Mr. & Mrs. Gray
ARTiculAction
But we do not want to be paternalistic. We do not want to tell others what to do or what to think, but we hope to inspire them to change their behaviour. With 10 Minutes of Plastic Debris or with our Paperboat project we hope to create awareness for our environmental situation. We hope that people will reconsider the worth of that which they throw away, where they dispose it an what effect it has on their environment in a playful and inspiring manner. You can repeatedly tell people about the Atlantic garbage patch, but that's an abstract concept. But to see the amount of plastic rubbish you can gather on a field in 10 minutes makes the mountain of waste we create more tangible. As you have remarked in your artist's statement "Mr. & Mrs. Gray is about faith in the possibilities that these nuances have to offer. It symbolises looking from different angles, discovering - I daresay, hidden- possibilities" I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?
2013 Fabric, plastic waste, textile spray can and sand
values determine the framework through which we see the world. A new design, may it be a piece of furniture or a social concept, is often determined by what it shouldn't do and by the limitations, and after we've eliminated all the hazards and risks we try to make something nice with what's left.
Personal experiences can be valuable as a starting point to make a work, but during the creative process you have to be able to detach yourself from this personal experience.
We do not believe in letting ourselves be restricted by the limitations we encounter, and complaining and despairing over everything that's wrong. We do believe in focussing on the possibilities, appreciate the value of what we have and figure out how to turn it into something better. That's why our work is about those possibilities, chances and new adventures often to be found in the smallest and most trivial things, the things we see when we look at the word with rapt attention.
For us a creative process is like making a 3-dimensional object, like a sculpting with a piece of marble. All the sides of the object have to be equally interesting, so you have to approach the subject from multiple perspectives. Working from a singular personal experience is like only working on the front and neglecting the backside. And just like with a block of marble, you keep subtracting more and more from the block until you're left with the essence of the work, and there's nothing you need to subtract anymore.
10 Minutes of Plastic Debris and 54-Shots Sitting Down are about the decay of our society, the apathy, the numbness. The works address this carelessness and the inadvertence. 54-Shots Sitting Down for instance is saying: The nails in the public benches are beautiful!
Personal experiences are the incentives of the artist. They colour the work and the opinion of those who see the work with knowledge of these experiences, but are not leading in our creative process. 73