Katinka van Gorkum (Rotterdam, 1988) is a visual artist, performer and writer interested in the interior as a figure for interiority. Van Gorkum's life and practice are intimately intertwined, with the concept of 'a house' at the center. She sees a house not as a fixed concept but as a skin, a part of the surface with which people cover the world around them. Through the private domain, she investigates the interior world of humans.
2020 – An Opening Speech - This opening speech was written and performed on the 25th of june 2020 when Stichting B.A.D, after months of lockdown due to COVID-19, created an exhibition visible from the street. The speech was a personal investigation on what subjects can be spoken about and by whom, and on how to remain curious in times of crisis.
2019 – Orientation Device – Deviating from ‘here’ tot ‘there’ - “Orientations are about how we begin; how we proceed from “here,” which affects how what is “there” appears, how it presents itself. In other words, we encounter “things” as coming from different sides, as well as having different sides. Husserl relates the questions of “this or that side” to the point of “here,” which he also describes as the zero point of orientation, the point from which the world unfolds and which makes what is “there” over “there.”
(Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology)
Orientation Device – deviating from “here” to “there” is a point of (dis)orientation, re-orienting visitors and participants in space. As a point of departure it proposes a zero point in the program SketchUp, geo-located and materialized in the exhibition space. Along the drawing axes – the red x-axis, green y-axis and blue y-axis – a process of mapping takes place with the use of data derived from a communal spreadsheet that was used by participants to imagine and compose their presence in the spacetime of the Performatik festival. Visitors are welcome to ask for directions, rethink their position and gain some perspective on the notions of “here” and “there,” with the help of O. Dee – a virtual navigation expert.
2019 – Dear Visitor (research portfolio) - This video-portfolio was made while completing a post-master trajectory at a.pass - Advanced Performance Studies in Brussels - which is a platform for artistic research(es).
Feel free to skip, skim and scroll through the video as you please.
2019 – Distance Learning in Close Proximity - In Distance Learning in Close Proximity we explore Van Gorkum's virtual research space as if it were an Airbnb. On stage is a performer looking at her computer screen. We follow her as she explores her new temporary stay, trying to apply the instructions given by the hosts.
2018 – Marketplace - Marketplace consisted of 12 online advertisements placed on the website 2ehands.be, a Belgian website meant for selling secondhand goods. The advertisements were created based on one-on-one conversations
during a performance, in which the audience was presented with a series of photos of objects that belonged to the artist. They were asked to decide which objects she should sell online, and motivate their choice. The ads include all the various reasons why the object was no longer desired as stated by the several participants of the performance. All objects were eventually sold/given away via 2ehands.be, except for the lamp.
The first two images show the advertisements in a virtual marketplace that is part of a virtual studio in the program SketchUp.
2016 – And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff - The work And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff deals with the fear of becoming homeless. The work consists of the remains of Van Gorkum’s previous works, such as Talk Show, for which she printed pictures of her parental home on textile and Monkey – The Omniscient, a work about instincts and illusions. As in the animal kingdom, people too have the primal urge to mark their territory. Van Gorkum defines this in an image as we recognize throughout our daily rituals. As the wanderers on the street are clinging to the luggage they can’t let go of, Van Gorkum recycles the material that was once used to shape her dreams to visualize her nightmare.
2016 – To be… Polly D. - In the video To be…Polly D. Van Gorkum used alter egos to fictionalize an autobiographical storyline. The primary one, Polly, looks like a thinner drag-queen version of singer Dolly Parton. She first emerged during some intense theme-parties (bordering on performance art) at the artists' home. To be... Polly D. is a short documentary fiction that treats the life of Polly according to two other alter egos: Zuster van der Gaag, the nurse of an institution where Polly was treated, and K. van Gorkum, a glossier version of the artist herself. Their stories recall meeting Polly, Polly moving to different houses, at a certain moment becoming depressed and having to move to an institution, going on holiday, and having a relapse.
The story of Polly is a distorted version of Van Gorkum's autobiographical story, including bouts with depression. As Van Gorkum put it, she 'didn't have to make up any of it.'
Text by Pia Louwerens
2016 – Antoine Dansaertstraat, b401, open - On the occasion of the exhibition De Context, the door of the artists' bedroom was removed and placed in Museum Flehite, Amersfoort, for the duration of the exhibition.
2015 – Talk Show - The starting point for this installation was the idea of a talk show on television: from politics to fashion, within this context every subject can be discussed. The sets for these tv shows often resemble a living room, functioning as an extension of the living rooms in which the talk show is being watched. In this installation, the potential set for a talk show was covered in photographs taken in the home of the artists’ parents. The private is on public display. Without the fourth wall, no conversations could take place.
2015 – Waiting Until the Show is Over - For the duration of one hour, the artist sat on a chair, waiting until the show was over while other performances took place in the same space, getting the attention from the spectators.
