DENYS BLACKER
Denys Blacker, Parallel Worlds – ANTARCTICA, 2018
15 photographs.
Giclée print on Canson Infinity Edition Rag 310gsm paper
69 x 170 cm.
Edition of 5
Frames from the video camera Marta Vergonyós
work description
work description
Parallel Worlds – The Antarctic, 2018, is the last in a series of five works that explore the boundaries between the human body and our planet. Denys Blacker searches for the fine line that both separates her and connects her to this fragile moment in our history.
The artist lies immobile on the floor. She is wrapped in a cape in which a map of Antarctica is sewn with porcelain. She begins to turn on herself in slow, laborious movements that shatter the fragile ceramic, the crackle of which shatters the silence.
“Each work in the series begins as a drawing, a view of our planet from the perspective of each of the oceans. Porcelain sheets are hand-sewn to the cloth on the areas of land. The map becomes a cape, a temporary border between my skin and the earth, felt in my bones through the vibration of breaking porcelain. The Inuit have a word for the fear of unpredictable violence; kappia. It is different from the kind of fear that accompanies awe. This is called ilira. ‘Watching a polar bear is ilira. But having to cross thin sea ice is kappia’ (Lopez 1986). In the destruction of the porcelain cape, there is a reference the kind of apprehensive fear that accompanies the unpredictability of violence and sudden change. The process of constructing each cape takes about two months and in the performance, all this work is destroyed in a few minutes.
The Inuit have a word for the fear of unpredictable violence; kappia. It is different from the kind of fear that accompanies awe. This is called ilira. ‘Watching a polar bear is ilira. But having to cross thin sea ice is kappia’
(López, 1986). Denys Blacker
8.000 €
