CLARINDE WESSELINK

                                         

Press release

At first sight, the work of Clarinde Wesselink opens up dreamlike worlds, set aside the temporalities, politics and constrains of everyday life and space. Worlds, that permit those who enter them even feelings, sensations and thoughts beyond the (all too) human realm.

The self is no longer a singular self, persisting in time and space, but a self that differs from, and multiplies itself with each behavioural repetition and each new encounter. Athletes are no longer in control over their bodies and environment, but have become parts in a choreography, along with the water and the soil. The human body is no longer a ‘human self’ but has lost their social determinations by entering the seemingly untimely time of the stone. Nature is no longer an inert ground, but an ongoing transformative force. 

However, once you spend a bit longer with Wesselink’s worlds, it becomes clear their impact or meaning goes beyond that of being merely momentary escapes from human-centeredness. To be more precise, Wesselink’s worlds confront us with a series of paradoxes, of which it could be said that they are at the heart of the challenges our societies face with regard to inner and outer nature. The worlds of ‘The Brook’, ‘Rust’ and ‘The Garden’ do not simply invite ‘us’ in, as passive spectators, but challenge the limits and possibilities of what an ‘us’ as humans might entail and where this ‘us’ might end up, particularly in the face of the looming ecological catastrophe.

For once, it is not quite sure that we as humans turn to the non-human for reasons beyond human-interest? We envision and engage in a world beyond the human or even a world without us, but paradoxically and presumably, we do so for us. In a similar vein, Wesselink challenges the political and historical neutrality of this ‘us’. Certainly, no-one can escape the ecological crisis, but Wesselink forces us to consider the particular situatedness of this or that human-body under threat.

For instance, in ‘The Brook’, we do not see a human-body, but a woman-gendered human body. And, of this body we could ask ourselves if it is not too early to enter the realm of the non-human. Is this woman already a human? And what if this body was a black woman, or a disabled person. Would these bodies already be included in the category of human? And by extension, are the very empirical facts of environmental racism, sexism and ableism, not signs precisely thereof that certain bodies are not yet included in the category of humanity?

And what about nature itself? In ‘The Garden’ we are invited in a choreography that seems to place both human and non-human agents on a horizontal plane. Does this mean that we should now give nature the first and last word? And, as this might not be an adequate answer to the question of how to live well, how can we enact our response-ability in nature-cultures?

These, and presumably many more urgent questions emerge from a temporary dwelling in Wesselink’s worlds. At first sight, they seem dreamlike, set aside from the ‘real’ world, but as soon as one enters them, they become linked to all others spaces and temporalities, while at the same time countering them.