LINDA JASMIN MAYERPORTFOLIO

Icebreakers create paths for other ships. They built connections, make reachable what otherwise would be unreachable. To break the ice, the icebreakers either drive straight into the ice or drive onto it and break it under their weight, if the ice is too thick. Also human icebreakers exist. They break the ice between people and create connections. How can this ice be broken?

The work How to break the ice, is a site specific work, in progress.

How to break the ice2013

While Sara Pathirane was in the Sahara desert I was on a site specific field trip in northern Lapland. We agreed on a time were we would connect mentally and indi-cate by the use of a compass the directions were each of us was.

Missä on Sa(ha)ra?-Checkpoint Linda2013

We compose individualized soundtracks for our movement through the world with the use of portable audio devices that have been in constant re-development since the invention of the Walkman. How we perceive the world visually is in direct re-lation to the soundtrack we choose and superimpose upon it. But how much do we separate ourselves from the environment by existing in this personalized audio worlds? Is it not a barrier to public exchange and a regression to solitude? In another strain of thought the work Echo Dress wants to indicate the growing audio pollution dominating public spaces and reflect on the sound design in pub-lic and semi-plubic spaces which has been composed to subliminally influence our consumer behavior.The work Echo Dress absorbs and transmits (using integrated microphones, speak-ers and a software) the soundscape surrounding us with time delay. This interven-tion is meant to sharpen our awareness and perception of the soundscape around us while also encouraging a critical examination of it.

Echo Dress2012

The Threeing-Wordsworkshop was developed through several text based steps. It was held inside the Paul Ryans Threeing pavilion in the Karlsaue park during Docu-menta13. An introduction to the Threeing, gave commence to this word oriented process. Through the Threeing method several exercises such as a warm up with the Similar-words-droppings-circle were done, collages have been created by using the de-construction and re-construction of a poem and daily newspapers. Finally the Fantasy-freestyle-poem-writing included environmental word-stealing and the use of waste-words. The wordsworkshop was concluded by a reading-out-loud of the compositions of the afternoon.

Threeing-Wordsworkshop2012

The 1 Minute extreme-collective Art-approaches was an action developed by Julian Weber inside Neue Galerie during Documenta13 in Kassel. We approached emo-tionally to the Art works of the exhibtion.

1 Minute extreme-collective Art-approaches

2012

The work snowcats talks about the presence of human in remoted mountain land-scape areas. The Schnalstaler glacier is located in northern Italy on the border to Austria and it is on 2845m. During night time the snowcats prepare the skiing pists.

Snowcats2012

Snowcats20129’’30’video

Archiv-Heimat20113’’25’Super 8 video transferred on DVD.

Heimat2010

In 2010, I created a detailed thesis on the topic of identity and belonging in South Tyrol. South Tyrol was part of the austrian region of Tirol up to World War I, after which it was separated from North Tyrol an annexed by the Kingdom of Italy.The history was never processed by the population, but though hard efforts and resistance a degree of autonomy was obtained. Today, three broad language groups live in South Tyrol: 69,15% of the population are German native speakers, 26,47% are Italian and 4,37% are Ladin. But one cannot say they are really living together.In my work I investigated how this topic is treated by artists from South Tyrol. For the work, I collaborated with ten artists from the three language groups. Living in Italy and being a German native speaker, as well as living close to a National boundary, promotes the questioning of identity.The title of the work is Heimat, a word that has a deep meaning in German culture and in Italian (as in many other languages) has no precise translation.

The project consisted in several interrelated works.

Riflessi2010

In order to obtain information about what identity means for young people from South Tyrol, I collaborated with three different high schools, one for each of the region’s language groups: German, Italian and Ladin. The students of three classes where asked to develop a free essay on a A4 page. The starting point was a symbolic title, represented by the realistic image of a non-issued identity card. From the essays, a general picture about the importance of Heimat and belonging for young people in South Tyrol can be distilled. The topics were mixed and have been summarized - without identifying their origin - in a booklet. The results are very different depending on the type of school and the origin of the students. In each school however there are similarities in the way the subject was dealt with. The work thus will show how important the responsibility of the school is for the education of the individual in his or her development of a critical awareness regarding the subjects: home, identity and belonging. These considerations have determined the title for my work Riflessi (Reflections). It invites to critically confront the question of whether we are a simple reflection of our environment or something more.A sentence was then selected from each of the 52 completed essays. The photographic portraits were processed and a sentence was paired to each photo. The actual sentence does not match with the person who is on the picture, but it’s from another student from another school. Each student received the photo where he presents a detail of himself which should constitute his or her identity paired with the handwritten personal considerations of another student. This intends to show how these topics can be seen in different ways.

2010Example of the empty Paper for the essays written by the students .

Riflessi

2010Six of the 52 images of the Students Portraits.Fotoprint on Paperboard.

Riflessi

In the public space2010

The project involved publishing the selected sentences of the students on standard-size (cm 50 x 70) posters in the public space of the towns where the essays had been carried out, Merano, Bolzano, Ortisei in Val Gardena, so that the meaningful thoughts of the students could reach the local people.

Traditional costumes have a special value in South Tyrol. Must they always keep the same form? Everything in our world is developing, so why do traditions and costumes remain superficially unchanged. I wanted to create a metamorphosis of the traditional Meraner Miedertracht costume to signify a new form it could take on. I covered 21 pictures of my own body with fabrics, creating many different variants of a new costume. In the end I realized my own traditional dress.

Untitled2010

Image of the traditional Meraner Miedertracht.21 Variants of a possible new Tracht.My final Meraner Miedertracht (dress).paperboard, photographs, fabric.Varied dimensions.

Untitled2010

Boot-Projekt2010

In February 2010, the Bolzano dd of Italian ONG Caritas presented a competition for a 70m-long enclosue in its residence in Caorle, a place used for children’s holidays. The railing would have followed the children’s route to the sea.The enclosure should have been realized in September 2010, within an intercultural workshop in which 25 young people from five European countries were to participate. I was responsible for the workshop and managed the project. In the mornings, the participants would work on the contents, and in the afternoons, the enclosure had to be fabricated.My proposal consisted of an enclosure made out of old boats. In this context, the boat became a symbol for traveling that underlined the importance of knowing other cultures. Working with recycled materials was also important for me as a reflection on the contemporary culture of consumption.Unfortunately due to financial reasons Caritas cancelled both the workshop and the creation of the enclosure. The project was carried out in a smaller version consisting of a sculpture out of six boats which were found and painted by me together with the children of the residence.

Project proposal for the work with the children and photographic documentation of the realization.

2010Project proposal for a 70m-long enclosure made out of found boats.

Boot-Projekt

Trama 21 Research Group for contemporary Art2008-2011

Trama21is a group that intends to lay the groundwork for an investigation of new forms related to contemporary art and its manifestations. Founded within the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan, by a group of young students of classroom 21B, with the support of art historian Marcella Anglani, Trama21 intends to deliver an emotional point of view on issues related to the latest trends in the visual arts. Its aim is to create parallels between criticism and artistic practice through which the emotional and synaesthetic work and events related to contemporary society can be considered under as many interpretations as possible so that we may attain a new sensibility in order to create.A key theme in the work of Trama21 is the strong relationship with the environment, the particular place from which the idea of a project develops. The group uses a multi-disciplinary approach to take into account aspects that are often forgotten or bypassed in the analysis of a specific context.The individual’s relationship with others, as well as with the community, is emphasized through the actions that characterize the daily life of group members. Meeting for lunch or dinner becomes a fundamental moment for the activation of the cognitive and learning processes that stimulate interchange. The idea of horizontal training and education that goes beyond institutional systems of learning - using all the various possibilities and knowledge that being together as a group offers - has become the cornerstone for our development during formal activities and interactions with others. We want to conduct research leads to every individual’s personal enrichment by starting from the common territory of communal exchange and sharing a community. P.F. Paradiso

Selected Projects by Trama21:Soppalcare, Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan, 2009Grenz-labor, (Un)defined Merano Arts Festival, Meran, Südtirol-Italy, 2009Mash-up, a project for Art Hub in collaboration with the association AR.RI.VI, Milan, 2010 TramaMunari, in collaboration with C.R.A.C – Research centre for contemporary Art, Cremona, http://tramamunari.wordpress.com/, 2010Oltre il burattino obbediente, NABA Milano, Milan, 2010

http://trama21.wordpress.com/

SoppalcareAccademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan, 2009Foto: Linda Jasmin Mayer

Grenz Labor - Laboratorio Confine - Border Lab(Un)defined09, Merano Arts Festival, Merano, South Tyrol, Italy August 8-22 2009

For (un)defined 09, contemporary art research group Trama21 was asked to coordinate a project. We decided to focus on the topic of the border. The project took place in Meran, a small city in Trentino-Südtirol, a region that was part of Austria up to World War I and has been part of Italy since. Today, 70% of the people living there are German native speakers, 25% Italian and 5% are Ladins.„Spatial units“ were used as research laboratory in the 1st floor of the “Rivoir“ building of the F. Rossi barracks in Meran. Locals and artists in residence participated in the lab, from August 8 to 22, 2009. Twenty persons worked for two weeks on the concept of the border. To get into the lab, visitors had to leave a fingerprint and answer the quetion „What is your Border?“. Overall, we collected 1067 test results. The initiative proposes to alter a part of the military area into a platform dedicated to the research and the questioning of the border concept in all its meanings.Generally, the border serves as the threshold for the division between inside and outside. History, however, reveals that borders also enclose a territory in which the diversity of cultures can lead to communication and exchange – a form of mutually enriching communication in which differences can be interpreted, interwoven, abrogated and finally placed on another level. Indeed, a border can be regarded from different perspectives, especially due to its singular characteristic as a place that paradoxically closes off one space and divides it from another space while at the same time it establishes connections. The project’s purpose was to alter the standard conception of a border, allowing room for mediation, cross-over and a constant process of transformation.

Stills from the interviews of the participants of the Border lab were taken after a performance (This floor does not exist (Do elevators cry?),2009) by artists Barbara Gamper and Dimitri Polis.

Detail of the wall were we fixed the fingerprints of the visitors. Every visitor had to leave his own fingerprint and answer the question -“What is your border?” – in order to enter the Boder Lab. In the two weeks of the exhibition we collected 1064 fingerprints and answers.

Two of the daily discussions and seminars that were held in our spatial units of the Border Lab. Historians, sociologists, artists, philosophers came to take part at our meetings, relfecting on the topic of the border. Notible artists included Moataz Nasr (Egypt), Nico Dockx (Belgium) and Philosopher Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield (London) took part at the Border Lab.

2009marble, bronze, plaster, plaster with wine, plaster with coffee, concrete, concrete with wine, resin with feathers, chocolate...20 x15 cm

Quindici mesi

We sleep a third of our lives, but what do we know about sleeping? Why do people sleep? What happens during this time?Despite extensive research into the subject, the question of the function of sleep can be answered only partially. The psychological hypothesis maintains that dreams processes experiences made in our waking life, cleansing us from unnecessary information while we sleep. In the regenerative hypothesis, on the other hand, the argument is that sleep is only meant to recover organs. A third hypothesis is the adaptive, according to which sleep serves a genetic program for an ecological balance.Sleep deprivation leads to physical and mental illness, this is certain. Thus, sleep deprivation was and is still used as a means of torture. It is told that, in ancient Rome, King Perseus of Macedonia was held as a prisoner and died of sleep deprivation. Also in ancient China it said that criminals were punished by sleep deprivation.In the work Schlaflos (Sleepless) I dealt with the various forms of sleep. Since my childhood I often found sleeping difficult. I wanted to emphasize how large the influence of sleep is on ones condition during the next day and thereby leading us onto different paths in our lives. Nevertheless I have found that these sleepless and brooding nights also helped many of my ideas mature. Because of these variations, Schlaflos also took on several forms. My first thoughts revolved around the place of sleep, the bed, as the living space of dreams, this other side of life.

Schlaflos2008-2011

Long sleep, short sleep, intense sleep, deep sleep, sweet sleep, harmonic sleep. Bad dreams.Forced awakenings. An order of always different nights.In the work Quindici mesi (Fifteen months), I wanted to create fifteen beds in fifteen different materials, which should represent how different sleep can be. Each of the beds is scaled 1:15 to my personal bed, which I was sleeping in at that time - for fifteen months.The beds are therefore related to time and space. They are a description of the space where my sleep took place. One can notice traces of my sleep, of my awakenings, of the night that always brings new dreams with it. The different materials, as well as the changing order in which the beds are positioned, allowed me to describe a nightly development that is always new.

Quindici mesi2009

2009marble, bronze, plaster, plaster with wine, plaster with coffee, concrete, concrete with wine, resin with feathers, chocolate...20 x15 cm

Quindici mesi

Quindici mesi2009bronze20 x15 cm

For each dream a bed. A series of small beds were built to accommodate dreams.Initially, the beds where developed as gifts for people I appreciated. My emotional bond to them constituted the network of the work – full of life and strong relationships.In doing this the number of beds is in constant change and new relationships are always taking shape as the network is enlarged and finds new ways. This work was one of my first experiences that led me to explore the relational potential of art.

Letti2008-2009

Letti Ongoing series, 2008paperboard, coffee, artichoke-water, fabric, cottonVaried dimensions: ca. 10 x 6cm

Letti Ongoing series, 2009paperboard, fabric, cotton11 x 7cm

Dreams

In many cultures of the past, dreams were very important. In some cultures, it is still believed that our soul leaves the body when we are dreaming. The Fellah people of the Nile Delta, for example, wrap a turban around their heads at night, to prevent the soul from leaving their head. In Kenya, the Massai do not dare to wake up a sleeping person suddenly, because they fear that the soul could not return to the confused body.In science, dreams are regarded as a psychological response to neural processes. In psychology, however, they are considered as reflection of the unconscious.For me, dreaming means the elaboration of the experienced world in an often incomprehensible new language. This process is necessary for our psychological survival, especially in a world that offers us a constant stream of impressions every day.For over ten years I’ve been writing down my dreams. The images often appeared incomprehensible but after some months they could always be understood more easily. In the work Dreams I tried to give my seemingly ethereal dreams a material form. I have devoted myself to the architectural aspect of my dreams by recreating little scenarios of their habitats.

2008

Dream 1 2008paperboard, fabric, acrilyc6,5 x 17 x 12,5 cm

Dream 2 2008paperboard, fabric, pencil6,5 x 18 x 14 cm

Dream 4 2008paperboard, textils, acrilyc29,5 x 22 x 13cm

Dream 6 2008paperboard, fabric, coffee28 x 20,5 x 16,5cm

2008paperboard, fabric, acrylic, bottons, key34 x 22,5 x 13cm

Dream 5

Dream 3 2008paperboard, fabric, acrilyc11 x 16 x 17cm