tamara dees

///recognition

installation

Shown during RUHR 2010 in Kunstverein Duisburg (D), Roermond, Arnhem and Nijmegen (NL)

recognition 120x60x60cm

How can I recognize who 'you' are here if I can not be sure who 'I' am? (Kamila Wielebska, www.intertekst.com 01/09/2009)

This sentence about identity is from a text referring to the exhibition 'Towards Confluence', curated by Remco de Blaaij and Kamila Wielebska, February 2009 at Hisk, Ghent(B). The polish born writer Joseph Conrad wrote in his book 'Heart of Darkness' about a voyage on a ship to the inland countries of Africa. He used this theme as a metaphor for the trip to the inside of the human being. He wonders if that really is where you want to go.

For the project 'Containertransit' of KunstvereinDuisburg all participating artists received a wooden model of a 20 ft sea container. The model being the exact dimensions of a container but scaled down 1:10. How can you recognize the sea container in this model? For this project I wanted to replace the inside with the outside of a 'real' container. This action raises the question what the wooden box becomes. Is it still a wooden box, is it a model of a container, or is it something that does not really exist? How do you know what you see? When the outside is moved to the inside, does it become the inside or does it stay an outside moved inside?