RASL, Rotterdam Arts and Sciences Lab, is a consortium between Codarts, Arts & Culture Studies (EUR), Erasmus University College (EUR) and the Willem de Kooning Academy. Part of the work I do within RASL is to work with other partner institutes on an Erasmus + awarded body of research exploring transdisciplinary education combining the arts, humanities and sciences.
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Histories are woven, knotted, and impossible to disentangle. This is especially true when working through the recent past with linked threads to the present. Moving through Gisèle’s clothing and photographic archive, Turner reflects on the epistemology of the closet, the pitfalls of taxonomical fervour, and the complexity of entangled histories.
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loop during the Covid-19 lockdown. The project is a meditation on routines, and peculiarities of our previously known dailies interrupted. With animations done by Cesare Davolio, script by Renée Turner, and music by Eliot Davolio; in other words, a family endeavor, we reflect on a moment when life was no longer taken for granted, but instead became a (gif)t.
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As a part of the European Academy of Participation hosted at Herengracht 401 a group formed to take care of the very simple and practical task of preparing lunch and dinner for all those who attended. While chopping, stewing, and stirring, certain thematic trajectories intuitively emerged and were explored: Limits as possibilities Cultures of cooking…
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Networks of people, things, and places don’t emerge from thin air. They are choreographed, staged, plotted, and planned. This workshop, within the context of The Autonomous Fabric research at the Willem de Kooning Academy, explored the table as a scene. It looked at the ritual of eating together as a catalyst for exchange. Working with…
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Moving through The Warp and Weft of Memory, an online archive of artist Gisèle van der Gracht’s closet, Renée Turner and Cristina Cochior will be discussing the porous border between enumeration and narration. Understanding the database as a form of writing, they will read through elements of the site and recount the making of the archive. Key to their approach is the language of weaving and the use of the Semantic MediaWiki to create a narrative tapestry.
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One of the challenges of making The Warp and Weft of Memory was bringing a sense of materiality to the digital. After all, clothing and textiles are tactile. Taffetas are crisp and rustle when moved, wool is rough or soft depending on how it has been treated, and silk is smooth and light to the touch.
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The exhibition took place in Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht, where her work still hangs. The opening took place on August 24th and the exhibition ran until October 2, 2018.
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There are other stains too. Her sweat has turned brown with time and its acid has etched itself into her white cotton shirts and the lining of dresses.
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Combining writing, photographs of her clothes, videos, and illustrations, Renée Turner reflects on her direct encounter with Gisèle’s belongings, the intimacy of the closet, and how its content reflects her life, the history of the Netherlands before, during, and after the war, women and their clothing, the privileges of class, and the persona of the female artist. While each garment has its own story, it can be woven into a larger tapestry of other narratives, past and present.
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