Dage[d]raad | Threads of the Day

Exhibition of various works: 19 September - 12 October 2008
Leids Wevershuis (The Leiden Museum of Weaving), Leiden, The Netherlands.
Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

A continuous soundscape could be heard at the front door.


These were two pieces:
an adaption of soundtrack
(of piano and abstract sounds) and an adaption of a soundscape (bells + abstracted sounds).

The sound opens
in a new window

Click

Internet Explorer


or

Click

Firefox


two works by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
Hung from the window above: The Gossamer Prison by Sen + Sonja

Persian text cut out of a lace curtain.

"Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self"

Baha'u'llah
Excerpt from the Hidden Words
Nederlands (Dutch translation)

"Bevrijd u van de ketenen van deze wereld, en verlos uw ziel uit de gevangenis van het zelf"

installation by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn  installation by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
A continuous soundscape could be heard
at the front door and at the beginning of the hallway.
Eva was hier | Eve was here (green + pink relief above)
was one of 5 small relief objects and prints hung near the entrance.


The site-specific installations, soundscapes, interactive works, prints, drawings and paintings presented throughout evocative spaces of the Weaver's House, are responses to the threads of history of the contemporary human condition.

Many peoples present the world as being woven: its threads are lives, and their pattern is history. There are, for example, the Fates or Moirae in Greek mythology, who are the white-robed personifications of destiny. In Homer's Iliad the Moera spins the thread of life for men at their birth. Similar spinning goddesses of fate were known as the Norns in Norse mythology, and there is a parallel in the Baltic goddess Laima and her two sisters.

Here we use the theme of 'threads' as "elements of a story".

As you enter this museum you can read the hanging cloth outside in various ways in relation to the sounds you might notice as you enter. You might or might not notice the Persian text in this cloth, you might instead see it as a curtain or as an ephemeral form akin to a flag. The threads of the 'foreign' text might form a relationship (a story) with other elements such as the soundscape or the objects along the walls. As you proceed down the hall sounds from a video in a side room become audible as does the soundscape for the hanging objects "Inland Soul at Sea"

 installation by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

installation by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
Inland Soul at Sea

The 7 minute soundscape that accompanies these hanging forms, incorporates music by Ben Koen & Joe Fiedler (from the "Reliance" cd) (U.S.A.), and by Brenda Liddiard and Mark Laurent (from their "Stations of the Cross" cd) (New Zealand).

two works by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

In the courtyard: Memorials (1996/8),
ceramic tiles accompanied by a fairytale.
Above: Mutability (1993),
silkscreen print, wood + perspex.

art works by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

Hanging objects and soundscape: Inland Soul at Sea (2003)

batik sculpture by Sonja van Kerkhoff

art works by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
The strands bore narratives
or metaphysical stories
in New Zealand Maori,
Dutch and English,
read in the order discovered
by the viewer.

Small object on the window sill: Memorial (2003), ceramic form inside metal container.

Interactive Computer work: The Experience of Change (2006), animations, sounds and colours change in response to the user's actions.

Hung on the wall: A tangled Tale (1997), batik strips in three languages

art works by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
art object by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
art object by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

Generating Plant (customized birdhouse with texts written on the roof.)   +   Memorials (ceramic tiles + fairytale in 4 languages)

wood sculpture by Sonja van Kerkhoff

wood sculpture by Sonja van Kerkhoff
Above: A Wild Animal (1992),
lithograph inside a custom-made perpex form,
4 objects in the cabinet,
Generating Plant (green birdhouse on the wall outside)
Right: prints on the wall: Found Objects (1992),
Land (2001), Eve's Apple (1992), Hiding a heart (1988)

wood sculpture by Sonja van Kerkhoff
Certain Measures, (1993/2002) table
and five wooden rods
(texts in Dutch and English).

wood sculpture by Sonja van Kerkhoff

wood sculpture by Sonja van Kerkhoff




artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
Conversations, drawings on transparency
artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn



Fain Would They (2004)
light bulb, text from the Quran cut out of metal.

The text reads:


Fain would they put out God's light, but God only desireth the light though the infidels abhour it.

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

Left to Right: Tulips from Istanbul
Fain Would They and
Dans le jardin des beaux arts

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn

Each snail bore a text arranged in a spiral. The texts -often in story format- allude to time, perspective, culture and nature. The texts look at these issues from various viewpoints, in an order and tempo chose by the viewer.

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
Big Ones (1998), two 2 x 1 metre transparencies.

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn
Fruit (2006), six hung cast resin objects.

artwork by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Sen McGlinn


>> Sonja's c.v.    videos    Arranged by Medium    Art by Sen + Sonja    A tour via thumbnail images