Blue sky and Wonder, a Landscape without horizon
(2024)
author(s): Yasmin Kök
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023
BA Fine Arts
Summary:
Death, ritual, religion, my cultural heritage, I guess I am trying to make sense of it. We share some same questions. We are not sure about the answers we provide. Via condensed nodes, I try to unravel my ‘truth'. As I can predict, this piece of research will make me less sure about myself, and my beliefs. But that is okay. I know these issues will stay uncertain throughout my life. But the topics keep coming back to me daily. Being confronted with many possibilities, and freedom of choice, as far as I believe choices are free, I take a dive.
To see death, the dead, from up close, to see someone disappear, fascinates me and at the same time frightens me. It is a bundle of stories. My own and an analysis of stories of others. I research many aspects of death, around death, that goes hand in hand with us.
Our existence. My spirituality. My body and mind. I and other, mother, father sister, brother. A goalless search without hierarchy or linear approach.
The Weeping Madonna
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): Henrik Koppen
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
It is a foundational human trait to long for miracles. We yearn for the unexpected, something new to transcend our everyday life. As anyone who has planted a seed might know, the world is already brimming with wonders. Why, then, is this not enough? Why does it sometimes feel like we have lost the connection to something larger than ourselves, something supernatural or more-than-human?
In this text I am exploring the human need for miracles through a queer lens. Through my live performance “The Weeping Madonna” (2025) I am investigating alchemy as a method to acquire knowledge about the world, and whether it is possible to use our imagination as a starting point for collective rituals in order to call forth a new reality; a futurity.
