Carmen José is an artist and art educator interested in questioning the reproduction of visual stereotypes, with focus on embodied processes. In her work she aims to facilitate spaces for dialogue and coming together.
Growing Space
Growing Space is a cultural and social place for the Wielewaal, of and for neighbors and artists, to come together (especially) in the corona-time. The exhibitions organized there can be visited from outside through the wooden platform where people can stay at a safe distance from each other. Every week there is one exhibition and an activity that brings the neighbors into conversation with the participating artists. This project was initiated by Carmen José and Kamiel Verschuren (NAC).
Future Field
We are a collective of six artists based in Zuidwijk with an interest in the process of gardening as growing and nurturing with a focus on local and collective knowledge. We have been exploring and conducting field research together throughout 2020 in the form of walks, organizing workshops, cooking and creating children's activity packs for the Corona period for children at the De Toermalijn School.
AIR Gallery
Chander Haat White Cubes project is an instant creation to emphasize that we, who bind as a community of art practitioners need to connect our art with our masses. They planned around 30 artifacts, to be executed on site, across an entire rural landscape in Baghpota; where they originally initiated their collective practice 30 years ago. In the project I was invited to develop one of the white cubes, which ended up being an AIR Gallery of self-made kites with recycled plastic and drawings.
Under The Mango Tree
Under The Mango Tree is a self-organized gathering of unlearning, co-curated by Sepake Angiama, Sanchayan Ghosh, Tara Lasrado. I was invited as a contributor to share my research Lines of Movement, on exercising collective visual criticality. The aim of this research is to explore movement practices that use methods of embodiment to reflect and connect with the action of drawing to develop tools to promote critical thinking and in between spaces for questioning.
Lines of Movement
We draw lines that move from our heads over our bodies to our hands and finally onto the paper. We train head and hand, but how can we train the whole body for unlearning drawing? A research on exercising collective visual criticality. Questioning as an action of change, or transformation. Bringing together a set of diverse movement exercises to establish critical reflection on visualization processes through the act of drawing.