Le parole hanno un ruolo centrale nella ricerca artistica di Karen Trask che è attratta dalla loro natura effimera e transitoria. Giocando con testi e forme narrative di vario genere, tratta i temi dell’assenza, della presenza, della memoria, dello spazio e del tempo.

Le sue ultime opere sono spesso forme ibride fra installazione, scultura, video, performance e libro d’artista.
Nel video in mostra, Mothertext, l’artista cerca di dare un significato alla perdita di una persona cara, e di reinventare un rapporto madre-figlia aldilà del sentimento di mancanza e di dolore vissuti durante l’infanzia.

Una presenza fisica reale è data dalle parole, parole sospese nello spazio, parole scritte sulla neve, parole che galleggiano nel latte e che col tempo si trasformano. Lo spazio vuoto, il silenzio e il candore dei materiali – il latte, la neve e la carta- sono usati come metafora per dare concretezza alla presenza di “un’assenza”.

– Press Release, 2015

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Words play a central role in Karen Trask’s artistic research, which appeal to her for their ephemeral and transitory nature. Playing with texts and narrative forms of various kinds, she deals with the themes of absence, presence, memory, space and time.

Her latest works are often hybrid forms between installation, sculpture, video, performance and artist’s books.

In the video on display, Mothertext, the artist tries to give meaning to the loss of a loved one, and to reinvent a mother-daughter relationship beyond the feeling of loss and pain experienced during childhood.

A real physical presence is given by words, words suspended in space, words written on snow, words floating in milk and that transform over time. The empty space, the silence and the candor of the materials – milk, snow and paper – are used as a metaphor to give concreteness to the presence of “an absence”.

Where the Words Go brings together a series of sculptures, two-dimensional works and a video, which dissect and reassemble language and text in novel and unexpected ways. For example, one of the sculptures was created from spun paper pages from dictionaries.

Where the Words Go

Where do words come from? Could letters of the alphabet be seeds for planting? The image of a woman blowing on a dandelion seed has been part of the cover design of The Larousse Dictionary for many years. Since I was a child, I have sensed words and letters existing like a river or a current of air floating all around me.

In Où vont les mots, hundreds of dictionaries have been dismantled and transformed into a series of sculptures and one giant mural. Their printed papers were either torn and recycled into fresh sheets of paper or reconstituted through spinning into long paper threads. A desire to subvert the power and authority of certain types of written texts and to highlight the presence of the paper used in printing these texts were the starting points for this work.

One sentence describes the objective of much of my work: I want to touch words; I want to touch the space between words. My creative process has developed as a series of poetic investigations exploring human experience through language. A love-hate relationship to the written word was born out of loss. When I was 6 years old, my mother died in a car accident. Learning to read and to write coincided with death. This marked the beginning of a dialogue with absence, that I have been exploring, breathing, falling into and ultimately searching for words to describe. Paper, normally the invisible and ignored support material is one of the materials I use to create this presence of absence. My creative process includes researching the etymological roots of words and experimenting with early textile arts technologies such as spinning and weaving. Knowing the stories behind the evolution of words such as: text, (from textus meaning textile in Latin,) to spin, (to draw out of chaos, Latin,) stitch or suture (Sanskrit, word sutra, meaning thread and narrative scriptures) is an important part of this process.

« For over 20,000 years until the industrial revolution, the textile arts were an enormous economic force belonging primarily to women. Because of the perishability of these products, much of this contribution did not find its way into history books. Before writing became the principle means of communicating and recording information, clothing and textiles provided a place for social messages. » ( E. Wayland Barber, Women’s Work) The spinning in this project is a reminder of this contribution – a remembering through the fingers

In Où vont les mots, I am creating space for my own sculptural writing.

Karen Trask, 2010

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D’où viennent les mots? Les lettres de l’alphabet pourraient-elles servir de semence? Depuis plusieurs années, la couverture du dictionnaire Larousse présente une femme soufflant sur un pissenlit en aigrettes. Enfant, je m’imaginais les mots existant comme une rivière invisible ou un courant d’air autour de moi.

Dans Où vont les mots, des centaines de dictionnaires sont démantelés et transformés en une série de sculptures ainsi qu’en une immense murale. Leurs pages imprimées sont ou bien déchirées en morceaux et recyclées en nouvelles feuilles de papier ou reconstituées en longs fils de papier par un processus de filage. Ce projet est fondé sur le désir de subvertir le pouvoir et l’autorité de certains types d’écrits et de souligner la présence du papier utilisé pour imprimer ces textes.

On peut décrire les objectifs d’une grande part de mon travail assez succinctement : je veux toucher les mots; je veux toucher l’espace entre les mots. Mon processus de création s’est élaboré par une série d’investigations poétiques explorant l’expérience humaine par le biais du langage. Le rapport d’amour-haine que j’entretiens avec les mots est né de la perte. Quand j’avais 6 ans, ma mère est morte dans un accident de voiture. Pour moi, apprendre à lire et à écrire coïncidait avec la mort. Ainsi commençait un dialogue avec l’absence, dialogue que j’explore, respire, sur lequel je trébuche, dans lequel je tombe – un dialogue pour lequel, finalement, je cherche des mots. En vue de rendre présente l’absence, j’utilise entre autres le papier – le support physique généralement oublié. Mon processus créatif fait appel à la recherche des racines étymologiques des mots et à l’expérimentation avec les anciennes technologies des arts textiles comme le filage et le tissage. Connaître l’histoire de l’évolution des mots contribue largement à ce processus; par exemple : texte (du latin textus qui signifie « textile »), filer (du bas latin filare, qui signifie « aligner, organiser en file »), suture (du mot sanscrit sutra, qui signifie à la fois « fil » et « texte sacré narratif »).

« Pendant plus de 20 000 ans et ce, jusqu’à la révolution industrielle, les arts textiles ont représenté une puissante force économique qui résidait principalement entre les mains des femmes. La nature périssable des produits de ces arts a fait en sorte que la grande part de leur contribution n’a pas été consignée dans les livres d’histoire. Avant que l’écriture ne devienne le principal mode de communication et de consignation d’information, les vêtements et le textile s’offraient comme support pour les messages sociaux » ( E. Wayland Barber, Women’s Work). Dans le présent projet, la présence du filage est un rappel de cette contribution – la mémoire au bout des doigts…

Avec Où vont les mots, je crée un espace pour mes propres écrits sculpturaux.

Karen Trask, 2010 | Traduction: François Nobert, 2009

Karen’s works were included in the Art and expérimentation program.