Center for Research and Creativity Casamarles.
Liliya Lifanova
Vivek Chockalingam
Exhibition: from 23rd April to 7th May 2011.
Place: Espai d’Art Les Quintanes, Llorenc del Penedes.
After the exhibitions of the artists in residence at CeRCCa in 2010, the center and L’Espai d’Art Les Quintanes continue their collaboration by offering the public presentation of the first residents of 2011: Yun Jeong Hong, Liliya Lifanova and Vivek Chockalingam.
In the exhibition, 'En prueba del carino que les profesa su hijo, les dedica su foto en prueba del carino que les profesa’, the work of artist Yun Jeong Hong, an artist originally came from Korea, and working and living in Illinois, proposes a labyrinthical pathway through memory from everyday objects. The installation consists of object collation and study pieces in which Yun Jeong Hong expresses her interest towards the object as a container of experiences. Playing between reality and fiction, the artist has used wool, textiles and domestic objects transforming them into a materialized immobile landscape through the obsessive and omnipresent use of cement as a unifying element. Memories, framed in the structure of a bed aged by time, breathe powerlessly, stuffed and heavy. The monumental sculpture is accompanied by collection pieces of subtle and disturbing nature that work as laborious transformations of traces of fictitious pasts by using delicate materials such as glass, copper, weaved textile and old photographs. The installation is framed by the projection of a written text that appears on the back of one of the photos. This text, which in itself is rhetoric and absurd, gives the perfect title to the whole work.
The art practice of Liliya Lifanova (American, born Kyrgyzstan), on the contrary, emanates a feeling of impermanence and fantasy. 'The Flying Carpet Project' is the result of a collaboration between the artist, the 5th grade students of the School Les Cometes de Llorenç del Penedes, and a group of local stitchers. Inspired by the myths and the nomadic traditions of her native Kyrgyzstan, the artist held a workshop where the children were involved in the creation of a felt carpet. However, the workshop was not merely a didactic activity but an experience where the children disclosed to the artist the location of their magical, real and imaginary places at Cal Figueres and its environments, the farmhouse where the workshop was held. Through careful production (costumes, props and staging), Liliya Lifanova created a dream like, magic scenario, where the children were urged to access their inner wizards so as to imbue their work with magic. The felt pieces made by the children were then sewn together, by a group of women from the village, to create a flying carpet. In The espai d’Art Les Quintana you will have the possibility to contemplate the precious object and see a selection of edited material filmed during the workshop. Along with 'The Flying Carpet Project' Liliya Lifanova presents ‘Untitled (Newspapers from January-March 2011 Robert family Llorenç del Penedes)’ a work based on meditative repetition. It comprises over 5000 pieces made with newspapers that the family Robert accumulated in their home between January and March 2011. The result is a spectacular landscape-archive where the patient, dedicated and healing action of the artist is reflected. In contrast to the work of Yun Jeong Hong, Liliya Lifanova’s use of wool and newspaper is not as much a repository of memories but the raw material from where to create a dream world based on nomadic impermanence as the condition of the artist.
The work of an artist and designer Vivek Chockalingam from Bangalor (India), 'Ojala' rest in an intermediate indefinite state between these two proposals. This uncertainty is present not only in his methodology which is going through between different creative disciplines, but also regarding the materials used and the concept of the piece. The origin of the expression 'Ojala', a Castilianism of common use in our country is interpreted by Vivek Chockalingam through the concept ‘Insa Allaah’ an expression popularly used in countries of the Arab world that could be translated as 'If God wills'. This concept is defined by the artist as ‘used when something intended to be done in the future, but not as a certainty but as an uncertainty. That is: beauty lies in the acceptance that nothing is certain and whatever ultimately happens is the way for you to find truth and happiness’. These areas of uncertainty and emptiness are understood by the artists as unique opportunities to undertake new challenges. Vivek Chockalingam has been inspired by this concept to create a multifunctional and ambiguous structure that reflects upon the possibility to become something that is located in between to be functional, nor not to be. The desire of change and impermanence, the will to be differently playing with the dualism of the concepts of Yun Hong Jeong and Liliya Lifanova: the tendency of the historicist immobility through memory, and the longing for change and transformation. 'Ojala' rest then in a state of transitoryness, emphasizing this stage as precondition to create a space for creativity with practical realization. By transforming chairs’ given for granted utility, Vivek Chockalingam creates then a cosmology of possibilities and impossibilities, a dualism that runs through the works of the exhibition. We would be glad if you could visit to reflect upon and enjoy this art practices of the artist visiting Casamarles as artist residency of March and April, 2011.
- written by Pau Cata, CeRCCa