BINATIONAL ARTISTIC PhD-PROGRAM

In 1966 Nanni Balestrini composed his novel Tristano, as a literary piece that is only published as different versions. The German copy that I own is titled: Tristano No 7744 von 109027350432000 möglichen Romanen. I had come across this novel after I began to build sculptures with detachable elements and further to re-use them in various works. The implications of this gesture for the medium of sculpture, its representational qualities, and its relationship to the (human) body are at the core of my research project. To a large extent it builds on Donna Haraway’s statement: “To be one is always to become with many” (Haraway, 2016, p. 4). Traces throughout history reveal that notions of relational and dividual personhood have long existed—yet we are witnessing an urge for their re-emergence after an era obsessed with individuality and the isolated body. My Ph.D. research seeks to give tangible form to these mutable, interconnected structures of identity and community that define our contemporary condition. Specifically, I aim to explore how artistic form—particularly modular, polymorphic sculpture—can express the dynamics of dividual identity, and how this might generate new visual and conceptual languages for understanding relational personhood.

Supervised by Prof. Dr. Annette Geiger (HfK Bremen), Dr Cleo Nisse / Prof. Dr. Ann-sophie Lehmann (University of Groningen)