Seapussy Power Galore - Abcession (if you don't know, you don't grow)
during Rijksakademie Open Studio 2021
text by Giulia Casalini phd Candidate Feminist Live Art at University of Roehampton
Mette Sterre takes us back through the ebbs and flows of another speculative scenario, this time in the deepest sea. In Seapussy Galore, the artist continues exploring the ecological matter through an underwater landscape made of soft moving sculptures, paintings and DIY technologies (such as air pumps, motors, distorting mirrors, projections and ropes) that animate the scene.
Performers wearing urchin-like face masks, knotted light silhouettes and a bubbling shellfish bodysuit animate the masses of sea foam that compose this unruly aquatic setup.
Oozing and gulping.
Flapping, dripping and sponging.
The deep-down currents reveal reflections, refractions and dissolutions. Our bodies are smooth, protuberant and spiny. We can’t stay still – we are made to change. In this work, in line with Astrida Neimanis’ hydrofeminist theorisations, we can reimagine a body-earth relationship through water and its never-ending transformations, interpretations, embodiments and flows. Water carries not only the nutrients and hydration for our own and our planet’s survival, but also its own memory – its past, present and future lives and affects that have traversed its various formations. Sterre’s performative installation hence takes us on a sensorial quest into the myths of the mermaids and their fishlike societies; the stories of the Venuses who have risen from the foam; the tragedies of colonialism and of those who did not make the crossing; or the effects of plastic waste and other pollutants that the terrestrial world have discarded into this submerged terrain. In this land, that knows no capitalism, racism or patriarchy, water is not only a medium, or a substance. It is a body – or rather, it is many bodies. Through the heterogenous embodiments that populate this world, and the perpetual becomings of water, we can envisage a transcorporeal and transpescies feminist ecosystem. In Seapussy Galore, the bodies of the oppressed resurge, anthropomorphising the elements and transforming the humans into sea creatures: they are the anarchic mistresses in their own sunken land.
Press
Rijksakademie toont lichting zeer krachtige kunstenaars - NRC
by Lucetter ter Borg
"In addition to film, the Open Studios offers a number of good installation builders. Mette Sterre – one of the undisputed stars of the previous Rijksopen – has transformed her studio into one big greedy moving organism, where the artist, dressed in a lumpy rubber suit, crawls around completely separated from the world."
Rijksakademie zet ateliers voortaan zomers open | Cultuur | Telegraaf.nl by Paola van de Velde
De Rijksakademie laat al 150 jaar talenten bloeien | Trouw by Joke de Wolf
"With Mette Sterre you also feel anything but human. In a high room, where a huge hand hangs down, a hump-covered creature shuffles around, sometimes suddenly making boxing movements. A pump blows air through the plastic tubes, forcing the creature to breathe. Mechanical muffled sounds and a moving décor of light blue foam make you feel like you are in a totally different world."
Rijksakademie Open studios 2021 – trendbeheer.com by Sasha Dees
Rijksakademie Open Studios in beeld - Jegens & Tevens - Online kunstmagazine uit Den Haag (jegensentevens.nl)
during Rijksakademie Open Studio 2021
text by Giulia Casalini phd Candidate Feminist Live Art at University of Roehampton
Mette Sterre takes us back through the ebbs and flows of another speculative scenario, this time in the deepest sea. In Seapussy Galore, the artist continues exploring the ecological matter through an underwater landscape made of soft moving sculptures, paintings and DIY technologies (such as air pumps, motors, distorting mirrors, projections and ropes) that animate the scene.
Performers wearing urchin-like face masks, knotted light silhouettes and a bubbling shellfish bodysuit animate the masses of sea foam that compose this unruly aquatic setup.
Oozing and gulping.
Flapping, dripping and sponging.
The deep-down currents reveal reflections, refractions and dissolutions. Our bodies are smooth, protuberant and spiny. We can’t stay still – we are made to change. In this work, in line with Astrida Neimanis’ hydrofeminist theorisations, we can reimagine a body-earth relationship through water and its never-ending transformations, interpretations, embodiments and flows. Water carries not only the nutrients and hydration for our own and our planet’s survival, but also its own memory – its past, present and future lives and affects that have traversed its various formations. Sterre’s performative installation hence takes us on a sensorial quest into the myths of the mermaids and their fishlike societies; the stories of the Venuses who have risen from the foam; the tragedies of colonialism and of those who did not make the crossing; or the effects of plastic waste and other pollutants that the terrestrial world have discarded into this submerged terrain. In this land, that knows no capitalism, racism or patriarchy, water is not only a medium, or a substance. It is a body – or rather, it is many bodies. Through the heterogenous embodiments that populate this world, and the perpetual becomings of water, we can envisage a transcorporeal and transpescies feminist ecosystem. In Seapussy Galore, the bodies of the oppressed resurge, anthropomorphising the elements and transforming the humans into sea creatures: they are the anarchic mistresses in their own sunken land.
Press
Rijksakademie toont lichting zeer krachtige kunstenaars - NRC
by Lucetter ter Borg
"In addition to film, the Open Studios offers a number of good installation builders. Mette Sterre – one of the undisputed stars of the previous Rijksopen – has transformed her studio into one big greedy moving organism, where the artist, dressed in a lumpy rubber suit, crawls around completely separated from the world."
Rijksakademie zet ateliers voortaan zomers open | Cultuur | Telegraaf.nl by Paola van de Velde
De Rijksakademie laat al 150 jaar talenten bloeien | Trouw by Joke de Wolf
"With Mette Sterre you also feel anything but human. In a high room, where a huge hand hangs down, a hump-covered creature shuffles around, sometimes suddenly making boxing movements. A pump blows air through the plastic tubes, forcing the creature to breathe. Mechanical muffled sounds and a moving décor of light blue foam make you feel like you are in a totally different world."
Rijksakademie Open studios 2021 – trendbeheer.com by Sasha Dees
Rijksakademie Open Studios in beeld - Jegens & Tevens - Online kunstmagazine uit Den Haag (jegensentevens.nl)