Jakob Kolding: Pieces
Building on Kolding鈥檚 ongoing interest in the construction of identities, Pieces brings together a wide range of visual narratives converging on continuous negotiations between individual and society. The concept of symbiosis plays a key role in this exhibition. Echoing the above quote by Philip K. Dick it is posed as a counterpoint to the increasingly dominant authoritarian trends and principles of exclusion and isolation in contemporary societies and politics. Kolding鈥檚 understanding of symbiosis is not that of a flower-scented utopia where all live harmoniously - symbiotic relationships can of course be mutually beneficial as well as harmful - but rather in the inevitable interconnectivity that it entails. A conflicting collective, but a collective nevertheless.
Sculptural works of cut-out figures are placed around the exhibition space. In each work, the silhouette is dictated by one source, with the imagery 鈥渋nside鈥� coming from another, allowing for two images to be present at the same time, as part of one another. This creates a feed-back loop between two elements, destabilising their relationship internally, as a conflicted body as well as influencing the relationship to the other figures and to visitors. Like a dance perhaps, or, as seen from the back, a shadow play of vaguely defined bodies and positions.
Returning to the idea of symbiosis, it becomes clear that Kolding鈥檚 interest is not in an outcome of harmony or of the 鈥漴ight鈥� pairing. It is a question of what happens when we acknowledge that several ideas and identities, elements and people can co-exist, that they can operate in the same space. The openness that is being sought is not an act of nihilism, but, on the contrary, an insistence on the importance of looking for meaning 鈥� how it is made and by whom. With Pieces, Kolding constructs an in-between world where context and meaning are continually shifting, giving way to new means of understanding and ways of being.
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Building on Kolding鈥檚 ongoing interest in the construction of identities, Pieces brings together a wide range of visual narratives converging on continuous negotiations between individual and society. The concept of symbiosis plays a key role in this exhibition. Echoing the above quote by Philip K. Dick it is posed as a counterpoint to the increasingly dominant authoritarian trends and principles of exclusion and isolation in contemporary societies and politics. Kolding鈥檚 understanding of symbiosis is not that of a flower-scented utopia where all live harmoniously - symbiotic relationships can of course be mutually beneficial as well as harmful - but rather in the inevitable interconnectivity that it entails. A conflicting collective, but a collective nevertheless.
Sculptural works of cut-out figures are placed around the exhibition space. In each work, the silhouette is dictated by one source, with the imagery 鈥渋nside鈥� coming from another, allowing for two images to be present at the same time, as part of one another. This creates a feed-back loop between two elements, destabilising their relationship internally, as a conflicted body as well as influencing the relationship to the other figures and to visitors. Like a dance perhaps, or, as seen from the back, a shadow play of vaguely defined bodies and positions.
Returning to the idea of symbiosis, it becomes clear that Kolding鈥檚 interest is not in an outcome of harmony or of the 鈥漴ight鈥� pairing. It is a question of what happens when we acknowledge that several ideas and identities, elements and people can co-exist, that they can operate in the same space. The openness that is being sought is not an act of nihilism, but, on the contrary, an insistence on the importance of looking for meaning 鈥� how it is made and by whom. With Pieces, Kolding constructs an in-between world where context and meaning are continually shifting, giving way to new means of understanding and ways of being.
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