Writing, a beginning and an End
Project details
- Year
- 2023
- Programme
- Bachelor – (de)Fine Art
- Practices
- Autonomous
- Minor
- Hacking
My art practice centres around storytelling.
Although I also make use of abstract visual language through watercolours and illustrations, the written language is one of my main media to create narratives and stories. I grew up bilingual French and German and write in both languages as well as English. My core themes are the self and its relation to the other as well as memory.
My research led me to the concept of heteronyms which are alter egos used by the author Fernando Pessoa. He developed different writing styles and backstories for each of them. These heteronyms allowed him to separate himself into multiple authors who could co-exist side by side. As a multilingual storyteller, the different way I feel, think, and express myself depending on the language has been a recurrent theme. I started the elaboration of heteronyms of my own.
Two were created: Ida, a French author in the end of her thirties living in Berlin, and Finn, her friend a painter, illustrator who dabbles with writing sometimes.
My final project is a work in progress that originated from these two. It is an epistolary novel centred around Ida as she works on a novel. It is constituted of letters to and from: her editor Eli, her sister Mara and Finn. Excerpts of her manuscript and revisions are shared in the letters in between her and her editor.
The letters are in German, while Ida’s manuscript is in french. She works with a translator and publishes her work in Germany and France simultaneously.
Screenshot from Process video, June 2023
Process is at the core of this work, as we follow Ida’s process with her novel but also her emotional process as she reflects on her past relationship(s). It was also at the core of these time period and I documented my process through vlogs which I edited into a video.
These vlogs allow an insight into my own writing process and the struggles I faced and still face.