life_of_the_artwork

In my studio is always easy to find something dead.
It is full of dried plants, food, shells, dried moulds, sometimes insects... actually, when I turn around you can find dry plants wherever you look.
For me, it is a representation of time. There is a story behind each of those objects, a life. They kept the shape they died in and by tissue, dehydration stayed frozen in time. Depending on what kind of death they experienced determines what kind of colour or shape they will keep. If a plant, let's say a leaf, is killed by cutting it off it will only shrink while drying out but stay green as it never reached its maturity.
But there is the life of dying too.
Life of dying is everything that happens from the moment plant gets separated from its source of life until is fully dehydrated. In that time some plants become their own source for a new life; for example, these two plants in the pictures stayed in the studio abandoned and tried to get another chance.
Life in death can also any change that happens to its from during that period and everything that influence those events.
In my work 'The Widow' I'm taking a role of a person who is a connection between life and death, past and present.

During the second semester of the first year, I didn't have access to my studio at FMI. As we had to leave studios quickly in a hurry I took only necessary things for working from home. I left behind many organic things in the studio... After a month or two, studios were open again, and as one would expect it will be the same as when I left it, but to my surprise, it wasn't.
Wherever I stepped I've found something different or new. Water plants became white, swamp plants brown, potato sprouted on the table, oranges became dark stiff balls... I would go around and was shocked with things I found on the floor in the boxes, on the shelves as for example leaked appelstoop all over a leather bag full of clothes. Of course, I left most of the things randomly but it really felt like the studio have a life on its own, and I believe it indeed had.

When I think of the statement 'The artwork as a living being' I refer to the idea of the life of the artwork as an artwork itself. What I mean by that is that artist and the artwork are both creating the artwork. The artist is the initiator or as I sometimes say "The mother". It is the one who starts or gives birth to the artwork after which its life is uncertain. The artist doesn't have full control over the artwork, it only guides it through its way of developing. In certain periods the artwork is left on its own, where its future depends on processes happening around or within itself. In the end, like every other living organism, it dies. Death of an artwork is finished artwork. It is dead therefore it doesn't exist anymore and it is not possible to be experienced ever again.

There are two ways to trace its existence:
1. Documentation - it preserves the existence of the artwork but it is not the artwork itself. A picture of a person does not make a person, it is only a representation of it.
2. Memory - the experience is the key factor of such artwork. When the artwork finishes, part of the artwork stays alive in the memory of the viewer. Viewers are partially forming an artwork and when the last viewer is gone so is the artwork.

There may be the idea that every artwork can be a living being, but if I would put every artwork in a picture I would distinguish it in two ways.

1. An artwork I am referring to, 'The artwork as a living being', is an artwork in which its life consists of a process, which means that its life starts with an idea or the first step of execution and ends when its final form is reached. It has points A and B, beginning and the end, birth and death, everything that happens in between is the life of an artwork.

On the other hand, the artworks which I'm excluding have three points: the creation of artwork (A), finish - the endo of creation (B) and the last, main difference is that the artwork is born at the moment creation is over (C), thus the artwork is not a process itself but the life of the artwork starts at the end of the process.

The artwork as a living being

How do your actions affect the life of another species?

Are you aware you are taking fate of another being’s life into your hands?

By reading this text you’ve already decided on finding out what is happening in this window. What you didn’t know is that, at the same time, your action directly affected the future of the plant in front of you. Your curiosity made you responsible for the plant’s life.

Every time you pass or move your hand in front of the little ‘sun’ you activate the plant’s watering system. Depending on how many times the system is activated plant will be over-watered or under-watered. By approaching the plant you may save the plant’s life but also possibly contribute to its death.

Will you do it again?

Curiosity killed the plant

curiosity killed the plant

The topic of Life and Death came to me while I was growing my garden in 2020. Although through my life every year my family grew a vegetable garden at our home, which is normal for me, this was the first time I grew the vegetables completely on my own, in the backyard of my house in Groningen.

I started germinating seeds of tomato, cucumber, and nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) while following and documenting their growth. The speed of their development was mesmerizing. It was a matter of days from germination to seedling to be ready to go in a temporary pot. I could have seen differences in growing on a daily basis.
As I was experimenting with growing conditions I've seen the development differences and struggles some of these conditions created.
The timing was a crucial factor in their development! As a person who often procrastinates, I've learned that in nature there is no procrastination. Every single day is important in the development process and will determine the plant's future.
Plants, although looking slow, grow actually very fast, and are constantly adjusting to their environment. In a small space, they stretch, bend, break surfaces with their roots and move their undeveloped leaves in order to get as much food as possible.

As the garden wasn’t maintained for a very long time it had a lot of wild plants grown and I had to prepare the soil on my own. It was spring and all the plants started to flower attracting a lot of insects, slugs, cats, birds, and all kinds of animals I’m not even aware of. While prioritising my plants as the main subject of the garden, many times I found myself in a role of a god, I had to determine who to kill and who to keep alive, who's a friend and who's the enemy.

First of these big decisions came even before starting the garden - are wild plants weeds or beautiful garden flowers? And how much of a source of food am I taking just because I wanted to grow few cucumbers? Eventually, I did cut those beautiful flowers and started turning the soil, but I kept wondering how much was it affecting life inside. When soil got cleaned and ready for plants to go into the soil, cats appeared. Cat's only benefit from that soli was being able to have a clean toilet. Over the night our fluffy house friend became an annoying pest of the garden. When plants finally got transferred to the garden, slugs happily embrace them. Of course, that was unacceptable for us. As I was observing those situations (which I was part of) I was fascinated by how fast our viewpoints change, and how egoistically we approach them (when I say we I mean we, humans in general including my own actions).

How it all binds it?
My artworks are in general living beings. Either they are artworks as living beings or living beings as artworks, or a mix of it, but one thing is certain there is a life present.
They are all going through different processes in order to communicate. Either their environment communicates with them, they with the environment, they communicate within themselves, or just leaving traces. There is a constant conversation happening between all kinds of organisms visible and invisible ones. People like to keep their personal interior for themselves there are times when it needs to be spoken out even if no one is asking you.

Time was passing and most of the plants grow big, had a lot of flowers and started to be ready for harvesting. The difference between plants planted in the garden on time and a few weeks later was tremendous. Plants that got planted later were kind of crippled. They were not strong enough to support themselves either had enough energy to produce proper formed leaves or fruits. It was kind of suffering.
On the other side of the garden, my roommate planted some of my tomatoes into a plastic freezer box around 5-7l big. It could have been seen how the plant adjusted to the box by its shape and sturdiness of the stem, but it was also obvious that it didn't have enough space as it became pretty low in height.
Although being dwarfish, it produced some tasty tomatoes (picture above) from which benefited many of the little inhabitants of the garden as slugs and anthropods (in the picture).

The last plant stayed in the little cup it was planted in at the beginning. That plant was left on the side to die. It didn't get any care at all. It had been flooded for weeks in a plastic box where its paper cup was staying. To my big surprise plant survived the whole season, even when big plants started to die off in the time of harvesting they still had little light green leaves. I was fascinated by how strong the will for life plants actually had.