DESTINATION BERLIN: the search of identity.
1a Space is pleased to introduce Destination Berlin, a group exhibition about the search for individual and collective identity through the work of 6 international artists: Jacqueline Kooter, Shirley Wiebe, Susana López F., Thea Jentjens, Wai Kit Lam and Wai Yi Lai.
The concept of identity has been an ongoing discussion between artists and philosophers from the early centuries to the present. We define identity as “the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones under varying aspects or conditions”.
This exhibition reveals six individual glances and expressions on the theme of identity, through a common platform: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the union of this German city.
The nomadic and fluctuating qualities that define contemporary life often require us to relocate to another city, in a different country, with a new language and cultural background for us.
Connections between environment, memory and identity form a continuous thread of questioning in Shirley´s work. Much of it is transient and migratory, reflecting our ability to move and relocate, to shift our lives into new settings.
In Destination Berlin, Shirley exhibits two large-scale drawings, the first one created in Berlin, and second, upon returning to Vancouver. The works vividly reflect the experience of being immersed in a new environment and culture through fragmentary elements that appear to float and drift across a surface.
Susana López F. shows in her work a reflection of many hours spent at airports waiting for flights. She explores how airports are places where identity is scrutinized and people become anonymous, but at the same time the airport is the centre of contemporary culture.
In Destination Berlin, Susana show us Letzter Aufruf. This project is a convergence of both topics from the show: Identity and the union of Berlin. In November 2011, Susana travelled to Berlin to give graphic testimony of two airports: Tegel and Schönefeld, which are still memory of that Wall that some day ago divided the city and also the whole world into two: West and East.
And perhaps Identity, that we consider so valuable nowadays, was something people from East Berlin wanted to lose in order to have an anonymous life that freed them.
Jacqueline Kooter reflects on the lack of freedom to move around using three videos: “Walled in”, “Blocked off” and “Trapped in the city”. These videos are based on her stay in Berlin during the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009.
Thea, shows us a series of drawings mostly with architectural elements, a reflection of her long walking tours in the formerly divided city. A reflection about how absurd history can be in a city where most of the official buildings are duplicated because of its old leaders´ search of identity.
As a result of her constant international trips Wai Kit Lam thinks about who She is very often. She feels as a Chinese when she is abroad and when she comes home she feels closer to Western culture than Chinese Traditions. During her stay in Berlin in 2009, Wai Kit continued to examinate her identity in this foreign city through a language she did not speak and was not able to understand.
We are going to conclude with Wai Yi Lai´s work. She is a Chinese artist, whose work is about the relationship between the environment and people. She looks for her identity through the surrounding environment. Telling surrounding environment we talk about correlation between humans and the entities embracing us. In Destination Berlin she shows us a tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Gu . . . and all those who have lost their home in China.
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