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Notes from Finland

Swedish- Finnish poet Edith Södergran stated that she does not write poems, she creates herself; and her poems are the way to herself. I hope that my month here in Finland will be just that. A time to create myself. Already these cold and damp mornings made me visit dark corners of my mind, that has been long abandoned. Looking ahead into the branched cloaked darkness of the forest, I wonder what I will find.

when all the golden birds

fly home across the blue deep water;

On shore I sit rapt in its scattering glitter;

departure rustles through the trees.

This farewell is vast and separation draws close,

but reunion, that also is certain.

My head on my arm I fall asleep easily.

On my eyes a mother’s breath,

from her mouth to my heart:

sleep, child, and dream now the sun is gone.—

Edith Södergran

By Anja Marais|2017-05-02T12:55:34-04:00November 2nd, 2014|

Solo exhibition in accordance with Prospect 3 + BR Biennial.

As part of Prospect 3 + BR, the Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery has invited Miami-based South African artist Anja Marais to Baton Rouge. Join us for the opening reception of her exhibition, The Ballast, on Friday 17 October from 5:30pm

The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge will present The Ballast, a solo exhibition of mixed media installation and video works by South African artist Anja Marais. The exhibition will be on view at the Firehouse Gallery, 427 Laurel Street, from 17 October to 12 December, and is part of P3+BR, Baton Rouge’s regional partnership with the Prospect 3 New Orleans Anja Marais is a Miami-based contemporary artist, will take over the Firehouse Gallery with a hand-made environment of video, sculpture, and installation works that continue her explorations of water, earth, and human interactions. The Ballast, assembled especially for the Baton Rouge community and P3+BR, focuses on how we experience change, stagnation, and natural forces. From one work to another, Marais’s art builds an intricate, many-layered visual poem — haunting and ethereal and rich in supernatural metaphor. Her installation at the Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery continues this and instills a feeling of contemplation and longing in the viewer — with a strong sense of the supernatural.

The Ballast: a solo exhibition by Anja Marais
17 October to 12 December
Firehouse Gallery, Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge
Opening Reception on Friday 17 October from 5:30pm to 8pm
Presented by the Arts Council as part of Prospect 3+BR

The works in The Ballast include moving images, sculpture, works on paper and mixed media oil paintings on panel. The artist’s video narratives are centered around a sepia stop-motion animation, created and filmed in St. Petersburg Russia. They follow a mysterious female figure that recurs in much of Marais’s imagery, and stand for the often metaphysical relationship we have with the environment and a desire to become one with the natural non-human world.

Mixed media paintings and photography, including transformed still images of stop animation work, complete the exhibition. Featured on one gallery wall is an installation of found antique oval frames, encasing broken down fragments of textured water. This centerpiece evokes our own community’s familiar vistas and complex relationship with the Mississippi River.

“Water is a powerful subject and a pervasive theme in Anja’s work,” says Arts Council president, Eric Holowacz. “There is mystery in it, and life. There are hints of hidden human forms, and amysticla relationship to the earth that Anja turns into a visual language. The water is like a metaphysical chant that reflects and connects everything.”Considering herself a storyteller, Anja Marais also wants to reveal the magic in our midst. As the viewer moves through the installation at the Firehouse Gallery, the boundaries of the dream world and reality try to dissolve. With the interplay of moving image, painted surfaces, and sculptural object, The Ballast will cast us as beings in her own supernatural, metaphysical place.

The public is invited to the opening reception for The Ballast at the Arts Council’s Firehouse Gallery, and an opportunity to meet the artist, on Friday 17 October from 5:30pm to 8pm. The exhibition will remain on view through 12 December as part of the Baton Rouge programming and partnership with Prospect 3 New Orleans

By Anja Marais|2017-07-11T00:08:17-04:00October 17th, 2014|

between rock and water

When working on the visuals of my project THE BALLAST I was thinking of the peculiarities of the weight of art. The artist carries a unique burden in which he has to work within the world and at the same time has to seek entry points into new worlds. It reminds me of the scripture that advises one to, “be in the world but not of this world.” The artist desperately seeks to carry out the seemingly impossible task of relating simultaneously to his object and subject, and yet being neither subject nor object. It is akin to looking into a mirror and seeing yourself as the object, and as you are thinking of yourself immediately you become the subject (and vice-versa): “now you see me, now you don’t”. It is within this paradox of rigidity and fluidity that I question our place of balance. In THE BALLAST I have taken the point of view not of the experience of a solidified state or a state of fluidity, but of being a witness to the struggle and the feat of being in flux between the two.

Despite the apparent impermeability of a rock and its ability to brace itself against the elements, it slowly and imperceptibly erodes. A rock also presents functionality and stability. If I pile enough rocks in the belly of a seagoing vessel, it will stay below the water level, a compensator for buoyancy. On another plane, a rock brings forth life, if one accepts that our planet is a functional, yet slowly eroding rock. We cannot separate ourselves from the environment we exist in, and on. But as we cling to this rock of ages we are also floating in space, just as the rocks in the hull of an oceangoing vessel – we have learned to float through time and the universe. As any survivalist knows, with nothing to cling to in a rapidly moving body of water, we need to give ourselves over to the stream to stay buoyant and prevent drowning – exactly the situation of faith. But this weight that brings us movement can also bring forth stagnation (or worse) if the load keeps accumulating and the liberty of continuance is stripped away. What is the path of liberation when the ballast is pulling you under the water level? The Buddhists believe that achieving liberation is two-fold, by letting go and letting go into something. Letting go into something, perhaps, has less to do with willing or creating than it does with allowing. For example, leaving home at a young age is akin to surrendering to a rapidly moving body of water, to allow yourself new, future possibilities – letting go, into something.

Allowing myself as an artist to have faith and giving over to my subconscious I can let go of the right amount of weight to keep myself relevant and sturdy in the given moment. To keep this ambiguous balance, I believe one has to, “keep standing in the middle of all this”, to be tucked and pulled without stopping observing what is tucking and pulling you.

THE BALLAST is built from these intermingling dualities of real experiences and it touches upon the domestic as well as the epic. How when we are in flux, our observations of the world are renewed from any new point as it can be regarded as the center, and where all positions are relative. A transcendental trickery where we can paradoxically deconstruct boundaries and unify all divisions. Thomas Tranströmer spoke of the effect of art on the artist and viewer as, ”a house of glass standing on a slope; rocks are flying, rocks are rolling. The rocks roll straight through the house but every pane of glass is still whole.”

By Anja Marais|2017-07-12T13:37:42-04:00September 14th, 2014|

“The Ballast” an upcoming Solo Exhibition in Baton Rouge, la

The Ballast – A solo exhibition by Anja Marais

On 17th October 2014, multidisciplinary celebrated contemporary South African artist Anja Marais will present a solo exhibition entitled “THE BALLAST” (On view through 12th December) in parallel with Prospect 3 and P3+BR Art Biennale.

Anja Marais will take over the Firehouse Gallery with her installation “THE BALLAST” in which she creates an environment that questions the experience of change, stagnation, and our ability to embrace surrender. Anja’s work builds an intricate visual poem into the space that brings forth a feeling of contemplation and longing.

The elements of this installation can be broken down into moving images, sculpture work, works on paper and mixed media. The moving image work is a sepia stop animation created and filmed in St. Petersburg Russia and follows a female that through acceptance of her burden, surrenders herself over to nature.

Through the sheer projection of the stop animation you will be aware of a few sculptures in the space, one is of a women standing on the floor that is caught in mid state of being a solid entity and turning into flux state of water.

On the walls of the gallery we have mixed media paintings and photography that is transformed still images of the stop animation work. We are given an intimate look at our female that moves through states of fluidity (water) and stagnation (stone). Amongst these wall works is an installation of found antique oval frames encasing broken down fragments of the texture of water.

Water as subject has been a frequently recurring theme in Anja Marais’ work, functioning as an object of philosophical inquiry, a proxy towards reflection.

Considering herself a storyteller, Anja Marais’ work goes beyond the linear prediction of events by delving into her own consciousness to bring about a new perspective on subjectivity and our relationship to how the rest of the world experience itself. As the viewer moves through the installation, the boundaries of the dream world and reality dissolves with the interplay of moving image, painted surfaces, and sculptural object.

The imagery of stone and water in “THE BALLAST”, creates a dense web of visual, literary and philosophical relationships which investigate issues of change, surrender and acceptance through the space of multidisciplinary installation.

After the opening of “THE BALLAST”, Anja Marais will embark on a month-long journey to Finland where she will attend the Arteles Art residency to further her investigation into art making and the study of visual poetry.

Anja Marais’ work is included in the permanent collections of the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, The Washi Museum in Japan, the Kronstadt History museum of St Petersburg Russia among others. She currently works from her studio in Miami, Florida.

By Anja Marais|2017-07-11T00:08:18-04:00August 24th, 2014|

Dori Varga at Rawlines Kunstblitz Berlin

Short film screening at kunstblitz, Berlin

Dori Varga at Rawlines

Exactly a week ago (16.07.) we held a movie screening for short films at KUNSTBLITZ for four young talents:

Nadine Poulain (Germany) showed a preview of documentary ‘U-977 – 66 Days Under Water’ followed by her art film on the same subject. ‘U-977 – 66 Days Under Water’ is a cinematic feature length documentary about the deeply human quest for freedom and self-determination. Set at the end of WW2, it is the story of Heinz Schäffer, former u-boat commander of U-977, and his crew.

Arata Mori’s (Japan) ‘Camino Negro’ is based on key concepts such as Body and Image, Repetition and Nomadism. Inspired by French modern philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze and Georges Bataille and indigenous traditions and mythologies from all over the world, Arata has created a number of multimedia artwork including photography, video, sculpture and dance performance. Camino Negro, written and directed by Arata Mori was selected for Short Film Corner at 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

Anja Marais’ (South Africa) ‘Cathedral’ is a tale about acceptance. Shot entirely in Russia, it is a visual and audio poem inspired by the poet Anna Akhmatova. Instead of fighting suffering our female protagonist decided through admission of her burden to achieve union with herself and nature. Anja’s previous film ‘Shift’ is in a permanent collection of MOCA and was also selected for the Cannes Film Festival Short Corner in 2013.

Irene Moray’s (Spain) ‘Bernarda Rodríguez’ is a mokumentary about an artist. Irene usually works for different producer companies as a still photographer but she also experiments with video and directed a couple of video art pieces. Usually her recurrent issues are dance, female body, and underwater scenes, but in this short film Irene is just having fun as she said, directed and starred about a Berlin artist.

The night was curated by my right hand, and of KUNSTBLITZ’s artists: Adela Holmes, photographer. After the show, I set down with Adela and asked her about experiences with this project.

Short film screening at KUNSTBLITZ

DV: How did you choose between works while picking out the final pieces?

AH: We received a lot of film submission for the KUNSTBLITZ Short Film selection but the four films I chose for the viewing were the ones, which kept me wondering. I wanted to see more and had the urge to find out what will happen. There was not a moment where I wanted to skip any of the scenes and to me that was the crucial aspect in choosing these films. While watching the submissions I learned that you really have to give a film a chance, which means to watch the whole thing. Sometimes, it is clear in the very beginning that this is crap but you don’t know yet if this crap is intentional which could result in pretty good. Its also tricky with the really slow art films where in that case beautiful imagery keeps you captivated. Other times its other things, but captivation I’d say is the number one interest grabber. Be it the story, the music, the expression but something has to grab you and evoke curiosity. The quality of the film does not matter, but to me the quality of an actor is a very crucial choice.

DV: What made you like the showed movies?

AH: Nadine Poulain’s film puts you in a mood of meditation while gorgeous imagery slowly interchanges, enforcing a feeling. It is important to feel a film otherwise why even bother. Arata Mori’s strangeness in combination of incredible sounds on the subject of repetition was loaded with symbolism I still don’t quite understand, but that’s OK. There is always time to dissect a film. Most impotently, the fifteen minutes felt like so much longer (in a good way) because of the amount and variety of impressions, captivating. The Anja Marais film I could watch forever. The character’s body language, mainly her walk, keeps you wondering where she might be going and what is her intend. I could follow this character thought the world wondering forever. Irene Moray’s film was interesting to watch. It was one of those where you didn’t know if this is intentionally bad and yes, a few minutes into the film the realization that it is, makes you burst out in a loud laughter. The other submissions didn’t catch my interest in that intensity as the four selections and so the decision-making was easy. It might be on a personal level but curating a show means you show what you believe in and these four filmmakers I can’t wait to follow and see what else they will do.

DV: This was your first film-related curatorial work. Was everything like you imagined at the screening?

AH: I can say I’ve learned a lot from curating my first films show. Firstly that film is a really tough nut. And that whoever dares this endeavor is valiant. Showing it is also a challenge. I was lucky to have picked filmmakers who were patient with me. Overall it went really well but hard is what I am on myself. What I should have done is not to trust the fact that it will look fantastic on a textured wall projected with a projector never tested on the wall. Some films did all right, not all. Even though I have curated many shows, the difference between curating a short films viewing and a show with still images has become apparent. It has to be quiet and dark during the viewing that sets a mood, which is hard to break once the film is over and that it sometimes results in an awkward silence. Breaking that silence means taking things in charge in a very different way then usual. Not my expertise, but thankfully the KUNSTBLITZ crew managed to save the situation, as usual.

By Anja Marais|2017-07-11T00:09:17-04:00May 2nd, 2014|

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