As part of the one-month exchange scholarship from Lichtenberg Studios and DIEresidenz, Lynn Pook undertook an unusual artistic research this summer. For her project, the German-French artist combed the playgrounds of Berlin Lichtenberg and, in a subsequent exhibition in Die, France, summarized her impressions in an installation that combines photographs, drawings, notes, and videos. The latter can now be seen in Berlin.
“My practice is based on the observation of the body, the individual and his perception. My research results in intimate and sensitive dispositives that question the relationship systems between viewer and object, between the individual and his environment,” says Lynn Pook. Her work is mostly installative and is characterized by the use of a wide variety of materials and media. In the tradition of a feminist, horizontally structured approach, the artist abolishes the boundary between viewer and object and, as she says, uses “the individual as a place and material for a temporary sculpture.
During her stay at the Lichtenberg Studios, Lynn Pook notes the great quantity (and quality) of playgrounds in the Berlin Lichtenberg district. She crosses the district by bicycle to explore the various, quite large and mostly green playgrounds artistically. The artist has documented this research by photography, but also in sketches and in the form of videos.
For her exhibition “Spiel Platz” at DIEresidenz in France, Pook constructed an installation made of wood that allows all these elements to be combined. Like the photographs included in it, the playful installation, which refers directly to the playgrounds visited in Berlin, is characterized by geometric forms and primary colors. Influenced by the work of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, Lynn Pook creates an interactive sculpture that invites the audience to enter into a physical-spatial relationship with her and experience art in an interactive way.
The videos, which are shown on a seemingly handcrafted ‘TV’ within the structure, document the performances Pook has realized on selected playgrounds in ‘her neighborhood’. Dressed in a long red skirt and a blue hooded sweater, she reminds us of a superheroine. Her face covered with tights, her robotic movements and the effect of the time-lapse in the video reinforce the impression that she is a kind of living doll. Naive like the main character in Luc Besson’s film “The Fifth Element” (or like a child), this abstract creature tests all irresistible obstacles that come its way.
With emphatically stiff postures and repetitive movements, Lynn Pook, who has been practicing improvisational dance for years, seems to follow a choreography, although she improvises in situ at any location. Her experiments with given structures and gravity have a playful as well as absurd note. This appropriation of children’s playgrounds can ultimately be seen as an allegory of life itself. Artist in Residence Programme in Die, France, in exchange with Berlin in autumn. (Conny Becker, DIEresidenz 2019)
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