On July 10th the exhibition 'I see you are not there' by Sanne Kabalt will open at Beautiful Distress House
What is the relation between pain and the words we give to it? How do we look at photographs of someone who is no longer there? Should the camera do what the eyes cannot? These are some of the questions Sanne Kabalt poses in her recent work.
Kabalt combines photography and writing into installations in the realms of illness, death, madness and loss. 'I see you are not there' is the first extensive solo-exhibition by Sanne Kabalt in Amsterdam. It is organized by Het Vijfde Seizoen, a foundation devoted to the relation between art and mental health. The show includes the project ‘As long as you don’t talk about problems so much you won’t see them anyways’ that Sanne realized at the residency Het Vijfde Seizoen.
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The Beautiful Distress House that we operate in Amsterdam Noord is closed and all the planned exhibitions there are postponed until July at least.
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In 2016, the Dutch artist Yasmijn Karhof spent three months as artist-in-residence in the psychiatric ward at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn NYC (USA). Integral to her artistic practice is the expression of the subjective experience of reality in a visual context.
During her research in the hospital she was intrigued by how the concept of ‘losing grip on reality’ is central in everyone’s narrative -both patients and hospital staff alike- and is perceived in many different ways. The outcome of her research, entitled Reality is currently being exhibited (18 September – 3 November) at the Beautiful Distress House in Amsterdam (NL).
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By Annabel Simjouw
What is it like when your reality is viewed as less ‘real’? What defines our reality, and who decides whether your reality is healthy, unhealthy or even abnormal? These are questions Yasmijn Karhof addresses in the exhibition Reality, which she made during her stay as an artist in residence at King County Hospital, New York. The results of her residency are a large tapestry and an audiovisual installation with big blueprints hanging from the ceiling, showing photographs of the staff and patients. Karhof became intrigued by how reality was perceived by the staff and the patients that were housed in the hospital, and in this way she questions the way we experience reality altogether. It might for instance seem a bit ignorant to tell a man who is seeing people coming through the walls that what he is experiencing is not ‘real’. How could it not be his uttermost reality in this case? We cannot see what a person in psychosis might be experiencing, and this separates our reality from theirs. This however does not necessarily mean his reality is less real than ours.
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U bent van harte uitgenodigd voor de opening van de solotentoonstelling Reality van kunstenaar Yasmijn Karhof op 18 september om 19.00 uur in het Beautiful Distress House in Amsterdam.
Yasmijn Karhof verbleef gedurdende drie maanden als de artist-in-residence op de psychiatrische afdeling van het Kings County Hospital in New York. Tijdens haar ontmoetingen met patiënten en personeel van het ziekenhuis raakte zij gefascineerd door onze perceptie van de werkelijkheid en het subjectieve daarvan. Geïnspireerd door haar omgeving creëerde Karhof Reality; een audiovisuele installatie waarin gereflecteerd wordt op hoe het is als de dingen niet meer schijnen te zijn wat ze zouden horen te zijn.
In Reality dwaalt u tussen levensgrote blauwdrukken van patiënten en personeel op ziekenhuislakens. Aan de hand van persoonlijke ervaringen en anekdotes vertellen de personages hoe het is om grip op de werkelijkheid te verliezen. De realiteit wordt veelal voorgesteld in dingen die echt en denkbeeldig zijn. Er is echter een derde dimensie: de subjectieve realiteit met een dwingende relatie tussen emotie, ervaring en verbeelding. Reality maakt u deelgenoot van dit spannende gebied waarin het gaat om de beleefde werkelijkheid.
De blauwdrukken zijn afgedrukt door middel van de fotografische techniek cyanotopie, wat de portretten een cyaan-blauwe kleur geeft.
Een aanvullend en verdiepend werk is Reality is a fingerprint, een monumentaal acht meter lang wandkleed ontwikkeld in samenwerking met het Textiel Museum in Tilburg. De geweven afbeelding is gebaseerd op een groepsfoto die Karhof maakte van medewerkers en patiënten op de binnenplaats van het ziekenhuis. Om haar werkproces inzichtelijk te maken destilleerde Yasmijn Karhof gedurende haar verblijf opmerkelijke uitspraken door hen over gevoelens van wanhoop, angst, verwarring, paranoia of uitsluiting. Aan het eind van haar verblijf vroeg zij de geciteerden samen te poseren op de binnenplaats van het ziekenhuis terwijl ze een kartonnen bord ophielden met daarop hun citaat geschreven. Reality is a fingerprint laat een dwarsdoorsnee zien uit haar onderzoek naar onze perceptie van de werkelijkheid. De mentale processen die zich in ieders hoofd voltrekken worden op deze manier zichtbaar en naar buiten gebracht.
Reality nodigt de bezoeker uit om los te breken van gangbare veronderstellingen waarin meningen, oordelen, normen, waarden en causale verbanden zijn opgesloten. Maak kennis met andersoortige ervaringen van de realiteit om onze eigen belevingswereld te ontstijgen.
“My experience is different and the experience of that other person is different. And that doesn’t deny either it’s less true or less real. It’s just different. I think what I’m trying to propose is that if we open up ourselves to the idea that potentially to a certain extent we’re making up reality.”
(Fragment uit: Reality)
Reality is mede mogelijk gemaakt door Mondriaan Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Prins Bernard Cultuur Fonds, Stadsdeel Noord en Stichting Stokroos.
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Gladly we would like to introduce our new book “Stories from Kings County Hospital”, a carefully composed play made out of a fragmentary collection of stories, poems, pictures and observations. Written by Mirthe Berentsen and designed by Sarah Cleeremans, the publication culminates a six-month stay at the mental health department of Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York — on invitation by the Beautiful Distress Foundation, which uses art and literature in an attempt to open up the world of psychiatry. To achieve this, Berentsen investigates the reminiscent and romanticised clichés of the correlation between art and madness, the psychiatric hospital as a biotope for American politics and escaping reality by creating a counter-narrative.The result is one in which the complexity of things converge: madness, gender, the limitations of care, the inevitability of death and the power of language.
Mirthe Berentsen (NL/DE) is a writer, journalist and cultural policy advisor. With a background in politics, art and literature, Berentsen writes about manifestations and tendencies inside and outside society, technology, radical innovators and challengers of the status-quo.
Sarah Cleeremans (BE/US) is a graphic designer & typographer with a special focus on printed matter and an interest in the language of the body & the body of the language. Currently trying to haste herself slowly towards the completion of her WT studies.
Available in the WT Shop
Werkplaats Typografie
Agnietenplaats 2
6822 JD Arnhem
The Netherlands
Tel. +31 (0)26 - 3535774
order@werkplaatstypografie.org
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Lecture by Mirthe Berentsen
do 22 november 2018 16:00 - 17:30
Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten - Den Haag
Mirthe Berentsen will talk about her residency at the mental health department of Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York via the Dutch organization Beautiful Distress and the novel she is working on, about language, privacy and psychiatry.
In March 2018 Berentsen wrote an op-ed in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant that can be read as a plea to stop casually labeling people, as it leads to further stigmatisation of people that are actually suffering from their heads. In this article she points out the strength and danger of words and the context they are used in, as it’s easy to put a label on someone who loves to clean his house, or who is uncomfortable during social interactions. But this tendency, to analyse and stigmatise someones behaviour, causes persistent noise in both the political and personal conversation. If you disagree with someone’s views and you ridicule them by calling them crazy or untrustworthy you can avoid any debate and confrontation.
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