I spent most of August 2012 in Hallein, Austria in Manfred Pernice‘s O Tannenbaum course at the Internationale Sommerakademie (SOAK). O Tannenbaum and several other SOAK courses were held in the historic and impressive Alte Saline building, which once processed salt that was mined locally. It was an eventful 3 weeks attending exhibition openings, lectures and Mittagsgespräche (lunch talks), meeting people from all corners of the global at the Alte Saline and at the Festung Hohensalzburg (the other SOAK location in Salzburg) and also experimenting with found and re-purposed materials for the course. In some ways we had Christmas in August in Pernice’s O Tannenbaum course. Pernice invited us to consider the Christmas tree, and the adornment of it, and how it’s transformation might inform our own sculptural project.

To get into the holiday spirit teacher’s assistants Noële Ody and Cäcilia Brown asked us to create gifts. Above is a gift I created and it was randomly received in a round of musical chairs, where everyone had a seat when the music stopped.

Before going 3-dimensional, I contemplated certain feelings, sounds and images one might experience during the holiday season by playing with words and their placement or rearrangement.

“Ein guter Gesang wischt den Staub vom herzen” – Christoph Lehmann 1576-1638 ” A good song wipes the dust from the heart”

I was fortunate to locate found objects quickly (wheel and microphone stand) at Hallein’s recycling center, that later became Outside Woman. Below is an image of Outside Woman before it became a part of the collective works on the Intimate Violence project.

Many thanks to Vesko Gösel for creating the red chaotic spiral piece pictured below, which was included in the final installation.

Final IV project exhibited at the Alte Saline, August 2012.

Not Here

Inside Woman – Floor Woman – Inside Woman