MARIA DUNDAKOVA, “URBAN LIFE” project 2015, © Urban Performance ONE SQ. M. OF SKY, ONE STREET, MANY WAYS
Subject:
A house = a life, a roof over our heads, a dream, many different lives, existence itself. A tile is baked clay, an ancient symbol of man’s presence, an architecture of life.
Statement:
Destructive wars, migration, suffering and death are spreading rapidly. A house is where we are born, where we take our first steps, celebrate our first love, get over our first experience of grief. A house is also home to pain and death. Wind, rain, ice-cold days spent in front of the fire and around the table linger in the memory of this urban space, like witnesses of life. Tiles, like those made out of iron-red clay from the Fricktal region of Switzerland, are like pages in a diary of life. These here date from 1968, and their place of origin, Frick, is stamped on the back. My fascination for them prompts me to go on writing this diary and to dedicate my project to our urban life.
Spatial installation:
10 paper objects, colour photo mounted in Plexiglas, earphones, „Urban life“ CD, chairs, a table. A genuine tile, covered in white paper pulp, lies on the table. Black and white urban street signs signal the impersonal and timeless comings and goings of human life.
Sound:
„Urban life“ CD lasting 40 min. Documentary recording of street sounds during an anti-war demonstration. The dialogue of sounds between different urban spaces opens up associated multidimensional pictorial spaces and time-frames.
Format:
10 Paper objects: 50 x 60 cm; colour photo mounted in Plexiglas: 35 x 50 cm.
Paper technique:
10 paper casts of Fricktal tiles, made with hand-crafted cotton and paper pulp, Fricktal clay and ashes.
