In June 2007, an international selection committee awarded the grand prize of DAAD's "Designs on Germany" Poster Competition to Audrey Carie, a senior at Butler University, who is majoring in psychology and minoring in gender studies and has a strong background in visual arts. Audrey’s winning design "Expand Your Palette" was chosen among 47 submissions from the US and Canada.
8/8/07
Home from Germany
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My travel adventures have come to an end, and I am now back in Indiana. However, there had been lots more happen since my last entry. Lucky for you, I will share!
As I had mentioned before, everyone participating at Open Space was awesome. This was further proved the last few days. Two nights in a row were dedicated to everyone presenting their portfolios. The artwork was amazing. It was like having a minature documenta show (possibly even better than documenta) at Open Space! I encourage you to visit www.openspacekassel.de to take a look at the portfolios, photos from the camp, and other details involving our participation. Also on the site is a short video clip from Open Space being on TV in Germany.
The last day of Open Space, all the groups presented their presentations. It was really cool to see such wonderful reflections and ideas of this experience come together in only a few days. People focused on the motifs of documenta (bare life, migration of form, and modernity), Open Space, and some did individual presentations. Most of the presentations were performance pieces and/or videos. Our group focused on the migration of form. We formed our idea around antique Chinese wooden chairs that are placed in one of the sites of documenta. To make a long presentation idea short, we went into the exhibition, moved the chairs around while the guards weren't looking (well, actually some of them watched us but didn't stop us), added a new chair to the group of old chairs, and videoed the process. We also videoed the reactions people had to the new chair sitting amongst the old ones (people avoided sitting in it). The most amazing part of our presentation was not that we migrated the chairs, but that the next day, the general public were moving the chairs around themselves...without any guards stopping them. We intitiated a whole new addition to the migration of form motif of documenta.
The last two days of my trip were spent in Munster for the Sculpture Project. This project only happens every ten years. There were various sculptures located all over the city, so we rented bikes to visit as many as we could in one day. It was all quite beautiful.
The night before I flew home from Frankfurt, my new friends from Scottland and I wandered around looking for a place to have a good German beer before we departed. The only place that appeared to be open was "Restaurant Bar", so we stopped. It turned out to be an equivalent of a TGIFriday's...in other words, it was an American restaurant! I drank Sprite, instead. :)
This experience was wonderful. Not only did I gain new views, ideas, inspiration, and insight pertaining to art, I met lots of cool people, and had a new cultural experience. Thank you so much DAAD, for providing me with this opportunity!
This is Audrey Carie, signing off!
(Pictures: 1 and 2) Statues at Schloss Wilhelmshoehe 3) Migration of Form Chairs 4) Minatures of the sculptures in Munster 5) My friends from Scottland and me)
Posted by acarie at August 8, 2007 10:12 AM MDT
7/27/07
More from Kassel
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As the week has continued, I have seen more art and have gotten to know the other students better. Kassel is a very pretty city. I have now been through all the sites of documenta including Schloss Wilhelmshoehe, which has a gorgeous monument on top of a hill. The view is beautiful. This has been my favorite location in Kassel so far. At the camp, we have been working in our groups to create a project. The project can be almost anything we want, for example our reaction to documenta, open space, individual projects, or anything we feel the need to express in relation to our experience. Our group project is oriented around particular chairs that are located throughout one of the art exhibitions. Tomorrow we will work on refining our project to present on Sunday.
Posted by acarie at July 27, 2007 8:50 AM MDT
7/24/07
Third Day
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Hello! Let me catch you up on the past events since I arrived at Open Space. The first day, I was picked up from the train station by a fellow camper and taken to the camp where the design students from the art university, where we are staying, were constructing the Open Space Temporary Village. We campers helped to construct the very creative living units. The living unit where I am staying is called ''the hangman'' because it is a tear drop shaped unit suspended from scaffolding. To enter, I must walk underneath it and pull myself up through an opening in the bottom. Very cool! It is bright orange with a lamp in the top. At night, the hangman looks awesome because it glows so bright. After a day of building the living units, there was left over wood used to make a campfire. We spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, and getting to know one another around the fire.
The following morning, we met for breakfast and were given a brief introduction to documenta 12. We were able to spend the rest of the day visiting documenta 12. There are five different sites of documenta 12 because the exhibit is sooo huge! The exhibit is set up in a unique way, categorizing the art in how each piece relates to each other rather than by artist. Although there are endless ways to interpret documenta, thus far I feel that it is set up in a way to show how every issue and culture has a relationship to each other, made more apparent since the art is not always presented in languages that I know. However, as I have more opportunies to see the art, I may find many new ways of interpreting documenta and my view may change.
There are about 40 to 50 students attending Open Space (all super cool people, too) from all over the world, and we are divided into small groups of about 7 people. In our groups, we discuss the art we view at documenta as well as our own art, ideas, opinions, and literature. Today was our first group meeting, and I am excited to participate in more discussion tomorrow!
Unfortunately I will not be able to post pictures of my stay! (at least until I figure out a way to upload them, haha!) Time to get back to camp! oh yeah, and Hi Mom!
Posted by acarie at July 24, 2007 10:54 AM MDT
7/17/07
My First Blog!
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Hello Everyone!
My name is Audrey Carie, and I am honored to say that I will be attending Open Space Art Camp in conjunction with documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany. Thank you DAAD!!! This blog has been set up so I can keep you all posted on what I'm up to during my experience. The picture posted is taken from the Open Space website. It is a vision of what the temporary village will look like where I will be staying?.cool, isn't it!? I hope to post more pictures while I am there.
My fortunate opportunity to go to Open Space came about when the international selection committee for the DAAD "Designs on Germany" poster competition selected my design. The design that I created was of a color palette, representing the many kinds of people in the world who are all connected with one another, yet still have individual qualities. When combined, there are endless color options, just as when people come together, there are endless ideas and opportunities created. One of the sections of the palette is the German flag, and a cursor is pointing to it. This represents the opportunities that studying abroad, technology, and people can open up for a person. The poster is titled, "expand your palette," and studying in Germany is one of the excellent ways to expand your palette. Thanks to DAAD, I get to practice what I preach at Open Space!
Posted by acarie at July 17, 2007 3:02 PM MDT
