a.k.a MaMA showcase, 2022
MaMA, Rotterdam
MaMA, Rotterdam
a.k.a. MAMA is Team MAMA’s showcase—a platform for all current and former Team MAMA members to share their artistic practices. The aim of the project was to show Rotterdam what MAMA is and highlight the people who make MAMA possible by giving them the opportunity to take over the showroom on the Witte de Withstraat for ten days.
Martina’s ongoing work revolves around photography, ceramics, collecting and archiving. By investigating these practices in parallel, connections are built between them. Her Bachelor thesis ‘In Reenactment’ (2021) compiles different forms of information, in different states: found objects consisting of images, letters, videos, jewelry, and garments. A virtual digital environment was constructed to preserve the found objects, building a fictional narrative in the process. The fictional narrative focused on the characters that are visible in the found images, creating possible scenarios and lives they could have lived through this digital archive.
In a similar way, this piece is a further exploration to this theme; Bending the limitations of the art institution, a poster-like rug is seen in the MaMA showroom, with a map of images that hangs from the wall and cascades onto the floor. The images include found documentation from Martina’s personal archive but also a few shots that have been taken by herself. On the floor, next to the poster, lie trinket-like ceramics. These ceramic pieces are a recreation of the objects that can be spotted in the images, but only the essence of the form can be seen in the ceramic recreations.
This archival practice of collecting images and objects harnesses a responsibility to construct history, or our perception of it. Through curated fragments, ceramic replicas from past memories are capable of telling a narrative that could also be taken home with the viewer. This installation looks towards alternative methods of story-telling and creates an extension of the experience that is witnessed by the observer.
Exhibition Photographer: Alexander Wolf
Martina’s ongoing work revolves around photography, ceramics, collecting and archiving. By investigating these practices in parallel, connections are built between them. Her Bachelor thesis ‘In Reenactment’ (2021) compiles different forms of information, in different states: found objects consisting of images, letters, videos, jewelry, and garments. A virtual digital environment was constructed to preserve the found objects, building a fictional narrative in the process. The fictional narrative focused on the characters that are visible in the found images, creating possible scenarios and lives they could have lived through this digital archive.
In a similar way, this piece is a further exploration to this theme; Bending the limitations of the art institution, a poster-like rug is seen in the MaMA showroom, with a map of images that hangs from the wall and cascades onto the floor. The images include found documentation from Martina’s personal archive but also a few shots that have been taken by herself. On the floor, next to the poster, lie trinket-like ceramics. These ceramic pieces are a recreation of the objects that can be spotted in the images, but only the essence of the form can be seen in the ceramic recreations.
This archival practice of collecting images and objects harnesses a responsibility to construct history, or our perception of it. Through curated fragments, ceramic replicas from past memories are capable of telling a narrative that could also be taken home with the viewer. This installation looks towards alternative methods of story-telling and creates an extension of the experience that is witnessed by the observer.
Exhibition Photographer: Alexander Wolf