"Pavilion Dream" (transparent sticky tape)
Vlaams Cultuurhuis De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, 2008
"Pavilion Dream" is an idea for a site-specific installation in mind for the pavilion designed by Gerrit Rietveld, investigating a Japanese concept of ma* and commenting on the building's architecture while trying to turn it into sculpture.
During the exhibition "Kopie - Documented Now!" I copied the concept and material by executing it in the given space. Instead of presenting my work in a specially constructed wooden box for each artist, I exposed the emptiness of such a box by creating a labyrinth like structure out of sticky tape. I chose to emphasise the space in between following the grid of the ceiling by connecting those points to the floor using the sticky quality of the tape. This made the emptiness visible and created an environment for interaction of the visitor. The stickiness of the tape was collecting the dust and the residue of the encounters, while transparency and glossiness created a play of light reflections and vibrations captures by the fragile structure.
ma* - is Japanese word which can be roughly translated as gap, space, pause, interval, blank, room, rest, time or opening. Thus ma includes time, space, space-time, a multiplicity of meanings and at the same time the conciseness of the single word that makes ma a unique conceptual term, without parallel in other languages.
Photographs by Roel Backaert