Songlines

Reconnecting Songlines

Reconnecting Songlines

Installations,

A new installation in the Songlines project, from October 9 – November 1, 2020, in the exhibition Wild and Connected Plus, Gallery VBK, Berlin.

 

Video of the exhibition opening:

 

In this work I combine newer and older works. Inspired by the “songlines” of indigenous Australians, I try to reconnect the birth of the individual with the origin of life. Going along a network of paths, signs and memories, we rediscover our place in nature.

… the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over Australia and are known to Europeans as “Dreaming-tracks” or “Songlines”; to the Aboriginals as the “Footprints of the Ancestors” or the “Way of the Lore”. Aboriginal Creation myths tell of the legendary totemic being who wandered over the continent in the Dreamtime, singing out the name of everything that crossed their path – birds, animals, plants, rocks, waterholes – and so singing the world into existence.
(Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987)

In the culture of Aboriginal Australians, the long ritual walks in the desert of individuals who undertake the Walkabout* (as mentioned by Bruce Chatwin in “The Songlines”, 1987) play an essential role in allowing contact and exchanges of resources (both material and spiritual) between populations separated by enormous distances. In my work, I let myself be guided by the idea of the Aboriginal Australians to see a “territory” not as a determined piece of land, but as a dynamic network of paths, tracks, and songs – so well described by Chatwin.

Click on the images below to see the previous works and read more about the Songlines project.

 

 

 

Songlines

Songlines

Highlights, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, Works,

The video above is a 3-minutes trailer*teaser.
The whole video is more than 13 minutes long and has been shown in the events 17 Days Videos Series (USA), Lines in Between the Maze (Berlin) and in loop at the exhibition “Under Another Roof” in IA&A at Hillyer, Washington DC.

NEW • September 10-27, 2020: screening in loop at the exhibition Wild & Connected Plus, BBK-Kunstforum Düsseldorf.

A special 5-minutes version has been shown in FIVAC Festival Internacional de Videoarte de Camagüey, in the Screening der Medienwerkstatt 2018 in Berlin and in Kino Central, Berlin, on 26th June 2019 under the title LIFE-X-CHANGE.

NEW • October 15-25, 2020: Madatac IX, International Official Section, Cine Estudio del Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid.

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description:
This is a new, independent and amplified version of the video “Walkabout”, which was part of the installation “Under the Same Roof”. Click here to see the work.

In the culture of Aboriginal Australians, the long ritual walks in the desert of individuals who undertake the Walkabout* (as mentioned by Bruce Chatwin in “The Songlines”, 1987) play an essential role in allowing contact and exchanges of resources (both material and spiritual) between populations separated by enormous distances. In my work, I let myself be guided by the idea of the Aboriginal Australians to see a “territory” not as a determined piece of land, but as a dynamic network of paths, tracks, and songs – so well described by Chatwin.
In my video, this network is represented by a web of ropes on an underlying, slowly moving landscape. In four central spaces between the cords, areas of sand take form, in which different things happen: one hand digs a bone from the sand while another hand buries leaf, one pulls out a folded piece of paper, opens it and reads the word “life” which turns into other languages, one hand throws a stone from one panel to the other, new life is born out of things—in short, it is a ritual game of transformation and exchange of objects and words between the different areas. After a while everything is flooded by the sea water. The rope structure loses its geometrical form and the sand dissolves. When the flood retreats, a new network is generated and other scenes arise out of the sand.

* “Walkabout” has come to be referred to as “temporary mobility” because its original name has sometimes been used as an inappropriate term in Australian culture, ignoring its spiritual significance.

title: Songlines
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 13’41” in loop
year: 2018
sound: kangaroovindaloo (earth) and Maria Korporal (water)
concept, camera, animation, effects and montage: Maria Korporal

Screening der Medienwerkstatt 2018

Exhibitions and Events in 2018, News

Monday to Friday / 5th – 9th of November 2018, every day 5:00 – 6:00 pm
Kino Central im Haus Schwarzenberg
Rosenthaler Str. 39 – 10178 Berlin

Catalogue / program booklet in PDF

Maria Korporal participates with LIFE-X-CHANGE: a 5-minutes version of her project Walkabout, on Monday 5th of November, 5pm.

Still from the video “Walkabout”, © Maria Korporal

Letter of Julia Warhola, mother of Andy Warhol, to their family in Europe. Photo: Sandra Becker

The German word “Rückgabe” means return or give back, and comes etymologically from giving. It requires that you already got something that you want to give back for various reasons, for example: gratitude, disappointment or renunciation.
“Rückgabe” is this year’s topic of the screening in Kino Central.
The artists of the Medienwerkstatt im Kulturwerk des bbk, show us more than 40 works on this theme. A wide range of contributions, from experimental work over socio-criticai videos to funny short films – an exciting program with animations, fragments from performances and installations or pure audio work.
This screening also offers opportunity to get in touch with some of the artists.
The Medienwerkstatt im Kulturwerk des bbk berlin is an artists run media workspace of the bbk’s Kulturwerk started in 2009 and is located in the Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin Kreuzberg. Under the direction of Lioba von den Driesch, Sandra Becker, and a competent team, it supplies infrastructure, media knowledge and technical support for visual artists based in Berlin to create new media art works.
We look forward to an inspiring screening. Thank you Cinema Central and all participating artists for your wonderful work.

Text: Catherine Bourdon

Walkabout – Under the Same Roof

Walkabout – Under the Same Roof

Highlights, Installations, Other collaborations, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, Works, , ,

Maria Korporal’s contribution to the collective installation “Under the Same Roof”

The video wall “Walkabout” is Maria Korporal’s contribution to the collective installation “Under the Same Roof”, created with artists Marina Buening, Kristien de Neve and Anita Guerra.

The video above shows some excerpts of the projection during the exhibition in Sala 1, Rome, in May 2018.
The project is a work in progress. A new, independent version is entitled “Songlines”, click here to see info and trailer, and has been shown in various exhibitions, among which “Under Another Roof” in IA&A at Hillyer, Washington DC.

description:
In the culture of Aboriginal Australians, the long walks in the desert of individuals who undertake the Walkabout* (as mentioned by Bruce Chatwin in “The Songlines”, 1987) play an essential role in allowing contact and exchanges of resources (both material and spiritual) between populations separated by enormous distances. In my work, I let myself be guided by the idea of the Aboriginal Australians to see a “territory” not as a determined piece of land, but as a dynamic network of paths, tracks, and songs – so well described by Chatwin.
The video sequence begins with a projection across the entire surface, so the video extends into the inner part of the installation, and falls partly on the work of Anita. The initial image is the seashore with the eternal fluctuations of water, rendered in circular form, and the white line of the waves’ foam is transformed into spirals and concentric circles. After a few minutes the water leaves space to the sand, the concentric circles become dashed lines and the projection becomes a video-mapping on the 4 white canvases. On every panel a different thing happens: one hand digs a bone from the sand while another hand buries a leaf, one pulls out a folded piece of paper, opens it and reads the word “life”, the letters fly away and turn into other languages, one hand throws a stone from one panel to the other – in short, it is a game of transformation and exchange of objects and words between different panels. After a while everything is flooded by the sea water again and other scenes arise out of the sand.

* “Walkabout” has come to be referred to as “temporary mobility” because its original name has sometimes been used as an inappropriate term in Australian culture, ignoring its spiritual significance.

technical description: Looped video projection on four quadrilateral canvases that are connected with hemp ropes to the general bamboo construction of the installation – see also Under the Same Roof
sizes and materials: 4 quadrilateral canvases of ca. 50cm2, a video projector and two small loudspeakers. The projection surface is variable, 150 x 200 cm approx.
video length: 13’41” in loop
year: 2018
sound © kangaroovindaloo (earth) and Maria Korporal (water)
installation “Under the Same Roof” © Marina Buening, Kristien de Neve, Anita Guerra, Maria Korporal
video “Walkabout” © Maria Korporal

Photos during the exhibition:

Walkabout by Maria Korporal – photo by Anita Guerra

Walkabout by Maria Korporal – photo by Anita Guerra

Some videos and photos of the work in progress:

 

 

Under Another Roof

Exhibitions and Events in 2018, News, , , ,

Exhibition in IA&A at Hillyer
9 Hillyer Court
Washington DC

August 3 – September 2, 2018

Marina Buening, Kristien De Neve, Anita Guerra, Maria Korporal

Under Another Roof is an exhibit based on the site-specific installation, Under the Same Roof designed for the Gallery Sala 1 in Rome (Italy) and realized in May 2018. Four artists born in four different countries choose to focus on the desire and on the need for a harmonious coexistence, while dealing with the difficulties and the fears of this endeavor.

In Rome, they construct a common building, octagonal in shape, with four entrances and four walls, as a strong visual metaphor of cohabitation. Each of the four vertical walls show how each artist connects earth with heaven through a personal visual vocabulary and message. As human beings we all live in a standing position as particular intersections of two fundamentally shared planes.

In Washington D.C., the work of the four artists once again shares the same sky and the same ground while the four walls are differentiated by the traces of each individual’s visual language. Another “roof”, the roof of the IA§A Hillyer Gallery, generously hosts their proposal.
On each of the four walls the observer can now find some traces of the former site-specific installation, re-elaborated for IA§A in a more synthetic version, without any pre- meditated or direct interactions between them. The relationship between the different artistic proposals is left to the sensibility of the observer.

Nevertheless, one hint of correlation between the messages of the artists can be given:
in each of the artist’s works there is a clear invitation towards self-investigation as a condition for living more harmoniously with other people and with our environment in its broadest sense.

Marina Buening presents images of branches entitled, “In the Wild”. She encourages people to get in touch with the vulnerability of nature. For her, self- investigation has to do with healing the profound relationship between man and nature, necessary for a harmonious existence. In Kristien De Neve’s work on mirrors there is an explicit request to go beyond superficial self-images, personal masks that limit our capacity to relate to people in a new and profound way. In Anita Guerra’s work a floating identity is indicated, which can only be rooted in our physical bodies (“Corpus-Domus”). The body, viewed as that constant home which follows us around wherever we live, thus becomes an indicator or our own limits/limitations and resources. Only by knowing ourselves can we begin to know each other. In Maria Korporal’s work – “Songlines”, a video inspired by the ritual Walkabout* of Aboriginal Australians – self-knowledge emerges through a long and intriguing journey made up of many exchanges, creating networks between people that transcend territorial and personal limits.

* “Walkabout” has come to be referred to as “temporary mobility” because its original name has sometimes been used as an inappropriate term in Australian culture, ignoring its spiritual significance.

click here to see Maria Korporal’s work for this exhibition, “Songlines”