Clara von Stackelberg
Clara von Stackelberg
Originally from Oxford, I am a German/American artist whose work explores collective and individual identities, memories and practices through a praxis based around listening and symbolic mark-making. My practice as an ArtistEducator is built on my belief that art can be a healing agent of change and is a way of living life filled with hope. I work with a variety of media - painting, printmaking, and textiles - but my designs always begin in my sketchbook, the place in which I collect and create pages of illustrations and notes inspired by encounters in my everyday life. It is here that a core feature of my praxis began: for me, working as an artist educator can be defined as giving my presence and hearing to any Other, and encouraging dialogue.The art and act of listening is therefore key.
I am inspired by French philosopher Jacques Rancière and American author and activist bell hooks in understanding my positioning as an artisteducator as one that centers a pedagogy of care, neutrality, open-mindedness and, most importantly, recognizes that I also will always be learning. Co-creation and collaboration during both the conception and creation process are therefore equally characteristic of my method, and central to the understanding of myself as a facilitator. Drawing on my academic background studying visual culture and anthropology during my BA, researching and the act of reading and consuming knowledge in any form is where I always begin and return to in my work.The books that inspired my during this last year included Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer,
iMAE Graduation Project: The Expanding Mural
During the iMAE site-specific residency in Belfast, I worked on two graduation projects. The first was created during and inspired by a six week residency at New Lodge Arts (NLA), a community organization established in 2003 that offers accessible arts, craft, drama and music classes to people of all ages from the local community. What began as a simple mural project for the new NLA studio quickly expanded as - through my presence in the space and witness to its daily rhythms, functions and life - I realized a single image or surface could never encapsulate the beautiful richness and layers of what NLA is and does.
I therefore wanted to expand the frame and form of a traditional mural and create designs whose meaning spoke to the truth of NLA at the moment, rather than projections of a past or future. To summarize this endeavor, I developed a new concept: the 'expanding mural', a multi-image, symbolic artwork that integrates an awareness of historicity and temporality into its design, and, importantly, extends into a dispersed, small-scale, mobile form. Under this concept, I worked in collaboration with the space, NLA staff and six teenage girls from a youth program to co-create over forty symbolic designs that are playful, inclusive, speak to the NLA of today and wrap around the various walls, cupboards and radiators of the studio.These designs were brought off the walls and outside the NLA studio by being developed into temporary tattoos.
iMAE Graduation Project: The Art of Listening
The second project, titled 'The Art of Listening', was a postcard series I started in March, 2023. Each artwork on the front of the postcard is inspired by a phrase heard and recorded in my notebook during my time in Belfast, representing an artistic record of my listening, hearing and presence. Inspired by Iraqi painter Dia Al-Azzawi and American designer Lucia Eames to create intricate, monochrome designs that played with symbolism, negative space and my own bilingualism. This ongoing series captures how I also enjoy using forms that can be gifted and travel beyond the borders or boundaries of my own work or presence - both the tattoos and postcards were on display during the graduation exhibition and offered as a gift to the audience.This organic and open-ended movement has thus already begun, and I hope will continue in my future work.
Deze pagina is voor het laatst gewijzigd op 26 september 2023
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