Alle indlæg af Charlotte Østergaard

practicing co-crafting practices

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I am (over time) in the process of developing a co-crafting practice. In different sessions with different numbers of people participating – I invite my fellow crafters to craft in a way that makes sense to them and/or as a responce to what is already crafted (that include responding to the materialities at hand). The textile pieces (that have been crafted so far) contain multiple crafting techniques and/or traces of (crafters) hands that have crafted in different ways. The co-crafting practice ‘force’ me to listen and learn from to how my fellow crafters craft and challenges me let got of control of the artistic expression/outcome.

This post shows images from a of the co-crafting few sessions. More info will follow!

Co-knotting sessions that I hosted at a residency at Inter Arts Center, Malmø (2021). The wonderful participants was Agnes Saaby Thomsen, Carlotta Broglio, Svea Thelin and Eva Hedblom, Ranin George Souliman, Jenny Wallengren Bergquist.

This video from a “textile sampling workshop” that I hosted at HJEM – kunstrum (2021). The co-crafted craftings was made Ann Vibeke Wissing Nielsen, Connie Eirod, Katja Crevar, Tanja Hylling Diers, Mads Brauer, Maria Bjerregaard and myself.

HJEM – kunstrum are initiated, curated, arranged and hosted by Tanja Hylling Diers. Video: Agnes Saaby Thomsen. Musik: Mads Brauer

The co-knotting session are sometimes situated in private homes. Here a session with Agens Saaby Thomsen and Tina Saaby (2022).

This co-crafting session is with Aune Kallinen,  Alexandra Gustafsson, Patrik Kumpulainen, Sara-Maria Pirhonen and Tobias Klemets (that included multiple sessions) was part of a collaboration with professor Aune Kallinen and the Swedish acting program at UniArts/Theatre Academy.

The craftings became part of the performance “Gertrude-material” shown at Helsinki Art Museum (2023). Below images of Tobias Klemets and  Ragni Helena Grönblom-Jolly from the rehearsal process.

Text and directing: Aune Kallinen. MA acting students Alexandra Gustafsson, Jesper Fransson, Walter Ruokolhti, Patrik Kumpulainen, Sara-Maria Pirhonen, Kristiina Karhu, Tobias Klemens and actor Ragni Helena Grönblom-Jolly. Paintings: Hamilton Membir. Sound composition: Nicolas Rehn. Movement and co-directing: Seppo Kumpulainen. 

Knotting ecosystems tutorial

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A while ago I was contacted by Linh Le from Becoming Species since she and they were interested in my knotting practice. We meet and knotted together.

I could not be happier – now the knotting practice has a life of its own. If you are interested in the development of the knotting practice please follow the tag #coknotting

I have made this video “Knotting Ecosystems” for Becoming Species as an open source tutorial. The video contains images from “knotting ecosystems” events hosted by Becoming Species and Extinction Rebellion Denmark.

You can find upcoming events on Becoming Species and Extinction Rebellion Denmark Facebook sites.

I hope you will be inspired to knot together with others and please feel free to share the video in your network.

In the video tutorial I use dummies as the ‘base’ for my knottings. But knottings in-process can be placed on tables, chairs and human bodies.

Remember my way of knotting only one of many. I invite you to develop your technique. Knotting can be done in multiple ways – the only limit is the imagination.

Entanglements

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Entanglements is an artwork that I, as artist, suggest is placed in the borderland between textile object, spatial entity, and wearable art. I suggest that the artwork is an object with a performative human and more-than human material-spatial potential. Entanglements are exhibited at MATERIAL THINKING – 1st International Contemporary Material Art Biennale, Tsinghua University, China (02.12.2022–27.01.2023)

This artwork Entanglements build on Donna Haraway’s notion of ‘making kin’ and Jane Bennett’s concept of vibrant matter. ‘Making kin’ suggests that I, the artist, create a relationship to and with the materialities that I craft. When I craft a dynamic tension occurs between me and the vibrant materialities. Through crafting I must listen to and follow the complexity of the materialities. Therefore, I must be sensitive and openminded towards the materialites’ ‘voices’ and ‘wills’. I must listen to how the materialities including their colors wants to be combined and composed. When I craft, I drift and dwell with the materialites. I led them guide me and while crafting Entanglements I came in a mediative state. 

At some point in the process and without realizing, my crafting had become quite specific. It was like that I, in my meditative state, began to control the materialities. It was like I forgot our vibrant relationship. I had to stop and re-create the dynamic tension between me and the materialities. I needed help and therefor I decided to invite colleagues like designers, dancers, and choreographers to join me to co-compose and co-embody the composition in multiple ways. In different sessions and with different colleagues, I and we explored other ways of ‘making kin’. We co-explored human-material-relationships, human-material-movements, and material-compositional-potentialities. Our embodied explorations expanded the meaning of ‘making kin’ and awoke my sensibility towards the materialities in unexpected ways. Co-crafting, co-embodying, and co-moving with the crafted materialities became ways of ’making kin’ – actions that left traces of human interaction.  Traces of human bodies that have affected, informed, re-formed, composed and re-composed Entanglements.  And now dear audience you meet Entanglements and I invite you to leave your traces – and I when I meet Entanglements again, I hope that there are new traces of other bodies. 

“inside out – outside in”

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At the immersive days in november 2022 composer Yann Coppier and I in our presentation “inside out – outside in” reflected on how world-costume and sound can co-create immersive experiences. One of our questions are how does Yann compose textile and how Charlotte designs sound – or – how does sound inform textile and how does textile inform sound?

In the presentation we immersed ourselves in word-costume or entalgled through spatial textiled-costume.

During the talk the audience engaged and tangled with us – which became playful embodied explorations.

Critical Costume 2022

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I am so please to be selected to participate with the paper “Ethical Dilemmas of listening through and with costume” and the video “Costume connections” at Critical Costume 2022.

Video abstract: This Critical Costume exhibition presentation derives from the twelve-hour costume-based ‘performative-walk’ Community Walk (2020). The frame for Community Walk was a bright yellow costume that physically connected two wearers. In Community Walk I, the researcher and costume designer, placed myself ‘in the centre’ of the co-wearing entanglements. For twelve hours I co-wore the costume in the central area of Copenhagen, DK connected to twelve different co-wearers. One hour with each co-wearing participant. In the video I share some of the values that are the foundation for my artistic practice and research – hence, for this project. I unfold aspects of the co-wearing experience. For example, that the costume orientated the co-wearers towards each other and that they as a connected pair had to navigate and negotiate the costume, by-passing spectator(s), and urban environment. 

The video

Connect

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On May 7–8, 2022, Connect was a part of the SWOP festival – international dansefestival for børn og unge at Aaben Dans in Roskilde, Denmark.

Connect was an invitation to curious and playful children and adults to explore a costume that physically connected them to another person. Over two days more than 50 people engaged and entangled with each other in multiple ways.

Connect invited audiences to experience of the presence and influence of another human being – of how your movements affect my movements and how we must navigate the urban landscape together.

At the opening of the festival Thomas Eisenhardt, Lisbeth Klixbüll and Pernille Møller Taasinge from Aaben Dans entangled through a costume.

AweAre – an embodied explorative workshop

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At the PARSE conference I introduced the concept of co-costuming by inviting the participant to wear, explore and reflect on the bodily effects of costumes that connects two wearers. As researcher, I asked the participants to confront the ethically dimensions of the co-costumed experience (costumes that I produced and impose on wearers) that potentially was quite playful and, at the same time, bodily and socially restricted and/or exposeed the co-wearers.

 

Community Walk

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July 30th I was invited to participate in Wa(l)king Copenhagen created and organized by Metropolis.

My contribution Community Walk became an wonderful experience of 12 hours of physical and verbal conversation about community (fællesskab), 12 hours of following and leading, 12 hours of being connected, 12 hours of being approached, ignored, commented on, yelled at and 12 hours of moving in and reacting on the city and the environment

Every hour we livestreamed on Wa(l)king Copenhagen’s facebook.

Camille Marchadour and myself

In the program (danish) I wrote the following:

I en tid hvor vi opfordres til at holde distance er Community Walk en undersøgelse af, hvordan vi skaber fysisk nærvær. Hvordan mødes vi, når vante ritualer som håndtryk og knus frarådes? Hvordan anerkender vi hinandens nærvær, når vi individuelt og kollektivt udføre social kontrol i angsten for en invaderende skjult fjende? 

Over 12 timer undersøger jeg sammen med 12 gæster nærheden og distancen i fælleskaber, hvor 5 handliger og en klædning er vores fælles omdrejningpunkt. Hver time møder jeg en ny gæst i det centrale København, hvorfra vi forbundne vil vandre mod næste gæst. Hver gæsten inviteres til at fortolke de 5 handlinger. 

En gul klædning forbinder mig og vandringsgæsten. Gennem klædning undersøger vi, hvordan vi kan mærke vi hinandens nærvær. Samtidig navigerer og forhandler vi i fællesskab, hvordan vi kan holde distance til hinanden og til andre. Foranlediget af steder og mennesker, vi passerer i byens rum, reflekterer vi fysisk og verbalt over begrebet fælleskab. Hvordan har fælleskabet det – har vores fælleskaber forandret sig?

Julienne Doko and myself

5 Community Walk handlinger:

Handling 1 – Velkomst-ritual; Hilsen i nærheden men på distance 

Handling 2 – Afklædnings- og Iklædnings-ritual; Overdrager klædningen til den nyankomne 

Handling 3 – Afskeds-ritual; Afsked med forrige gæst

Handling 4 – Vidnesbyrd-ritual; Som et vidensbyrd på samtalen og/eller af den fysiske oplevelse vandringen har afstedkomme, reflekterer den afskedstagende gæst over begrebet fællesskab.

Handling 5 – Vandrings-ritual; Forhandling og navigation gennem byen 

Daniel Jeremiah Persson
Elsa Krgh Madsen
Jeppe Worning

Community Walk foregår d. 30 juli kl 11-23 i det centrale København. Ruten repræsenterer steder jeg under lockdown mødte/gik tur med andre, hvor jeg savnede nærværet af andre og steder hvor byens rum pludselig var affolket. Publikum er velkomme til at møde og følge os på afstand.

Agnes Saaby Thomsen
Anna Stamp
Tanya Rydell Montan

kl 11 Sølvtorvet; danser/koreograf Daniel Jeremiah Persson

kl 12 Østerport Station; danser Camille Marchadour

kl 13 Amaliehaven; designer/fotograf Agnes Saaby Thomsen

kl 14 Israels Plads; Fru Elsa Kragh Madsen 

kl 15 Nørreport Station; danser/koreograf Tanya Rydell Montan

kl 16 Gråbrødre Torv; danser/koreograf Julienne Doko

kl 17 Nikolaj Plads; dansekunstner Anna Stamp

kl 18 Rådhus Pladsen; danser/koreograf Paul James Rooney

Aleksandra Lewon
Paul James Rooney

kl 19 Hovedbanegården; scenograf Aleksandra Lewon

kl 20 Christiansborg; danser Josefine Ibsen

kl 21 Vor Frelser Kirke; kostumedesigner Jeppe Worning

kl 22 Kongens Nytorv, visual artist/danser Benjamin Skop

kl 23 Sølvtorvet; endestation

Benjamin Skop

AweAre – a movement quintet

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AweAre – a movement quintet (June 27, 2020) was created and performed Ny Carlsbergfondet’s performance festival UP CLOSE, Det Classenske Bibliotek, Copenhagen, DK.

The performance was co-create with the dancers Alex Berg, Camille Marchadour, Daniel Jeremiah Persson and Josefine Ibsen. Performance soundscape composed by Victor Dahl

Festival context: In response to the pandemic lockdown in Denmark in 2020, the Carlsberg Foundation developed the performance festival UP CLOSE (curated by art historian Natalia Gutman), which over four days (two weekends) presented twelve different performances to an audience. Invited to each create a fifteen-minute performance (performed three times on a specific date) were, among others, the artistduo Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, composer Louise Alenius, choreographer Tim Matiakis & solodancer Astrid Elbo, performance artist Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen and me as the only costume designer.

Is this Colour?

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Værket ComPleat er optaget på KONTEMPO udstillingen “Is this Color?”. Udstillingen vises i Rundetårn 11 Maj – 23 Juni 2019.

ComPleatinvites the public to interact with the textile objects. It is an invitation to touch, to enter and rap the textile around the body or/and twist the objects so another side appears. While interacting, ComPleat wants to ask: “What colour is (your) skin? Please share your experience on social media #compleat_colour

ComPleatis two textile objects based on the idea of sloughing in biology. As a concept ComPleatis a (non-)living matter between being and not being. ComPleatis skin tissues; as representation of being in between living and dead – a metamorphosis for a transformation process, being in between past, present and future.

Photo: Thomas Cato