Balancing

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In this section, six young visual artists who graduated from an art school in the Netherlands in 2021 write letters to each other telling how starting their lives as visual artists is going for them and what they are working on. Taking turns, one of the six artists writes to the others what is on his or her mind. The artists who participate in this column are: Lauren Raaijmakers (WdKA graduate), Leonie Fernhout (WdKA), Jelle van Kuilenburg (ArtEZ), Repelsteeltje (WdKA), Hannah Meijer (HKU) and Loes van Reijmersdal (St. Joost).

Eindhoven, October 7, 2021

Dear All,

Thus began the farewell letter of Judith, the speculative woman who chose euthanasia because she was suffering mentally unbearably. My graduate work was about her. I chose the subject of euthanasia because it is close to my heart. The desire to want to die, human autonomy and the complexity of the discourse. However, the project is not guided by sentiment, but by analytically exploring the visual language surrounding the subject. The knowledge I had learned about depicting suffering I applied here. I refined my visual language and listened closely to the stories. On Judith's phone plays a video of lilies dying. Accompanied by the music of Simeon ten Holt, Bagatelle VII. Andantino. I had made it incredibly difficult for myself and even though I passed with high marks, I felt like I had failed. This was mostly down to myself. 

I chose the subject of euthanasia because it is close to my heart

I distanced myself from Judith. I had to move on and decided to return to her later. I broke the strangulation contract to excel with myself and immediately started a new project together with the collective Eyerod. We were invited to show a new performance at the art fair ReA! in Milan. Polly Wilson and Davide Amato are the founders and performers. Raphael Schuler and Chris Baas are creating the music. I was responsible for the visuals and clothing. We left for Milan a week in advance with just the title: Glitch in the Shrine, inspiration from Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard and three phases consisting of cleanse, feast and sacrifice. Polly organized the exercises that would shape the performance. It was intense and the atmosphere sultry. Without the watchful eye of an institution, I experienced an enormous freedom between the clammy walls. Under high tension, our one-time performance began that ended up lasting an hour. The rich man in the audience decided to film it himself instead of purchasing the original documentation, unfortunately. Still, I left euphoric for home, hundreds of euros lighter but with a bottle of Cynar in my pocket. 

The rich guy in the audience decided to film it himself rather than purchase the original documentation, unfortunately

Since graduating, I have been working in my parents' sustainable clothing store, Vielgut in Eindhoven. I like that I can spend more time with them now. They support me in my artistry and understand that sometimes I need to be flexible. During the day I work in the store and from about ten o'clock I hang over my laptop with a crooked back. The past few weeks I spent my evenings behind the laptop writing together with Pernilla Ellens. We wrote an introduction for Death Book III from the publisher Baron Books. Pernilla offered me this opportunity after she interviewed me about my graduate work for Metropolis M. It was incredibly educational to work with an experienced writer on a piece. Meanwhile, the Dutch Design Week is coming up. One of the busiest weeks of the year for the store. Unexpectedly, I get to participate in the talent pressure cooker from BioArt Laboratories. Here I will further develop an urn encased in 'skin'. The prototype of the urn will be presented there during Dutch Design Week. 

Unexpectedly, I get to participate in the talent pressure cooker from BioArt Laboratories

Willem de Kooning Academy's graduation show connects with Dutch Design Week. Chaos and hectic activity everywhere at the academy. My frustration but also tension quickly mounts. So actually, not only chaos at the academy, but also in my head. My experience in the system there has not always been good. I am relieved to have graduated, even though I do miss some particularly good teachers. In my third year, I became so mentally ill that I spent a year and a half at home. After two years of intensive therapy, I was finally able to participate in the outside world again. I have to force rest for myself. I get help with that from my dog, boyfriend, parents and sleep medication. I am still trying to find the balance in the gray area. I regularly ask myself how long it will be before I lose my balance and decay. 

I'm still trying to find the balance in the gray area

In a few months I will look back at this text, until then could I ask you how you manage to balance?

Feel free to forward your answer and perhaps enlighten me.

X. Lauren

Your response to Lauren can be sent to redactie@bk-info.nl

Below are the responses Lauren received

November 7

Hi Lauren,
Balancing is a good word because finding the balance is death.
Bravely trying out everything and tasting what is right or wrong.
Greetings from michiel gieskes

November 8

Dear Lauren,

When I read your letter in BK about seeking balance I was reminded of Martin Bril's poetry
What we want
Moments
From Clarity
Or better yet, of great
Readiness

Scarce are those moments
And also well hidden

Search has thus
Hardly makes sense, but
Do find

The trick is to live like this
That it happens to you

That clarity, now and then

With this poetry begins the dissertation "The Inner Power of the Designer" by labor and organizational psychologist Dr. Robin Groeneveld.
Half of the dissertation contains interviews with 19 designers about their dealings with intuition during their design process. In it, various opportunities and dilemmas are discussed that may be of use to you, Lauren, in finding the right balance.

This book shows a way of designing in which the development of you as a designer, the development of your intuition and the design process synthesize with each other. The condition for such a methodology is that you are willing to learn to use your intuition in a conscious way, through which you will get to know yourself and your way of designing better and better. You will then be better able to apply different layers of consciousness in your design-work process. Possibly searching and balancing at first. But in the long run:

The trick is to live like this
That it happens to you

Wish you much inspiration

yours sincerely,
Frank

November 24

Dear Lauren,

Balancing, I didn't think about that for many, many years. Just be honest. Moving on was the motto. I didn't grow up with it. On the contrary. My parents, born before the war and especially developing after it, thought only of 'moving forward' with a little more prosperity each time and creating more opportunities for their children and themselves. More opportunities than they themselves could have experienced through time; 30-40, WWII 40-45 here and overseas and little money during the reconstruction 45-60. Turning away from the straitjacket of (the institution of) church and every other form of spirituality, with the exception of literature, theater, heritage, music and visual arts.

Born in '64, life in a village runs its course in combination with the parent mantra 'make an effort, do your best'. Kindergarten and elementary school, high school, studying, standing in the schoolyard to pick up our kids; I felt like an outsider and often misunderstood.

Studying, working, raising and helping my children become independent in a beautiful way those were my priorities.

Now, older, I realize that I felt separated. Or more precisely not one with others. I didn't realize, feel or know anything about feeling one, being one with the universe and all that is.

For several years now, many things have come together: parenting, work issues, awareness and my mother's longstanding death wish resulting in euthanasia and now caring for my father (89).

Consciousness helps me to regain my balance again and again. And by that I mean conscious Being. No more, no less. Going to my breathing. Being there, in this moment. Without judgment of myself or others.
Going to emptiness daily by means of yoga, (guided) meditation, mantras, coloring mandalas, music, walking in nature, working in the (vegetable) garden, observing and photographing flowers, looking at art and the sea and especially using a means that suits me... with which I can enlighten myself.

I read (quite a lot of) self-help books, read about Buddhism and now about Tao (and Teh) and become more and more convinced that I alone can heal and enlighten myself. I realize that as a being I am energy and light. Sometimes - at rest - I can see or experience that.
Everything is already in me. The trick is for me to feel free to express it. Obstacles I put up myself. Also today, in this moment. I can remind myself of being grateful. (A beautiful word to re-inner, to re-inner).
I myself am my medicine.

Therapy, self-help books and advice abound in this luxurious Western world. I have experienced that for me it comes down to following the path myself. To wake up every day when I have dozed off (again). To wake up again without judging myself and to be my own teacher.
Each one follows its own path.
Once on the road, I encounter again and again that being conscious gives me peace and insight and leads me to a higher consciousness with clear perception. That insight helps me to combine my earthly being, horizontal life with 1000-and-1 things, equally with higher consciousness. That expresses itself in love, compassion and empathy. Sometimes also wisdom. I need both the earthly and the higher. Maybe that's balancing for me.
Falling down, getting up again and 'waking up' each time, even after 2, 3 days -previously years, months, weeks- still occurs. Without darkness no light, without imbalance no balance.

Kind regards, Lydia Helena

Dear Lauren

That balance is one of the hardest things.
I went to art school at thirty-one and graduated in 1992.

The beautiful and difficult thing about being an artist is that your self and all your experiences and thoughts are in fact your tools.
Many books, movies and techniques are part of it, of course, but the core is you. You as a unique person.
When you present something you are very exposed to the world, so it affects you deeply.
Besides, you never live an even life and you always have peaks and valleys.
But it is so valuable that you can and do do this.
The only advice I can give you is to accept that it is so. Get down on a regular basis and trust that it will be okay again.
You are a strong personality! You are contributing something important to the world on another level.
I hug you from afar

Welcome to Volkel if you want to chat one time

 

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