protective blanket series | venice biennial 2019
PROTECTIVE BLANKET SERIES, VENICE BIENNIAL 2019
Exhibition PERSONAL STRUCTURES | Identities | Venice Biennial 2019 | Palazzo Mora
Chief curator: Valeria Romagnini | Exhibition curators: Shira Davidi & Dorit Lautman
For the ECC pavilion (in cooperation with GAA Foundation) at the Venice Biennial 2019 I created a wall-installation of two large protective blankets and a video as a metaphor to convey fundamental human rights and needs such as security, protection, acceptance, respect, freedom.
Although often perceived as an ordinary object, a blanket is loaded with associations, connotations and expectations. It holds promise of care, warmth and protection. We are welcomed into the world in a blanket and we leave it in blanket. In the life time in between, we need physical, metaphorical and metaphysical protective blankets for our personal existence and well-being.
Protective large-scale ideas such as human rights, healthcare, political institutions and borders are complex creations that aim to keep us safe beyond time and space, but at the core, they too are protective blankets in which we can feel calm, clarity and peace, a sheltered escape from danger, confusion, chaos and overload.
All images and text are copyright by Bianca Severijns 2019
titled: Protective Blanket 1
Technique: Hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic, thread, textile
Size: H200 x W145 x D10cm
title: Protective Blanket 1 | still image from video
Technique: Hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic, thread, textile
Size: H200 x W145 x D10cm
The first blanket of the Protective Blanket Series Venice Biennial is resembling an animal hide, this artwork in the wall-installation takes the viewer back to prehistoric past protective blankets created for survival. Challenging the physical characteristics of paper and its limits, I made my first Protective Blanket as a totally move-able, supple, yet durable art piece.
title: Protective Blanket 1 | still image from video
Technique: Hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic, thread, textile
Size: H200 x W145 x D10cm
title: Protective Blanket 1 | still image from video
Technique: Hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic, thread, textile
Size: H200 x W145 x D10cm
title: Protective Blanket 1 | still image from video
Technique: Hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic, thread, textile
Size: H200 x W145 x D10cm
title: Protective Blanket 1 | still image from video
Technique: Hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic, thread, textile
Size: H200 x W145 x D10cm
The second blanket of the Protective Blanket Series Venice Biennial conceptualizes the present and current immigration and refugee crisis. It is estimated that 65 million people are currently displaced worldwide – refugees, asylum seekers, victims of natural and man-made disasters. Despite having developed cognitively, emotionally and technologically far beyond our prehistoric origins, the intuitive gesture of blankets provided to traumatized people still plays a role in feeling safe, warm and looked after.
titled 1 Protective Blanket 2
Technique: hand-torn paper, konjac, acrylic
Size: H210 x W140x D8cm
As part of the installation I present a short video of 1:40 minutes, as where old crafts and digital tools meet. My personal signature style of three-dimensional designs is built upon the foundations of traditional esthetic weaving and layering of thousands of hand-torn pieces of paper. These foundations are springboards to experimentation. My video shows Protective Blanket 1 in different movement positions worn by human models.
The wall-installation of the Protective Blanket Series is shown during the Venice Biennial 2019 at the exhibition Personal Structures | Identities | in cooperation with the ECC at the Palazzo Mora- first floor, Venice, Italy. From the 11th of May till the 24th of October 2019.
Images courtesy for both still photography and video images: Sigal Kolton
Video credit: Gil Marcus
Models: Litay Marcus and Artur Fraiman
Text editor: Hadas Eyal
For inquires please contact the artist
