Lecture
Artist Writings - 'Dear Artwork'
- Date
- Thursday 20 April 2023
- Time
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 011
Dear Artwork
A Lecture about Writing on Art by Maria Barnas
In the context of 'artists writing on art', poet and visual artist Maria Barnas will share a selection of her work to focus on different ways of writing in response to art. Understanding 'writing' as forming thoughts and giving shape to them. Not only an essay but also a poem, sculpture or video that was made as a response to an existing work of art, could be considered as 'writing'.
Maria Barnas would like to raise the question if this type of writing could be useful for Art Historians and experts in Arts, Media and Society in an academic context, in a conversation with Machteld Löwensteyn at the end. Your participation in thinking out loud and sharing experiences and questions are welcomed.
About the speaker
Maria Barnas (1973) is a poet and visual artist based in The Netherlands. Her language-based work takes shape as poems, essays, sound-pieces, films and installations. She is currently researching how the notion of time relates to poetry.
Barnas works at the intersection of image and language. In the context of the power dynamics underlaying both, she researches the different modi operandi of translation - be it between different languages or between language and image - and its implications. Other topics of interest include the appropriation of language and the pursuit of new languages. Hereby, she keeps in mind the human body and the physical experience of language and mental processes. Working in the space of ambiguity, between what is and is not, she creates objects and performances that put the human body at its centre in an attempt to grasp and contain the bewildering experience of reality.
The poetry of Barnas forms a collection of introspections about a wide range of subjects, from what one generally fears, to precise children, rejected psychiatrists and our limited understanding of the universe - showing contemporary life in a stark, unsettling light. Aware of how descriptions form and deform what we see and represent, Barnas offers an imagery that is powerful and evocative with a unique, lucid quality.
Maria Barnas studied at the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and was resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam and had several other residencies in Rome, Brasil and Paris. In 2015 Barnas won the Elisabeth van Thuringen Project prize, in 2008 she was awarded the Cees Buddingh’ Prize for her first collection of poetry 'Twee Zonnen' (2003) and 'Jaja de oerknal' (2013) was awarded with the Anna Bijns prize in 2014.