'Fundamentally Female™: is a global collaboration—by, for, and about women—that identifies the universal substance of a woman: the friendships she honors, the vulnerability she exposes, the impact she makes, the intimacy she covets, the secrets she keeps. Rich in wit, wisdom, and honesty, this collection of candid and diverse voices speaks to generations of females in search of confirmation, inspiration, and joy as it peels away the layers to expose the very soul of womanhood. Master storyteller Reneé Rongen amasses a feast of quips and quotes, provocative vignettes, and tender stories that spans the gamut of the female experience, then wraps it in delicious, eclectic artwork created by artists from around the world.'
http://www.reneerongen.com/
I'm happy to say that I've contributed two artworks for this awesome book - 'Make time matter' and 'Looks say more than words' :)
'Sonnet' by Aaron Maniam
Read by Karen Ann Layton
Music: 'Lightless Dawn' by Kevin MacLeod
Video by Ivana Rezek
“Revue La Traductière n° 30/35e
Festival franco-anglais de poésie
Muzeul Florean – FIFE – 2012
Screened at Cinema La Pagode in Paris on June 10th, 2012, as part of selection of poetry films at the opening of the French-English Poetry Festival.
Aaron Maniam:
Sonnet
My earliest response was a deep fear
Of forgetting you: naughty-eyes smile, laughter-lilt,
Your hands reluctantly in mine, quizzical tilt
Of your head as you explained that, even with sheer
Willpower, you couldn’t feel the same. When first
You said that, some poetic dam burst,
My heart flooded with memories I thought
Might dissolve if not pinned to words.
Only now, fraught
With tearlessness, do I learn that forgetting might
Have been kinder. The shards are always there, stark
Sentinels keeping sleep at bay; reminders of the need to fight
To be happy. Each day, first light
Brings a shining sliver of comfort. Then awareness, sight
And all I remember begin again their passage to the dark.
'Follow the Red Line' is a project that aims to connect photographers from all over the globe through a series of conceptual photos - self-portraits containing a red line entering on the left and leaving on the right side of the photo. You can see more about the project, as well as all of the contributions received so far, at the following link: http://didyousayeager.com/eager/en/redline
Videos made for Alma Haser's Ten Seconds Project, which pays hommage to the childhood game of hide and seek. The rules of this project are loosely based on the game - the artists have 10 seconds to hide or make themselves as small as possible.
‘The Present’ is a fragment of a larger collaborative performance ‘The Return’, performed on a bridge in Sarajevo in September this year, which dealt with the issues of returning home after great trauma and moving on with life (collaboration between American, Mobius artists, and local, Bosnian artists). The performer, in order to liberate herself from fear, slowly walks on one of the arches of the bridge with a big tin pot over her head which prevents her from seeing where she is going. After successfully reaching the top of the arch even with the weight over her head, she ‘frees’ herself from this weight that was ‘on her mind’, and offers the empty pot to the ‘viewer’ as a present, to fill it with whatever they want.
This little fragment of the performance deals with liberating oneself from the heavy weight on someone's mind (memories, trauma, regrets etc.) and facing and conquering one's fears (walking a possibly dangerous path and successfully reaching the goal).
A group show of artwork inspired by archetypal themes - fundamental types of characters or situations embedded in the collective unconscious of all human beings
In this invitational exhibition, the artists were asked to create artwork dealing with an archetypal, ubiquitous, universal theme that they themselves personally find important, or feel connected to and would like to explore.
Love stories have served as inspiration to Kresimira Gojanovic and Chantal Laurin - Kresimira presents works from her 'Eros and Psyche' series, exploring the ancient myth and its psychological analysis and application to modern relationships, while Chantal illustrates an all-too-familiar love scenario in a charming and witty way. And Tatjana Politeo's works (from her 'Relationships' series) combine the nostalgic old portraits. images and texts with child-like embellishments in a scrap-book like collages, illustrating the love and reverence felt towards family members and ancestors.
Many of Willie Marlowe's artworks have references to ancient art and archeology, and in this show she presents series of four small-scale paintings with a split screen, in which organic forms speak to the forces of nature and the geometric structures refer to an eternal attempt to seek order. Nature has inspired Dijana Kocica as well - she establishes a connection between the motion of the branches of a tree and the beginnings of dance in her mixed-media installation titled "Roots of Dance".
Nikolina Ivezic, in her series of prints titled 'Bang-Bang', presents two opposite, extreme views of women - woman seen as a helpless victim, or as a violent predator, depicted in both cases in a modern, pop style due to the fact that in the modern world these depictions of women are more common than ever. Ivana Rezek's contribution to the show are illustrations of Tarot cards - which Jung regarded as representing archetypes, Leary as a blueprint for human experience, and which psychoanalysts considered as a useful tool of self-perception.
Natasa Stanisic's collages depict human longing for establishing connection with the Divine, the need for love from a cosmic 'parent', and the ideas of transcendence and the afterlife, while the works of Lili Jurinec, inspired by the energy and importance of water (both symbolic and actual) and combining photographs and watercolor paintings, evoke the primordial ocean.
Exhibition is accompanied by the screening of videos from the 'Seeking Kali' project, curated by Ria Vanden Eynde, Susan Shulman, and William Evertson. 'Seeking Kali' explores the mystery and paradox present in an archetype that is mother and goddess, yet also a symbol of destruction. Contributing artists work with the Kali archetype and myth from within their personal and cultural narrative, and the final project includes artworks and poetry from over a hundred artists, as well as videos by Jane Wang, AnnMarie Tornabene, Betty Esperanza, Bonny Finberg, Larry Cohen, and William Evertson.
Made for Seeking Kali project, curated by William Evertson, Susan Shulman, and Ria Vanden Eynde
"She is mother, she is goddess in all her glory, she devours time as a symbol of dissolution and destruction. Kali destroys ignorance and restores order."
