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Charlotte ten Raa
Fieldwork
Behind the ruins on the left side of the village, I found a big open field. In that time of year, the field was hit by the sun for eight hours. In the following weeks, I spent my time there to understand the course of the sun.
With a compass, I looked where the sun rose behind the mountain and where it set again. I tied strings around the trees that were in line with east and west. I put one string perpendicular to the other. At noon the strings were in line with the highest point of the sun.
Four strings hung in the air. On top of them, I placed several sticks forming three times the same shape: one square inside another. When placing the sticks on the strings, the sticks found their position by their weight, laying on the strings as a suspension bridge.
When the sun reached its highest point, the sticks cast a shadow in the shape of a clear square. At both the beginning and end of the day the shadows were very crooked; it was almost impossible to recall a rectangular shape.
Thisteldowns
The period in which the Tsarino Art Residency 2012 was being held, was the season in which the thistle plants were letting go of their thistledown.
I collected a lot of thistle plants, put them in bottles and kept them inside a room. Over the following two weeks, thousands of thistledowns started to fill the floor of the room.
During the open studios at the end of the residency, people could enter a cleared room full of thistledowns and let the little fluffs swirl around in the space with two fans I made from sticks and paper. It felt as if you were inside a storm of thistledowns. Manipulating a group of thistledowns trapped inside a room, the work made it possible to observe the behaviour of those light little objects.
Shadow Play
In a room of one of the houses in the village, I made an installation lit by only one candle. I conducted the installation in order to move figures and objects and by doing so, their shadows were moving too. My intension was to use all four walls as a projection screen for the shadows while leaving visible the artefacts and myself, which were making the shadow play happen.
We make up stories in our head, even when we see how images are actually being created. It is similar to magic tricks: the trick is happening right in front of you but you still perceive the magic.
More info: charlottetenraa.com