Sarah Rose Guitian Nederlof
I collect discarded materials. These materials (plastic bags, napkins, packaging materials and abandoned textiles) carry traces of personal use (status, identity, memory, hierarchy, value), and systems (mass-consumption, abundance, capitalism). I am interested in the transformative potential of these ordinary materials and their relationship to the human body.
My process is slow, exploratory and intuitive. Each project arises from a long-term research that starts finds its origin in an observation, a feeling, an unintended encounter in public space. It is usually an autobiographical experience that I link, through my work, to universal themes, such as loss, belongingness, identity, biculturalism, social pressure and vulnerability. I make work to share my considerations and concerns on these themes in the hope to foster more awareness and solidarity.
My studio is an ever-changing world in which the different media I work with --and collect-- come together in organic dialogues. Every few months I change the setting, as the thoughts that were on my studio wall evolve into tangible projects. It is a space where all my thoughts are allowed to exist.
(con tener) cuerpo
Through this project I create conversations between body-object, mind and space. To become aware, by practice and observation, how the body is many things. It is as much a safe space as it is an accumulation of shame and past. The body as a surface is like a rock on which time settles.
For this project I focus on single-use objects that have been created to wrap and protect a product that is sold or for sale. These objects are often made of plastic, paper or cardboard; and are referred to as wrapper and/or packing material. Once the product the wrapper and packing material contains has been taken out, what is left for them to do? While examining my relation with these objects, I saw a connection between them and the human body. To give an example, a fruit net serves as a 'house’ for the fruit as does the body become a house for the human, in both cases keeping what is inside safe. The objects function as active partners in the performances helping me battle my fear of the body as a standalone tool.
An Unforeseen Encounter
With this project, I attempt to create unusual ways in which the viewer experiences the plastic bag. The performative dialogue between my body and the plastic bag result in visually serene body-improvisations, an ode to revalue their mundane significance.
For a while I have been collecting ordinary objects (e.g. plastic bags from local markets, coloured fruit nets and cardboards, napkins, etc); for their function and not so much for their appearance. During the various lockdowns, the need arose to investigate the relationship between these objects and my body.
For this project I lay my focus on the plastic bag, collected from local markets, in which no logo is visible. I am attracted by their features (colour, materiality, shape and sound) as well as by their unpredictable moves led by the wind. For example, when two plastic bags fly loosely, how the get tangled yet find a way to get loose again.
''This series of sculptures arranged like a museum display or an archaeological excavation, are elements of contemporary daily life, destined, like so many others, to disappear. Sarah Rose is an artist who often uses photography in her work, since this medium allows her to observe and capture details that usually go unnoticed. She now experiments with other means, but her attention continues to be on the little or the overlooked things. Not only does she try to capture time through these elements, but her process also involves a recognition of their forms and a dedication that pays homage to the invisible, emphasizing its aesthetic value and establishing non-hierarchical relationships with the objects that coexist along us.''
The Manifest of Remembrance
How can we pay homage to the "invisible"?
A new translation of this project, this time as a miniature site-specific installation. Left is the scale model, sketches and first bottle sculptures. On the right, the new sculptures and 3D reconstruction (based on the picture behind).
During a residency at @aadkspain I noticed the presence of these plastic bottles, spread over different parts of the village. I was fascinated by their presence, shape and the different 'public installations' they were part of. What could they tell about that place, their culture and habits?
During the pandemic I developed a fascination for tangerine peels. Every time I encountered a new peel trace in public space, I would stop to wonder what kind of person was behind the peel trace. Paying attention for example to the way it was peeled or where it was placed. In my studio I started to imitate the different peel shapes with plaster on gauze. Alongside, mixing red and yellow acrylic paint, I would try to get the right orange.
