can only move smaller stones.
This teaches me to accept humbly life's events that we cannot control.