Category Archives: Art

Traveling without moving – Genres

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This post is the last post of a series of essays bundled under “Traveling without moving”.

The intro of that series can be found here. In hindsight, this whole series was a slow reflection, maturation, and catalyst for something that will emerge in September as “The Scaffold”

The idea of a new “genre” has been hanging around since 2018, actually. But the COVID-related lockdowns have only amplified this dissatisfaction with replicating old analog formats into their digital copy-cats, without considering that the craving for something better has a deeper foundation.

In my Nov 2020 update, I already suggested:

“People are exhausted. Tired of online meetings. Tired of being locked up in their houses. Tired of all the negative news. People crave oxygen. People crave for small safe groups where they can share, critique, ideate, play.”

As John Hagel wrote some time ago: “We all are hungry for hope and excitement”

During and post-COVID, we have seen an acceleration in the use of online meetings and other forms of remote participation. We also witnessed the rise and hype of the metaverse, web3, AI-based image and text generators, and more. 

But we have not catered to the craving for oxygen. On the contrary, we seem to flee and lose ourselves in virtual realities, suffocating ourselves in the coolness of the latest technological gadgets and hypes. 

I feel we have hardly touched the surface of what is possible and more importantly what is desirable. What is our/my ambition in this space? I have written before about this in the “Ambition Cube”

I believe we need to start working on a new “genre” for collective learning and collaboration. 

Photography in Scaffold by Milo-Profi, Begijnhof, Mechelen, BE

Over the last couple of months, I have watched, suggested, and experimented with a number of concepts that go beyond a pimped-up Zoom meeting. The spectrum included proposals like Pirate TV (gracefully hijacked – and well executed – by Mykel Dixon and Co after I mentioned it during a catalyst meeting with Josie Gibson), Beyond TV, or Beyond Netflix.

I started reflecting: is “pirate” or “rebel” really what I want to be? That may sound like heroic and sympathetic, but is that behavior leading to the desired outcome of imagining and orchestrating new narratives? And why would I even use the word “TV” in what I do? TV as a format that leaves little room for imagination?

Maybe it should be something more Newsroom style like Ian Bremmers’ GZERO channel, Ray Wang’s “DisruptTV”, or Gerd Leonhard’s KeynoteTV. Gerd probably nailed it when it comes to repurposing keynotes for the virtual world (and also very well executed).

Somewhere in 2020, I got the wonderful opportunity to collaborate on nexxworks’ “Missions”, and more specifically on the curation of Mission NXT, with Peter Hinssen as the host.

Mission NXT episode with Peter Hinssen and John Hagel

That worked quite well, and the concept was integrated into nexxworks’s Memberships Program.

In all formats above I have witnessed discussions live or pre-recorded, with or without Q&As, edited or unedited, etc.

 But these are delivery-related questions only.  

In the end, these formats are still about passive consumption of knowledge, not about working-out-loud together, or better “learning-out-loud together”, and at best they reach the level of high-quality “teaching” of simple topics.

What we seem to be craving for are formats that are mentoring and/or inquiry-based, tackling complicated and complex subjects and projects. These use in-person and virtual facilitation and immersion technologies, helping us discover new unintended opportunities and new unintended behaviors and skills.

Courtesy Ann Pendleton-Jullian from FOUR (+1) Studios

What does that genre-ambition look like? What do we really want?

 We do NOT want yet another set of virtual equivalents of “meetings”, or “events”, “workshops”, TED Talks, TV shows, etc.

We want a genre with high participation and high connectedness; with a slow tempo, we take the time to digest existing knowledge and create new knowledge. Failing and learning together through “collisions”, provocations, and collaborative and highly participatory engagements. 

This new genre adheres to a different style: away from the spectacle, and breathing a mood of silence and introspection. Not trying to impress but to take care. Away from the quick bites, quick-wins, and snackable fast-food content, but surfing on the slow waves of the long quality content format. 

Witnessing, questioning, interrogating, inquiring, iterating, all beyond the cognitive knowledge consumption.

With tools like scaffolds, collages, visual and multi-sensory collisions, assemblages, narrative environments, multiple narratives, and plurality in points of view and participants. 

It should feel like a cesarean, assisting birth to something completely new. 

It is about scaffolding narrative immersive spaces for collective learning.

Detail “Mechanisms I” by © Tanya Goel – 2019 – Picture by Petervan

For a couple of months now, I have been working in stealth mode on a new project called “The Scaffold”, which is exactly doing that. 

The Scaffold will come out of stealth next month, together with a brand new website and offering for Petervan Studios

Hope you stay on board

With warm regards,

Inspiration: Berlinde De Bruyckere

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I was one of the twenty lucky ones to be invited to an exclusive studio visit of Belgian and internationally renowned top-artist Berlinde De Bruyckere.  She represented Belgium in the 55th Venice Biennale. The studio visit was organized by the Flemish Art Magazine HART.

Still from MO.CO interview video, Berlinde preparing with grace “to Zurbaran”, from 2015

“Born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1964, where she currently lives and works, Berlinde De Bruyckere was deeply influenced by the Flemish Renaissance painting. Drawing on the legacy of great European masters, religious iconography, as well as on ancient mythology and traditional culture, her work rests upon the dialectics experienced between images of current affairs and the breath of universal and timeless parables. By experimenting with malleable materials, like wax, fabric, or animal skin, Berlinde De Bruyckere built a unique body of work, simultaneously identifiable and moving, at times also unsettling, that translates into the flesh of sculptures the paradox of ‘sublime weakness’ posited by Lao-Tzu. Working both as a painter and a sculptor, her hybrid forms with human, animal, and plant features, bear an envelope, a diaphanous skin, or a bark under which quiver very dainty veins, a sap that ceaselessly flows and witnesses the hope contained in the miracle of each life.” (Quote from the MO.CO website)”

School corridor – Studio Berlinde De Bruycker – Picture by Petervan

Her studio is based in an old refurbished school building in the working-class neighborhood “Muide” in the port area in the north of the Belgian city of Ghent. This is also the area where she was raised: her father ran a butcher’s shop 100 meters from the school. Over the years, she and her husband transformed the classrooms into different art studios. 

I managed my expectations for the visit upfront. Maybe at best, we would meet the artist during the welcome, and maybe the visit would only last one hour. 

Welcome to Berlinde De Bruyckere studio – Picture by Petervan

Great was my surprise that Berlinde was there from start to finish, including during the lunch afterward. She was very approachable and hungry for questions about her work and her practice. During lunch, Berlinde was sitting in front of me, and I felt like we had an interesting conversation about her and my art practice. 

The setting was quite exclusive: we could see work (in progress) that she was creating for her big upcoming exhibition in June 2022 in Montpellier, France. 

That exhibition is live now and runs till 2 October 2022. Here is the home page of the exhibition in MO.CO (Montpellier Contemporain) website. 

Detail TRE ARCANGELI, 2022 – Berlinde De Bruyckere – Picture by Petervan

During the group conversations around the TRE ARCANGELI, there was a sentence/question that touched me:

WELK BEELD KAN JE TROOSTEN?

WHAT IMAGE CAN COMFORT YOU? 

TRE ARCANGELI, 2022 – Berlinde De Bruyckere – Picture by Petervan

Also, the conversation about working with a team was full of insights that for sure are also applicable to corporate teams. In this particular case: how do you empathically communicate failure to the team, and decide as a group that the work done does not fit the concept and that we have to start from scratch again?

I will come back later in another post about the meaning or “concept”, about conceptual art, conceptual business, and conceptual curation.

Having this opportunity to be in direct and close contact with a professional artist is super inspiring, and it influences my own work and practice in the following ways:

Focus: no distractions, silence, solitude

Professionalism: time for reflection, and discipline of doing the work, every day

Attitude: the combination of integrity, modesty, subduedness, stillness, respect

The value of a concept

To go as far as one wants

Making a group that is forced together

Showing its scars and wounds

The blanket is a metaphor for our failing society

Still from MO.CO interview video

When you leave the show and you feel that the themes are tough, it’s not easy to find words that express what you, as a spectator, felt about the show. 

But you should leave with a feeling of hope

I will come back in September on this feeling of hope, or rather our longing and yearning for hope and excitement.

Warmly,

Petervan Studios – Update Feb 2022 – The Scaffold

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Here is the latest update on Petervan Studios. The previous update already goes back to June 2021.

The family is good. Somehow, we managed not to get infected by the virus. We all got boostered and respected safety measures to the max. Most of my time, I spent home in my studio and only came out for some grocery shopping, some visits to art exhibitions, and delivering the taxi service to my daughter’s school and horse stables. Zero travel since October 2019, but I cannot say I miss it.

At this moment, it looks like we are getting out of the woods of the 5th Covid wave, and measures in Belgium are getting relaxed. Partying is allowed again as of 18 Feb 2022.

More importantly: my father is still alive and kicking, and he celebrated his 90th birthday in Sep 2022!

What else?

The Bricks Project

For those who remember, this is my “zen” project. Drawing bricks in silence. Many bricks. 8,255 Bricks at the time of writing this post:

Exhibitions

Since the last update, I visited the following art exhibitions:

Luc Deleu, De Singel, Antwerp, Aug 2021

Drawing Art, BOZAR, Brussels, Sep 2021

ING Laughing Art, ING Gallery, Brussels, Sep 2021

David Hockney, BOZAR, Brussels, Oct 2021

Masculinities, FOMU, Antwerp, Nov 2021

Re-Collect, FOMU, Antwerp, Nov 2021

Rinus Van de Velde, Tim Van Laer Gallery, Antwerp, Nov 2021

Train Modernity, KMSK, Brussels, Nov 2021

Fabrice Samyn, KMSK, Brussels, Nov 2021

Pop-Art, SMAK, Ghent, Feb 2022

Chaos, Alex Vervoordt, Wijnegem, Feb 2022

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Zeno X, Antwerp, Feb 2022

David Claerbout – The Close, Brugge, Feb 2022

Luc Deleu inspired by Buckminster Fuller

Detail of painting by Rinus Van de Velde – 2021

Hippie Elias (Self portret) by Etienne Elias – 1970

Fabrice Samyn – Detail from Eve&Adam – 2018

Still from The Close – David Claerbout – 2022

Outdoors

Weather did not treat us well. My recollection is one of all shades of grey and lots of rain from August 2021 till Feb 2022. Only the beginning of Sep 2021 was decent. But I have some nice winter fog pictures from my strolls and bicycle rides:

Horses

Astrid made a lot of progress in horse-riding. She won the 2nd price at a local dressage competition, and she also enjoys jumping a lot.

Talking about Astrid, in Dec 2021 she celebrated her 16th birthday. Where has the time gone?

Traveling Without Moving project

Travelling without Moving (TWM) is a series of essays documenting my mental and philosophical journey in 2020-2022.

The main outline was published in November 2020, and in the meantime, several episodes have been released. Since the last Petervan Studios update, I published one more essay on “Studios”.

There are a couple more in the pipeline, but I have a hunch that these will morph into The Scaffold project (see later in this post).

Books

Check out my GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3085594-peter-auwera

Some highlights

Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine by Geoff Manaugh, Nicola Twilley

Where Is My Flying Car? by J. Storrs Hall

Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action by J.F. Martel

Lichamen by Peter Verhelst

Petervan Rides

Since July 2019, I publish every month a Spotify List with new releases combined with some oldies from the 60ies, 70ies, and beyond. Search for “Petervan Ride” and select “playlists”. Subjective selection of course, as driven only by my personal taste (or lack thereof).

Here is the latest Ride from Feb 2022, still being populated as we publish this post.

I suggest you play it in shuffle mode, it enhances the surprise experience.

My Art Practice

I did not produce much artwork. I was very focused on a work-project that required all my attention and focus. I shared most of my recent art work via my Facebook page, or on this blog under the heading “Sine Parole”. Some “highlights” if I can say that about my own work:

Petervan Artworks © 2022 – Digital scribble on iPad

Petervan Artworks © 2022 – Digital scribble on iPad

Professionalisation of Petervan Studios Art Practice

As from March 2022, I will focus on the professionalization of my art practice. I have hired a coach to help me with that. We are working with a digital archiving platform with an API that is steering the show & tell of my analogue and digital artworks. There will also be an integration with a shopping environment, and an online VR exhibition environment. There is also a brand-new website for Petervan Studios in the making. This new online environment will also become the home for a new project, working title “The Scaffold”, see below

Freelance Projects

I have been deeply involved and committed as architect and head of design of an 100% on-line learning expedition running from Sep 2021 till Feb 2022. We just landed the closing session. We still want to produce a “scrapbook” that documents the journey by end Feb 2022. The experience came in two chapters. The first chapter was a technology refresh on digital identity, infrastructure, VR, Robotics, Web3, and UX. The second chapter was about developing a practice of innovation for wicked problems, and how to design for emergence in complex adaptive systems.

I had the chance to collaborate with professional facilitation and innovation partners, and a collective of “guides” – some really smart people – that helped us shape and deliver the content.

The Scaffold

The learning expedition mentioned above had a great impact on me and the way I look at “events”. I believe I am onto something that may be the start of a new “genre” of learning studios. And I have started talking and pitching to potential partners and investors. Here is the high-level pitch:

The Scaffold is a 100% online learning studio for creating new knowledge based on the passion of the explorer. 

The Scaffold can be seen as a form of Pop-Up school and/or an experimentation-based learning playground.

The Scaffold is planned as a three-year research cycle, with cohorts joining an online virtual playground for six-month intensive high-impact expeditions where together with the faculty they will create new knowledge in collaboration. 

The curriculum of the expeditions is composed of several interventions, interruptions, and provocations anchored in the reality of a client’s project. The project serves as a vehicle to trigger new and imaginative thinking. 

The Scaffold is a “scaffold” for something much bigger, something that could lead to a movement and foundation for better futures.

More about that later, probably in the second half of 2022. I hope to have a first client cohort signed-up by then.

So, in summary, what’s next?

The plan for the coming months is to work/play on:

Professionalizing my art practice

Pitch and realize my project “The Scaffold”

So, that’s it for this edition. If there is something worth reporting, next update is for Sep 2022.

Warmest,

5 books to help you understand (and profit from) global trends

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The time that we could organise our companies without acting too much on global evolutions lies long behind us. Leaders understand more than ever that tackling world challenges not only creates a better context for all of us to live in but also presents fantastic business opportunities. It’s why am thrilled to be one of the curators of nexxworks’ Mission NXT program, designed to help leaders turn global trends into opportunities.

For those who are truly passionate about fostering this type of outside in vision, here are five (zero bullshit) books that fundamentally changed and formed my thinking in the matter over the years.

Benjamin Bratton – The Revenge of the Real (2021)

The pandemic showed us that we are completely unprepared to cope with our current deeply entangled world. According to Bratton, we need a “positive biopolitics” and an AI-based instrumentation of the world. He offers a refreshing way of thinking about sensors which is quite different from the worn out song about the surveillance state.

Ann Pendleton Jullian and John Seely Brown – Design Unbound (2018)

Read this if you want to understand how you can design for emergence in the Never Normal. You’ll need your full attention (it’s not a ‘light reading’ project), but in return you’ll receive two volumes of unique and well researched insights to help you better see what is and what can become. This is truly one of the most important business books I ever read.

Bruno Latour – Down to Earth (2018)

Latour calls for a third way in climate politics which is left nor right: a path between libertarian globalism, and leftist localism. One that is anchored in planet earth. Read this if you want to get to know one of the most important philosophers of the 21st century.

Jenny E. Sabin and Peter Lloyd Jones – LabStudio (2017)

Sabin and Lloyd Jones tackle the concept of the research design laboratory in which funded research and trans-disciplinary participants achieve radical advances in science, design, and applied architectural practice. The book demonstrates new approaches to more traditional design studio and hypothesis-led research that are complementary, iterative, experimental, and reciprocal.

Christopher Alexander – The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle Between Two World-Systems (2012)

This real life story of American architect Christopher Alexander designing and building the Eishin university campus in Japan serves as an analogy for the battle between two fundamentally different ways of shaping our world. One system places emphasis beauty, on subtleties, on finesse, on the structure of adaptation that makes each tiny part fit into the larger context. The other system is concerned with efficiency, with money, power and control, stressing the more gross aspects of size, speed, and profit. This second, “business-as-usual” system is incapable of enabling the emotional, whole-making side of human life, according to Alexander, who then goes on to present a new architecture.

Warmest,

This post was originally posted on the nexxworks company blog, on the occasion of Mission NXT, which I help curate

Petervan’s Delicacies – 6 Oct 2021

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delicacies

As usual, an incoherent, irregular, unpredictable collection of interesting sparks. Handpicked, no robots. Minimalism in curation. There is a shitload of new stuff this month. I tried to be extra disciplined and clean out the obvious, and what you’ve probably already seen elsewhere. Spread the word. Enjoy!

If you can’t get enough of these and want more, you can hang on to the firehose, the extended version of Petervan’s Delicacies in REVUE. Also in this edition with loads of videos. Subscribe here: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/petervan

Traveling without moving – Studios

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This post is part of a series of essays bundled under “Traveling without moving”.

Intro of that series can be found here.

Petervan Pictures © 2021 – Travelling Without Moving

After the Inappropriate post of begin June 2021 we continue with “Studios”, a way of collaborating together as a practice of practices.

In my previous life (2009-2016), I architected several immersive learning experiences for SWIFT’s annual conference Sibos. It was called Innotribe @ Sibos. Already then, I was convinced that learning should be more than the transfer of knowledge by a speaker on a stage (or in a Zoom window) talking to a passive audience. I wanted to resonate with the audience at a level beyond the pure cognitive. I wanted the experts to talk with the audience in immersive settings. We got quiet far in that ambition during the 2016 edition, where physical and mental space formed a coherent and harmonious backdrop and context for several creative learning sessions.

Innotribe human-artistic space 2016

In 2016, I sensed there was an untapped potential for building cognitive and non-cognitive equity by integrating artists into the mix. Not as entertainment, but in support of the content by creating a multidisciplinary mix of left and right brain dispositions. “A bridge too far” was the harsh judgement. I took a one-year sabbatical, never went back, and started Petervan’s Studios.

I now had plenty of room to experiment with real and virtual paint, sound- and video-production tools, animation, collaboration with artists, etc. And was invited as a lead experience designer for a couple of high-touch leadership experiences.

The plural “S” and the end of Petervan StudioS was inspired by Nelly Ben Hayoun StudioS, a weird mix of interrogations and provocations using different studio disciplines from writing, to painting, through video and soundscape, film productions, theatre, drama, experiences, etc. Multiple studios under one – albeit often virtual – roof.

With Petervan StudioS, my ambition is to design and architect creative interventions, interruptions, and provocations. Formats can be curations, events, group experiences, expeditions,  immersions, exhibitions, analog and digital artwork and productions, performances, writings, poems, blogs, installations, soundscapes, recordings, documentaries, and time capsules.

Studios are more than a glorified term for artworks, workshops, or events.

A studio is a practice of practices.

This is a good moment to consider FOUR (+1) STUDIOS (PDF), Ann Pendleton-Jullian’s take on StudioS, a 254-page long articulation and inquiry of the subject.

“Written from the perspective of an architect, these papers talk about design and design thinking, the social environment of practice of the studio, and how the architectural design studio and its methodologies have evolved over time to respond to evolving social environments and practices”

What follows is my personal interpretation of Ann’s insights, based on extensive reading and studying of her writings and transcribing many of her video vignettes.

Four (+1) Studios is about applying the principles, work methods and ethics of an architecture studio to the domain of system and organizational design.

Studios are where the practice takes place and where a practice of practices is forged and then evolves in a space. 

A practice is a way of doing. It usually has a very strong task component, but critically it has to do with being embodied in a context. 

Future Plans 1970-2020 – Luc Delue and T.O.P. Office – De Singel, Antwerp

The learning of a practice involves becoming a member of a community of practice. Think of guilds in the Middle Ages.

But it is more than a community of specialized skills or artisans.

For example, if you consider the handling of a pipette in a lab, and you want to work with a Petri dish low and behold, each lab may train their folks to hold their pipette in a certain way, the way you hold that pipette influences the visual that’s never been recorded. 

In other words, the community of practice develops his own signaling, that create the community and amplify kind of tacit communication in very powerful ways that makes that community a practice.

The studio combines different practices. An architecture studio is multi-disciplinary: a combination of aesthetic, ethical, engineering, scientific, societal, political, philosophical, and anthropological skills. A combination of material, societal, and mental ecologies. In the end, architecture is about designing spaces for messy human beings to grow and develop at their best.

We can architect buildings, spaces, things. But we can also architect contexts, less tangible artifacts that let a project emerge and evolve into preferred and desired futures.

There are five key aspects of studio, which make it unique from other teaching and learning environments. 

The studio is initiated by and formulated around problems, yet it is not specifically about solving problems. 

It is profoundly social in nature and structured. 

It is a highly critical and discursive environment using critiques – not criticism 

It’s deeply synthetic in nature in contrast to teaching and learning environments that operate as compartmentalized, a specialized knowledge basis. 

and five, it operates through the integration of knowledge with skills.

Design studio and the student apprentice’s journey (courtesy Ann Pendleton-Jullian)

Studios are a proven way of failing and recovering together, a repurposing of the architecture studio practice of practices.

There are three kinds of studios.

The teaching studios, where you’re trying to teach something. It is about the didactic transfer of knowledge.

The mentoring studios, where you now are giving a project and helping a student move through that project.

The inquiry-based or research studios; these can be real-world projects, and real world, richly networked experiences.

Illustration courtesy Ann Pendleton-Jullian

Combining these different types of studios has become a key component of my client work in 2019-2021.

For one client we developed a leadership studio around the topic of ambiguity. For another client, we are creating an online expedition based on conversation moments and thinking experiences, using different types of “Guides”. Some guides have a more didactical role of transferring knowledge (teaching studios), other guides have an enabling/mentoring role (mentoring studios), and yet other participants inject new ways of thinking about the future, other than scenario planning (inquiry based studios).

Other clients ask us to design learning experiments: multiple parallel lines of inquiry, keeping multiple options open, resisting the urge to come to quick resolutions, and building up cognitive equity, together. These online sessions are designed as facilitated studios: a proven way of failing and recovering together, as an embodied learning.

Doing projects like these require my 100% focus and attention.

They require me too deeply immersive myself in the client’s problem and project space.

I am human, and my quality attention is scarce, not unlimited, and I need pauses for reflection and recalibration.

It is why I only can accept one such project per year.

Because I want to keep the balance and attention right.

Next time in Travelling Without Moving, we’ll talk about “Genres”, a set of different practices to weave content and engagement into video learning experiences.

Hope you stay on board.

Warmest,

Zen and the Art of Drawing Bricks

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A couple of weeks ago, I discovered by accident a way to get myself in a zen-state of total peace and relaxation. Not that I feel super hectic or nervous, or something like that. Not that I need it. Not that I was in search for it. I just stumbled upon it and I really liked it.

Petervan Artwork © 2021 – 5000 Bricks – Soundscape by Petervan in Logic Pro

It is the very simple – highly repetitive – practice of drawing many many little bricks, black ink on white paper. I am doing this when I am completely alone in my studio, with some repetitive music in the background (see later), and the sound of a ticking clock.

The only other things I hear/notice is the sound of the pen softly scratching the paper, the sound of my breath, a motorcycle or car or plane passing by in a soft distance, a door opening/closing somewhere in the house, sometimes a dog barking, or a dove crying.

I am old enough to remember reading somewhere in the eighties Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” from 1974.

“As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details–be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.”

It made me think about the repetive art of Roman Opalka who spent a big part of his life drawing numbers from one to infinity.

Roman Opalka by Lothar Wolleh – Sep 2002

But I don’t talk nor record my words while drawing my bricks. I am silent. And listen to repetitive soundscapes. I was looking for some “non-intrusive music”, music without meaning, music without noise, something that did not distract from the content (aka the bricks), but was rather amplifying it. I tried several ambients from Brian Eno, or songs from Robert Frip’s Music for Quiet Moments series and many more.

Until I discovered this AI-auto-generated music library by @alex_bainter.

The “song” that I have used most so far is called “Lullaby”.

Check it out at: https://play.generative.fm/library

Ann Pendleton-Jullian pointed me in the direction of Lu Qing’s work. Ly Qing is the spouse of Ai Weiwei, but she is always in background, not looking for press attention. When browsing her work, I stumbled upon this repetitive work, acrylic blocks on a silk roll of about 20 meters long and 83 cm wide.

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Lu Qing

This ink painting on a bolt of silk is partially unrolled and drapes over a table. Small dark-grey squares in acrylic paint almost fill the fabric and create a grid. Departing from her early abstract oil paintings, beginning in 2000, Lu Qing has painted on a twenty-five-metre bolt of silk that she buys each year. Small geometric shapes are painstakingly painted on the fabric over the course of the year. Regardless of how much of the cloth is painted, Lu considers the painting complete at the end of the year and begins with a new bolt the next year. The varying shades of dark grey in the work indicate changes in Lu’s emotional state and in the pressure she exerted, and also recall the different shades of black in traditional Chinese painting. The work is a meditative practice in which the process is valued over the end product, and it functions as an abstract record of emotion and time. (from https://collections.mplus.org.hk/en/objects/untitled-2012687)

I ran to my attic, found a roll of cheap white paper of 1 meter wide and 5 meter long, and started drawing. What you see in the video above are the first 5,000 bricks of a “long” work.

Josie Gibson from The Catalyst Network pointed out that my work was multilayered, with the layers being Peace, Mind Wandering, Kairos, Repetitive work, Musical memory anchors.

In my opinion, it also has layers of different types of attention.

Attention to the drawing itself: getting the pattern right, working without no or a minimum of grid/supporting lines, drawing “perfect” bricks, made in one line-flow, for each of them.

Attention to the mind-wandering: making small (at times only mental) notes, reflections about a project, my daughter, my spouse etc.

It’s useless, I know. But it brings me in contact with an unexplored part of myself. It brings me in a Zen state, a state of deep calm and happiness. I am literately and metaphorically losing my time, my-self. Or am I re-finding my-self?

Doing something. Doing the work. Getting lost. In time and space that is. Being one with my practice: it is more important than end product.

Warmest,