ABOUT
I search for ways to create and recreate stories. Exploring subjects such as romantic love, artists' myths and idols through performative methods inspired by my own fangirling, as well as by artists like Tehching Hsieh and Sophie Calle.
The result is shown in art installations, videos, performances, books and other publications.
I think about the connection between feeling and naming, being and performing, living and writing. “With my burned hand, I write about the nature of fire.” The author Gustave Flaubert once wrote, connecting his bodily experience to his words. I think about that sensation. How do experiences of flames turn to language? And what happens if I put it the other way around: Is it possible to set my hand on fire by writing about lighters and gasoline? If performativity is a force that goes in both directions, from being to naming and from naming to becoming, it is. Written stories always seep into reality.
I think about desire. In one of my works, I travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to search for my first love, the singer Taylor Hanson. 19 years have passed since his band Hanson made it big with the song "MMMbop," and I've dreamed of a life together with Taylor. The background is the fact that I was obsessed with him as a teenager. But at the time of my travel, my desire for him is not driving me mad to meet him, no matter what. No, my desire is to explore our relationship through art.
At a café close to Taylor’s studio, I write about how it feels to sit there. The situation is staged, but not in a theatrical sense. I do not play a role, and the course of events is not pre-decided. Will Taylor pass by? How would I feel if he did? My feelings are very true, but at the same time, it is not life as usual. It is something in between. Art? Diary writing? Performance? The closest I have come to describing this method to something most people know about is a romance. It can be long or short, but always creates a life in itself, some sort of bubble which later must crack.
