wall sketching.

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Preparing Terra Incognita et cetera for the Centraal Museum, Utrecht.

01_site
Chris sent me this photo that he has taken for me before I went to the site at Centraal Museum, Utrecht. From previous correspondence with Meta Knol I did imagine that the wall would be quite big and that excited me.
02_wallposition
When I came to the site I tested things out with projections to decide how big the mural would be. I came up with a size which sits comfortably on the wall in relation to the space.
03_shelfposition
Then I thought of the shelf to put the props on as part of the installation after the opening.
04_shelfdetail
The shelf will accommodate all the props used in my performance during the opening – the trays of remaining cocktail flags and cocktail umbrellas, the wine glasses, a TV monitor for the video.

Perhaps I should use cocktail glasses instead?

05_colours
I also surveyed some colours for the work. The morning before I started this test I went to a local market and found these party assortments at the Blokker supermarket. It was wonderful to discover that they use mostly the same colour as the flags that I used for the Melbourne version.
06_details1
In this Utrecht version I will use cocktail umbrellas as well. What a novelty they are! Mega-fun. The good thing is that during the exhibition, the umbrellas’ shadows cast on the wall would add to the whole composition – in Melbourne there were only square-ish shadows cast by the cocktail flags.
07_details2
And this time I will make the flags with long matchsticks. I was so happy to find out that the Dutch word for matchstick is Lucifer. The bringer of light. The morning star. Satan himself, before he fell.

The matchstick was also bought in a local supermarket – a Swedish Match product. When I flew back to London, I had to light them one by one before I went in the gate, so that they would be non-flammable and I could bring them with me in the airplane.

08_sitesketchss1
A sketch of how the installation might look like during the exhibition – except that the map will be territorialised according to the local audience during the performance, like the one in Melbourne:
tintinwulia05
This Utrecht version of the territorialised map will certainly be different from the Melbourne version pictured above. I am curious to find out, as the nature of the venues are quite different as well.
09_frontviewwithmeasss
For the opening performance I will use a podium. The podium then will be taken away after the opening, leaving just the shelf. This time, a video piece will help to put the work in context, especially because I would not come again at the end of the exhibition to paint the wall back to white.
Thanks to Jet Vermaning and Camiel van Lenteren (Centraal Museum), Petra Kuipers and Chris Bestebreurtje (Motive Gallery) for making this sketching possible.

Would you like to claim a land at Terra Incognita? Come and participate!

Beyond the Dutch: Indonesia, the Netherlands and the visual arts from 1900 until now will open on 15 October 2009 at Centraal Museum, Utrecht.