The multi-media-installation questions to ask while asking for ghosts is the result of a 4-week-residency and research process into the perception of fragile spaces - in-between-spaces, spaces of circulation and spaces of conservation - and what they might contain.
Using imagination-based methods, visual artist and social sculpture practitioner Sarah Drain, media theorist and sound&film artist Mariam Frick and curator Jana Doudova explored the space between different entities in different places and invited people from various fields such as biology, music and social sciences to think together and experience their questions and practices.
Starting by exploring the air between people as „the invisible space in which ghosts, viruses and bacteria circulate“ (Bayramoğlu, do Mar Castro Varela), during their research trips to border places such as Hörschlag and Strážný their focus moved towards the swamp as a space of conservation as well as to questions how to develop practices for the perception of manifestations of the presence of pasts.
The two sculptures which form the base of the multi-media installation are made with sugar and wax, both everyday materials which change their form from liquid and circulating qualities to frozen ones - one within seconds and one slowly over time.
The results of their research were shown in the 2-week-exhibition „1,5m3 křehkosti | fragilities“ in Prague at INI Prostor in July/August 2022 and are now travelling to Berlin in a slightly changed way.
Guests: Pia Achternkamp, Jan Durina, Maria Plotnikova, Veronika Svobodová, Stella Maria Valentová, Tomáš Větrovský, Amelie Wedel
Research / concept multi media installation / video material / answers ghost practice: Jana Doudova, Sarah Drain, Mariam Frick
Exhibition photo, (c) Florian Rosier
Exhibition flyer, (c) Sarah Drain
Poem: Jana Doudova
Sculpture, photos, ghost practice: Sarah Drain
Sound- and video-editing, voice: Mariam Frick
CONTOURS OF POSSIBLE ENCOUNTERS
Sometimes I imagine that you can see me. It almost happened once, maybe you will remember. We were in a pool, you doing your training, breathing in and out in regular rhythms like a mind free robot in ecstasy, and me along as usual. Bubbles around your head created even more distortion and you called me „wait“ and reached for me. We both understood that you have to slow down in order to talk to me.
The residency and exhibition was funded by the Czech-German Future Fund and Stiftung Kunstfonds in the framework of Neustart Kultur.
Special thanks to Cala Berlin.