Paper Art
Helen C Frederick / Bilge Friedlaender
Our intent is to create a sculptural environment and an accompanying participatory book to awaken the viewer’s changes in the world’s eco-system and it’s affect upon the human condition.
It is urgent to aesthetically respond to the world’s ecological problems and how they affect the human psyche. Our sculptural room installation intends to establish a dialogue between us as artists, and the public. The installation will engage all the senses of vision, sound, smell, and movement. Additionally, and hand bound book prepared ahead of time will accompany the installation. This is intended for recording the viewer’s verbal and visual thoughts. Appropriate materials placed next to the book will allow the viewer to write or collage or adapt other means of leaving their memory at the site of the installation. This book will become an ongoing dialogue, which will be an important collection of the views of the participators on the nature of our changing environment. We intend to collect these images for a publication in the future. We are interested in bringing into focus issues of polarity through which we hope to discover images of synthesis. The following polarities will be embodied in he materials of the installation: decay and regeneration, silence and sound, fullness and emptiness, action and empathy, inertia and movement. Contextually past and present will be explored in a video presentation as part of the paper installation.
The Installation
Entering the suggested rectangular room, the far right one third of the space will be activated with a compressed space created by paper fragments. These will be suspended from the ceiling to the floor and will include drawn images. Movement into this compressed paper space will be introduced by air currents at paced intervals. Sand will embody the concept of decay and regeneration. The movement of the paper will imprint on the sand. The long wall facing the entrance will include one architectonic element in the far left corner. It will be a biomorphic structure made from paper and wire mesh that will respond to the compressed paper fragments. Onto the same wall projected video images will be monitored at intervals contributing to the fullness of the space. They will introduce the element of time, of past and present.
In the center of the room a wooden water trough will be installed. The trough will be filled with water. Frederick and Friedlander (during their residency- and others later) will be seated at the opposite ends of the trough engaging in an activity of emptying and willing the water will be a metaphor of artist as worker and water as a source for life. In exchanging the same water the activity portrays the idea of what we receive we must give back to the environment. It portrays the idea of consumption. One empty chair will be placed by the side of each artist to encourage viewers to empathize with both he workers and elements embodied in the installation environment.
The sound created by the filling and emptying of the water will be accompanied by audiotapes of actual sounds of the environment and working papermakers, human voice, sounds of rock and other percussion instruments such as Chinese gongs.