For our second collaboration at Rondo Sztuki Gallery, borne out of shared interests in found objects, the archive, narrative, and collective or personal memories, we have decided to develop something that would focus on the past through an array of found objects that belonged to a man named ‘Henry’, supposed to be a common ancestor of both artists. The work is titled Motherland and through the seemingly disparate objects, when perceived together, they tell a story about finding your place in the world and following your dreams about a better life.
The Connect Project and its experimental form presented many challenges for us as artists. The combination of twostrangers was a risky operation, but in our case it brought about a most positive effect. During the cooperation, we found many common interests and ways of working, out of which many possible new artworks could be generated. Obviously, there were differences of opinion along the way, but through committed dialogue we worked out our differences, so that we could reach a successful compromise and a richly rewarding experience overall.
PL:
W ramach współpracy nad projektem do Ronda Sztuki postanowiliśmy rozwinąć coś, co wynikałoby z naszych wspólnych zainteresowań wokół przeszłych, narracyjnych, osobistych lub też zbiorowych wspomnień. Skupiliśmy się na grupie znalezionych przedmiotów, należących do człowieka imieniem „Henry”, który rzekomo miałby być wspólnym przodkiem obojga artystów. Pracę zatytułowaliśmy Motherland i jest to historia o poszukiwaniu swojego miejsca na świecie oraz podążaniu za marzeniami oraz lepszym życiem.
Projekt Connect i jego eksperymentalna forma stwarzały wiele wyzwań dla nas jako artystów. Połączenie w pary dwojga nieznajomych było ryzykownym zabiegiem, ale w naszym przypadku przyniosło to jak najbardziej pozytywny efekt. Podczas współpracy znaleźliśmy wiele wspólnych zainteresowań i sposobów pracy, z których można było wytworzyć wiele nowych dzieł sztuki. Oczywiście – pojawiały się różnice zdań, ale proces dialogu weryfikował rozbieżności, dzięki czemu mogliśmy osiągnąć kompromis.
Marcin Czarnopyś, Kelise Franclemont. ‘Motherland (a diary)’, 2017, archival installation of found objects, in ‘Connect: Katowice and London’ at Rondo Sztuki Gallery, Katowice, Poland. Image courtesy Rondo Gallery and Connect: Art Projects. Photo credit Michał Jędrzejowski.
One late afternoon in November, Marcin and Kelise wandered into an old bookstore in Wrocław’s main town square. A book, dated 1856 on the ragged spine and gently reeking of cigar smoke, fell into Marcin’s hands: “Neueste Nachrichten aus Dem Reiche Gottes”, or as Google Translate suggests: “Latest News from the Kingdom of God” by Bierzigster Iargang. As we thumbed through the contents, a postage-stamp sized portrait of a woman fluttered from between the pages:
Intrigued and 40 złoty poorer, the book was ours.
Who was Bierzigster Iargang? (We called him “BJ” for short). The final pages of the book revealed some of his story:
BJ was born in Przemyśl (Marcin’s home town!), to a German/Polish family that owned several coal mines in the Silesian area. A religious and righteous man, yet troubled by the corruptions that accompany great wealth, BJ received a series of heavenly visions over the course of a year – which he called, “Neueste Nachrichten aus Dem Reiche Gottes (Latest news from the kingdom of God)”, wrote them all down and published in a book of the same title. This was directly followed by a spiritual calling to go to New York (where Kelise’s family originates) as a missionary, and he traveled to America around 1856-7, leaving his wife and six daughters behind until he could get settled and send for them to join him.
But in New York, he seems to have disappeared, presumed dead, shortly after he arrived and his family never heard from him again.
Our project aim is to unravel the mystery about the life and death Bierzigster (BJ) Iargang, and to discover the truth about what connects his story to Marcin and Kelise.
Proposed outcome
Currently we are working with an installation of found objects, text/prints, photos, and video which will present our research into BJ’s life as well as present the found connections between him, Marcin, and Kelise, (and particular, the artists want to unpick already discovered common ancestry between Marcin and Kelise).
Timeline
June to Nov 2016: Kelise and Marcin communicate via email and regular post to become acquainted and discuss project ideas.
Nov 2016: Kelise visited Marcin in Wrocław, to work together and progress one or more project ideas
Dec 2016: Kelise and Marcin present work in Connect:Katowice in London at Hornsey Town Hall with Kelise to deliver talk/workshop around their project which both worked on together to develop (working ideas include: a book-making workshop, souvenir exchange, story-telling, etc.)
Dec 2016 to June 2017: Marcin and Kelise continue to work over email and regular post to develop the project
June 2017: final work(s) and/or documentation presented in Katowice, Poland
Kelise Franclemont, ‘Postcards from the Land of No People (wish you were here)’, 2015, postcard prints in a wooden rack. Image courtesy the artist.
Image courtesy Antonia Jackson.
Fragments and Traces: l’invitation au voyage
Kelise Franclemont and Antonia Jackson explore memory, travel, and passage of time through paintings, installation, and new media. Throughout each day, along with the exhibition of artworks, Antonia and Kelise will engage visitors in trading memories and creating new ones in an ongoing make-one/take-one souvenir postcard exchange.
Wandsworth Common Station, Platform 1 in London, UK. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
One subsequent weekends at Platform 1 Gallery are two more shows: “Transcending” from artist Ema Mano Epps with Verica Kovacevska and Norman Mine, and finally, “Fragment” by sculptor Anna Flemming.
Kelise Franclemont, installation view ‘A Walk through Palestine (collectable, artefact, relic, souvenir)’, 2015, installation of sound, printed posters, and found objects. Image courtesy the artist.
Kelise Franclemont, detail of ‘A Walk through Palestine (collectable, artefact, relic, souvenir)’, 2015, installation of sound, printed posters, and found objects. Image courtesy the artist.
This small stone was once part of pleasing mathematics in tessellated patterns… a fan, a leaf, a flower. It remained in that belonging for nearly 2000 years until one day, it was dislocated from its home. In this instant, this fragment was transformed from artefact into another kind of ruin. A relic, this souvenir now belongs to no more than a memory, a resurrected existence in minutes and megabytes, and thus has become something much easier to destroy and to forget.
If you missed seeing “Ruins of Time” at The Crypt Gallery in St Pancras, click the link to walk through the virtual tour here: https://vimeo.com/154992121 [Vimeo, duration 13:02 minutes]. My work appears at 4:45.
Kelise Franclemont, detail ‘A Walk through Palestine’, 2015, iPhone and video, duration 10:00mins (looped)
More links and information
You can see “A Walk through Palestine” in the upcoming “Ruins of Time” exhibition at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras, London – 25 through 30 November 2015 – In the first project by London Munich Exchange [LME], 13 British and German artists descend into The Crypt beneath St Pancras to stage “Ruins of Time”, an exhibition of contemporary art that explores “time and its specific expression in the architecture of the site”.
“A Walk through Palestine” was first exhibited in the MA Fine Art Summer Show 2015 at Chelsea College of Arts, London – 4 through 12 September 2015 – Helena Anderson from Candid Arts Magazine writes, “Some artists whose work stood out among the crowd were Kelise Franclemont, whose video, sound, and found object installation ‘a walk through Palestine (collectable, artefact, relic, souvenir)’ raised important questions of historical accuracy, the ethics of tourism, and cultural heritage”
Kelise Franclemont, installation view ‘A Walk through Palestine (collectable, artefact, relic, souvenir)’, 2015, installation of sound, printed posters, and found objects. Image courtesy the artist.
Kelise Franclemont, detail of ‘A Walk through Palestine (collectable, artefact, relic, souvenir)’, 2015, installation. Image courtesy the artist.
Scan for the audio guide that accompanies ‘A Walk Through Palestine’
This small stone was once part of pleasing mathematics in tessellated patterns… a fan, a leaf, a flower. It remained in that belonging for nearly 2000 years until one day, it was dislocated from its home. In this instant, this fragment was transformed from artefact into another kind of ruin. A relic, this souvenir now belongs to no more than a memory, a resurrected existence in minutes and megabytes, and thus has become something much easier to destroy and to forget.
Even the photos we take on our smartphones, stolen memories are remade to suit our own histories.
As seen in:
MA Fine Art Postgraduate Summer Show 2015
at Chelsea College of Arts, London
More links and info about the MA Fine Art Summer Show
“Some artists whose work stood out among the crowd were Kelise Franclemont, whose video, sound, and found object installation ‘a walk through Palestine (collectable, artefact, relic, souvenir)’ raised important questions of historical accuracy, the ethics of tourism, and cultural heritage”
Live Tweet by Reedah from Mica Gallery – 5 September 2015
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Kelise Franclemont, Jonathan Slaughter. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
A group of runners will pace around and around and around this uncommonly short course (of approximately 330m) in order to make up the marathon distance of 42K. Some people sign up for runs like this for the challenge, or to achieve a particular fitness goal; others have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon.
“Making the mundane tolerable”
What else happens besides work in the workplace? Outside the norm when the conventions of behaviour are relaxed for a while. A ritual that acts as a pressure valve. Making the mundane tolerable.
— Adam Zoltowski, artist and curator of “Office Party” (12 Nov – 5 Dec 2014)
This particular race is a response to the site itself…a circular office would be a perfect (and perfectly ridiculous) race track demonstrating and documenting (thru video and still image), the silliness that is running for 4-6 hours at a time (marathon runners have to be a bit mad no?) as well as the silliness that is containing this 42km in a 350 metre track (130 laps, give or take)…
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Kelise Franclemont, Jonathan Slaughter. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
A number of people from the Right to Movement running club have been invited to participate, as a sort of preparation for the upcoming Palestine Marathon in Bethlehem, which sees runners going around a necessarily abbreviated course multiple times because an enormous concrete wall prevents a single circuitous route of 42K.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
At the same time, this race would be reminiscent of “the rat race” that this office space once embodied; the endless cycle of getting up, going to work, “making a living”, coming home, sleep, get up again next day, and start again. Over and over. Another kind of madness…
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Kelise Franclemont. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Suddenly this race becomes an experiment in the subjectivity of time and place…there will be no markers along the course to indicate distance, nor will there be a race clock, leaving the runner to decide: when is enough, enough.
What was the point of this “good cause” marathon, we all wondered… a race in which we clamour for attention, look at me doing good things, yet at the end, almost no one would bear witness but the runners themselves? An expression of the artist trying once again to be noticed, to be seen as working hard, striving determinedly to be recognised for her passionate sincere goodwill… soon easily forgotten as a near-nothingness. All that hard work for nothing changed at all. Isn’t that what much of activism feels like, a rush of runner’s high followed by numbness and forgetting as soon as a shiny new start-line banner is unfurled, and the next race is called.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Nalini Thapen. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Exhibition details: “Office Sessions III” is at Anchorage House, 2 Clove Crescent, E14 2BE (East India on the DLR).
“Office Sessions III” is open to the public on all three floors (4-6) on the following dates:
27 November 2014: 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
29 November 2014: 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
30 November 2014: 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Please note there is also a performance piece by Kelise Franclemont scheduled on this date from 11AM, “Right to Movement Rat Race (an exercise in subjectivity and space)”, so look out for the marathon runners (and maybe stick around to cheer them on)!
5 December 2014: 6:30 PM til late
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Jonathan Slaughter, Kelise Franclemont, Robin, Nalini Thapen. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
From ‘Taxi Driver Dialogue’, 2013, audio and installation, 30 minutes, in 2013 BA Summer Show at Chelsea College of Arts, London. Image courtesy Kelise Franclemont.
‘taxi driver dialogue, on Highway 1 halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’
2013, installation and digital audio with subtitles, duration 00:30:00 minutes
The listener becomes the conveyor of an unlikely conversation between two taxi drivers that starts and ends somewhere between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and back again.
Kelise Franclemont, ‘Taxi Driver Dialogue’, 2013, installation view, in the BA Undergraduate Degree Show at Wimbledon College of Art. Photo courtesy Kelise Franclemont.
Kelise Franclemont, ‘Taxi Driver Dialogue’, 2013, installation view (detail), in the BA Undergraduate Degree Show at Wimbledon College of Art. Photo courtesy Kelise Franclemont.
More links and information about ‘taxi driver dialogue’:
Intrigued and 40 złoty poorer, the book was ours.
