Kunstwandeling EB | Art walk EB  
​MUSEUM SCHOKLAND 
26 Juli – 26 Oktober 2020

Together with Karin van der Molen, Karen Macher, Lucia Loren, Elena Redaelli and Sally Kidall, I am currently exhibiting our collaborative artwork Cross Pollination at the art walk EB.

Cross Pollination
Six artists from 4 different continents bring their ideas together in this installation. The six women know each other from their international nomadic artist’s existence, which suddenly came to a halt due to the corona pandemic. Encounters and exchanges are an important source for transcending a low tide situation. The idea for a ‘message in a bottle’ project originated from an intensive exchange via digital channels. They sent seeds, plants, soil, bones and ashes from Namibia, Australia, Peru, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, to represent a small collection of our worldwide ecological DNA. Long ago, the continents of the six women were originally linked  together and our soil, plants and ancestors share a similar yet very different DNA. Our continents remain connected by the oceans and the air, which share the global consequences of our existence. Cross-pollination is necessary to keep it liveable.

About my contribution:

Over the past months the world has changed dramatically. Everybody had to adapt to a changed reality of lock-downs, closed borders and isolation. Life turned more digital and virtual, but at the same time many people became sensitive to essential needs and self-sustaining practices, remembering old, traditional ways of life.

This crisis has forced us to reconsider what is essential and important to us and find alternative ways of being.

Based on the idea of communicating through messages in a bottle, I am offering messages about the essence of life. They are preserved and sealed in isolation of the bottle and can travel safely through the oceans of the world. Together with the bottles of my fellow artists they form a database of knowledge, beauty and a symbolic starter-pack for a new future. 
 
I am interested in the connection between the physical and non-physical world. In my art I explore the relationships between myth and reality, in order to create meaning. 
​Therefore, my messages take the form of physical, mythical and soul essences. Three types of Namibian seeds (representing ancestors and beginnings, beauty & pain and nourishment); fertile ground from my home country Namibia, and soil from my current home in Germany; my hair, as an essence of myself; huge white thorns of the Camelthorn tree, as an essence of protection and a decayed leaf as a thought about death.

Please click on the image to read more about the contents of the bottles.

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Have a look at the group’s website and information about the contributions of my wonderful fellow artists from Peru, Spain, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands HERE.

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