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Maike Hemmers

tekenen, Soft sculptures, proces, omgeving, Lichaam, Gender

Maike Hemmers' recent projects engage with play, emotions, and relationships in collaborative material processes. Her primary mediums are colorful, fuzzy, and abstract drawings, textile sculptures, and public activations, with the different strands often coming together in the form of temporary installations. Maike's practice is fundamentally shaped by a feminist critique of architecture and a queer and soft resistance: a rethinking of dominant structures through layers of affective material relations and the interconnected net of our basic collectivity. She researches and uses somatic practices, such as Processwork, to understand and depict how affects and relationships move through and between us. This has extended into foraging for natural pigments as a social and connective practice with the more-than-human, exploring the transformation of color as a local material. Recently, Maike has focused on play as a queer disorientation of our normalized and 'straight' behavior in space. Through playfulness, we connect curiously, lean on the guidance of our gut feelings and alter-egos, and move in dynamic relationships with others.

Desire digests what moves it
Desire digests what moves it - Video work, 10:02, Fictioning Comfort, Showroom Mama, 2020 The whole of 'Desire digests what moves it' consists of drawings, a video, and a set of soft sculptures. The exhibition Fictioning Comfort explored ideas around exhaustion and comfort on a planetary and personal scale. The works were presented both online, in the closed-off exhibition space, and as part of a local messenger service in which soft sculptures were exchanged between friends and people involved in the show. The five different soft sculptures were produced with Wijkatelier op Zuid, a foundation aimed to support and professionally strengthen local craftspeople in the neighborhood Maike Hemmers lives in. Each of the sculptures has a different shape and color, and are filled with grape seeds or iron bullets. For the video work, she asked the artists and performers Valentina Curandi and Baha Görkem Yalım to engage with the objects inside their own home. Their interactions were recorded by themselves based on a set of scores bringing attention to the layered relations between the performing body, the sculptures, and the domestic.
No kitchen ever belongs to me - The publication follows a research period inside De Kiefhoek museum apartment in 2019 (Rotterdam, NL) alongside Ian Clewe. The essay unpacks the decisions the architect JJP Oud and the municipal took to build the complex for the working class, and draws lines to current decisions made in the city ‘management’. The critical study is interlaced with descriptions of interaction with the children who came to visit and spend time drawing along side me. The photographs were taken at night inside the kitchen of the museum apartment of drawings made during the day. The kitchen of De Kiefhoek is an example of gendered division and build structural opression. It was build extra small so that ‘the working class would not use it as a livingroom’. as was deemed unproper by the ruling class. https://issuu.com/maikehemmers/docs/mh_nokitchen_digital_single_wimages
This deep becomes palpable - Installation of drawings and soft sculptures, Kunstinstituut Melly, 2022 Drawings: Textile, paper, pastels, 170 x 240 cm Sculptures: Textile, natural dyes, kapok, cedar bark, cherry pits, sage, 40 cm and 180 x 250 cm The work is based on inner developments, whether subconscious, bodily, or energetic, to support emergent understanding and orientation. The process has been supported by a series of somatic ‘Processwork’ sessions facilitated by artist and somatic practitioner Savannah Theis. Each of the drawings originates through a mental color-body-scan in which Maike Hemmers mentally determines the color in each of her body parts on a particular day. Following this, she uses a color or a body part that feels most important and expands and explores its meaning and following development in a ‘Processwork’ led by Savannah. Preceding the start of the exhibition, she invited a group of close friends and collaborators to attend the several workshop days facilitated together with Savannah Theis. The workshops involved using drawing, movement, and somatic methods to explore personal sensations and symptoms, support, collectivity, and color. Coming back to color after each step, the last color chosen from each participant was used to dye the set of sculptures that are part of the installation. The sculptures are produced together with textile designer Karen Huang. Funded by het Mondriaan Fonds and ifa Photo: Kristien Daem
Color Body Scans - Soft pastel on paper, different dimensions, 2021– Research on the somatic relation of body and drawing by looking at color as a connector. Mentally, Maike Hemmers traces colors in her body at the start of a working process. She draws each color for the different limbs and notes the associations or impulses that accompany the vision or impulse for a color. Based on these scans, she uses a color or a body part to explore further what appears most relevant on a specific day. She uses the specific color palette of a body scan to work with in following sketches and drawings.
The rope binds in unison
The rope binds in unison - Installation of drawings, textile sculptures, and wooden carriers, Dolf Henkes Price, Tent Rotterdam, 2023 Drawings: soft pastels, paper, naturally dyed cotton, canvas, various dimensions from 150 x 200 cm to 170 x 250 cm Sculptures: naturally dyed cotton, millet husks, cherry pits, various dimensions from 25 x 50 cm to 75 x 120 cm Carrier: elm wood, 68 x 250 cm, in collaboration with Olga Micinska The works in this installation connect inner and place-based experiences of color, while also pointing in their soft abstract images and modes of installation to intentions of play and transformation. The pastel drawings are coming from intrinsic processes with embodied color and are based on sketches about positions of play and the transformation of grief. Most drawings are a twin of one initial sketch. The color of the naturally dyed textile was foraged in different environments around Maike Hemmers' studio in Rotterdam and her parents' garden in Germany. She used the dyed fabric for the sculptures as well as on the top- and backside of some of the drawing surfaces. The sculptures provide the opportunity for an embodied experience of color. This is activated during workshops led by Raluca Croituro. The wooden carriers are made in collaboration with the sculptor and woodworker Olga Mici´nska. Engaging in these collaborations is important for this work, which points through its title to the fact that we do not do anything by ourselves. By working with natural material, different people, or workshops, the work is shaped and transformed by many.
Mind Wandering Mind
Mind Wandering Mind - Installation of soft pastel drawings on canvas and naturally dyed textiles, textile sculptures filled with wool, millet husk, grape seeds, rope Duo-exhibition with Abul Hisham at Drawing Center Diepenheim, NL In this exhibition, Abul Hisham and Maike Hemmers examine the course of mental processes and the way emotions are expressed in the body. Diepenheim’s space reflects the different phases of these processes. By walking around the space, the visitor goes through the stages poetically, psychologically, and physically. Maike Hemmers is showing drawings and sculptures. Many of the works are connected by an installation of rope on which large-scale drawings and sculptures are hung throughout the space. Furthermore, she is showing ‘Play Forms,’ a new set of sculptures made in collaboration with Studio MdP. These sculptures can be touched, sat on, and moved throughout the exhibition space. Corresponding blue straps are attached inside the walls on which the sculptures can be clasped. The Play Forms are an invitation to change and play with the exhibition space, to find positions of rest or activation. Funded by Mondriaan Fonds, Stimulieringsfonds Photo: Sander van Wettum

This Deep Becomes Palpable

Datum:
Locatie: Kunstinstituut Melly

The installation is based on inner developments, whether subconscious, bodily, or energetic, to support emergent understanding and orientation. The process has been supported by a series of somatic ‘process work’ sessions facilitated by the artist and somatic practitioner Savannah Theis. The sculptures are produced together with textile designer Karen Huang.

https://www.kunstinstituutmelly.nl/en/experience/1404-maike-hemmers-new-commission

Grounding things

Datum:
Locatie: Life

Grounding things are soft and heavy objects that invite the body to become more present. Maike Hemmers has developed three cushion works for Life. Each of them carry a different impact that can be used to ground the body. They are made of linen and silk, and are filled with steel balls, millet husks, and different herbs dried since summer from a garden in Germany.

https://www.ashopcalled.life/

A Discomfort Inside

Datum:
Locatie: online
In samenwerking met: Golnar Abbasi, Rotterm Art Writing

Golnar Abbasi and Maike Hemmers’ joint contribution reflects on forms of labour and display within a domestic setting. The contribution is the first of a new series of ‘In Conversation’ text pieces where two artists discuss a subject of mutual interest and share references to which they both have an affinity.

https://rotterdamartwriting.org/Golnar-Abbasi-Maike-Hemmers-A-Discomfort-Inside

Moving across and through, evening gaze

Datum:
Locatie: New Joerg
In samenwerking met: Stephan Blumenschein, Janine Schranz

Janine Schranz and Stephan Blumenschein side-specific installation alters the basic conditions of the exhibition space of New Jörg by deflecting the attention from the immediately perceived inside, beyond its specific framework, and towards the outside. Maike Hemmers responds in the form of a poem directed towards (imaginative) rooms beyond the entrance and the bar space. The work reflects on the affective movement of bodies and the multi-layered direction of touch.

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