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Lorena Rode

textiel , Soft sculptures , sculptuur , schrijven , performance , keramiek , glaskunst , Design , Community , beeldhouwen

Lorena Rode is an artist based in Rotterdam. Her practice explores the intersections of identity, culture, and nature. With a nomadic upbringing across South America, Africa, and Europe, she draws on diverse ecosystems and cultural landscapes to fuel her curiosity about coexistence.\r\n\r\nHer creations defy traditional boundaries, existing as tools, stories, sculptures, or performances that reside between design and art. Rode’s practice focuses on making her works feel liveable and interactive, often inventing new flora or creatures.\r\n\r\nRode works with materials like glass, wool, and ceramics, blending textures to create pieces that are both soft and hard, organic yet otherworldly. She strives for a fluidity and playfulness in her creations, crafting objects that seem both part of our world and alien to it.\r\n\r\nCentral to her practice is a deep care for symbiosis and a fascination with more-than-human knowledge, as she explores and seeks to understand the shared spaces between humans and the natural world.

Ephemeral as a Bubble - Dear Shapes in Space (2023) Neck of the Woods Gallery, Rotterdam These borosilicate glass claws that were used in a durational performance. I tried doing nothing else but blow bubbles with them for 3 hours while crouching on the floor. Contemplating the essence of our short time on earth. "Because we also do not see the air we breathe… From a wish to trade solid gold for the touch of nothing A wish we all sometimes crave To be as ephemeral as a soap bubble As transparent and empty As round and washing As instant and fleeting * Puff * From a seven-year-old’s birthday party theme To the joys of material kinship Of blowing glass And blowing bubbles with glass Soap, water, breath and borosilicate rods Met here on duration"
Mama Limonada - WORM UBIK (2023) Motel Mosaic Festival As part of the open call selection of the MOMO Festival 2023, Maite Dardano and I, created a performance and a audio-visual installation. Based around themes of female friendship, generational differences, motherhood and the task of nurturing. During the performance, the ceramic bras transformed into lemon presses, creating a delightful surprise of freshly breast-pressed lemonade served to the audience. A celebration of mutual care, of life long sharing, a time of fruitfulness.
The Cierto-Pluck - This piece was a part of the multidisciplinary performance evening “Jiny Svety” held on the 2nd of March in Prague. I acted like a saleswoman from a fic- tional company with a suitcase full of a fictional product: the Cierto-pluck. This product is de- signed to be inserted in the ear when having difficult talks with each other and is advertised as a help to converse with more honesty. For the audience to receive their own product they had to answer 2-3 difficult questions with honesty. If I thought, they answered honestly, I would let them choose their personal Cierto-Pluck. It allowed people to open up to each other and become aware of their conver- sations. Testing what can hap- pen if we materialise reminders to practise introspection.
Tales of the Extinct - Tales of the Extinct aims to build a practice of mourning for vast the amount of loss of the natural world. It is a sculpture garden accompanied by a poetry book. Each sculpture is based on a plant species that has be- come extinct in a country that I have lived in. They act as artistic fossils. Using handcraft and fable to honour those plant species, representing and re-imagining their intrinsic value, their right to be known, protected and preserved.
Flores de Lore - As part of the Salon der Rotterdamse Kunstenaar exhibition hosted in studio Two at deDoelen. I created these alien blossoms that should remind one of childhood wonder.
Das Tishdecken - Garage Rotterdam (2022) A trilingual performance of setting the table for dinner with a ceramic creation. Performed at Garage cafe in September 2022. Exploring the intimacy of a dinner scene, by examining the role of language and belonging. How we speak to each other and present ourselves depending on the language we are speaking. Do we say the same things? Do we care for each other the same way? Do we create the same things? Do we set the table the same way?
Lightweight Oyster - Het Moet Publishing (2023) As an ode to the Dutch Poet J. Slauerhoff, fourteen artists and writers were individually shipped off to an uninhabited island for 24 hours only accompanied by the wind, ocean and a selected poem. We were meant to be inspired by this environment and the poet's words to create a new work wich was then published together in a book. My contribution resulted in a set of poems and collages titled; "I started off by turning on my lover, and repeating this sentence over and over again"
Schools of Come and Go - This installation accompanied by a collection of written works delves into my tension within my sense of self. The texts are excerpts from books gifted to me by family members and fragments of my own writing reflecting on my multilingual and multicultural upbringing. I drew connections of kinship between my tongues and nonverbal forms of expression. Relating individual materials to the inherent characteristics of each language; thinking of how they sound, how they are perceived, how they allow us to interact, and what they allow us to express. “Schools of Come and Go” becomes a materialization of a collaged identity, a montage of clay, glass, and wool."

Dear Shapes in Space

Datum:
Locatie: Neck of the Woods Gallery
In samenwerking met: Jessica Van Deursen, Neck of the Woods Gallery

Together, this group of young makers, developed performances throughout a course, taught by performance artist Jessica van Deursen. Together they will share with you their visions on what they'd wish for the future to manifest, approx. 50 years from now, through performance art. They'll do so critically, poetically, softly, harshly, sometimes within interactions, frail solos, and sometimes within complete installations.

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