The Elements of Ideas - Freedom
by Caroline List
by Caroline List
This work is part of a large, sculptural project called ‘The Elements of Ideas’, which is going to be completed and exhibited in October 2015.
This project explores what fundamental elements, such as language, reflection and the senses are used by individuals to turn impressions into thoughts and creative ideas. It is going to consist of 120 small-scale objects, each symbolizing a primary building block for ideas. Using a wide variety of materials such as fabric, paper and clay, I investigate how these can be used to add symbolic and metaphorical suggestions and multiple meanings to the object. The objects of this ‘toolkit’ for ideas will have the potential to be arranged into a multitude of subjective systems.
This piece investigates the element of freedom and how my personal associations with it could be visualized in an abstract object.
First and foremost, for me freedom means being unrestricted and uninhibited in my daydreaming and imagination, from which endless possibilities for creative ideas and experiments can grow.
Getting a lot of inspiration from stories and descriptions of girl-childhood experiences, I re-read ‘A Bolsta Amarela’ by Lygia Bojunga Nunes, a book which summarizes in a very poetic way what freedom means to me. In the story, a little girl hides her dreams and wishes from adults and her older siblings in an old shoulderbag. Written in the tradition of magical realism, everyday objects and her fantasies about them merge and become characters of the story.
All these components gave me the idea of placing a range of small objects inside a soft, flexible bag-like container. It protects the thoughts and ideas without trapping or restricting them.
Being colourful and cheerful, it also defies fixed, unmoving dogmatism, narrow-mindedness and arrogance – things which I consider to be enemies of freedom.
28 items of artwork shown.