In Suspended Animation

YEAR: 2022-ongoing
MEDIUM: Research project
FUNDING: Makersregeling subsidy from The Hague municipality

The main body of work for this series is the process of researching itself.

Under the guidance of Kooman’s Poppentheater, I have been learning how to make puppets. The puppets are made using various techniques such as finger, glove or string puppets, and out of an array of materials including material scraps, air drying clay, wool and knitted threads, found feathers, paper and cast resin. However, the puppets as objects are not what I consider to be the artworks. Instead, it is the learning, experimenting and process that helps me to develop a posthumous relationship with the birds that I consider to be the artwork. And it is the attempt to bring them alive through short film experiments and writing.

Documented here is research that has taken various forms: puppet-making, recording information about the birds’ extinction stories, reading and writing texts, or presenting sonic sources related to the birds in a radio show.

I see this research project as a holder for other components: separate, individual artworks in the form of films, workshops or installations.