(Art)
Art is a way to stimulate self-reflection, to stimulate our perspective of time and space where self reflection is always in reflection to another, to the world around. Art, activism, stories reflect on us and the other way around.
Thats why it is not only what do you get from my work as a viewer? but what do we create together.
Studio Hovinga, cross pollinations in art, activism, landscaping, and more.
To question, to provoke, to inspire, to disturb, and to connect in the search for new answers.
The process of creating , it all starts with imagination, the flexibility of mind, with research, with reflecting on ourselves and the world around.
VALUE BEYOND THE LEVEL OF AESTHETIC,
A prescription to understand, to take you with me in my mind, my thoughts and prayers.
You can only understand, when knowing what lies behind.
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Maybe it is, or was a total waste of time…
Art performance
TreehouseNDSM Amsterdam November 11, 2024
20 days at Museum Arnhem (summer 2024). Painstakingly transforming the 7,705 pages of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report printed on coloured paper using a two-hole page puncher turning the reports into a heap of colorful confetti. Sitting in the same position a repeating the same movement for hours each day in silence.
In light of political developments, including the election of Donald Trump as the new President of the United States and his expressed intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, concerns about the environment about the changing climate are growing.
With this in mind I decided to do a follow up from my performance the elephant in the room on Monday November 11-2024, a date coinciding with the opening of the global climate conference in Azerbaijan and the traditional kickoff of Dutch Carnival.
using fire as a symbolic irreversible act that underscores society’s collective failure to act.
On this date I did set alight the confetti created from the IPCC climate reports during my performance presented at Museum Arnhem in the Sumer of 2024.
20 days of dedication will be gone in minutes..
The act of burning this confetti marks the culmination of my message: “By burning the confetti, each piece representing fragmented, neglected knowledge transforms into ash, I am enacting what it feels like to watch essential climate knowledge, and with it our future, slip away in an instant, we treat the science as disposable when it should be an urgent call to act.
This burning is a reminder of the urgency and the lives and ecosystems at stake. The flames symbolize not only the loss of biodiversity and climate stability but the missed opportunities for intervention that resonates deeply as an emotional and political protest.
vimeo
“The elephant in the room” (the lack of sense of necessity)
Art performance by Johannes-Harm Hovinga
Museum Arnhem, June 22 until July 14, 2024
A, 20 day art performance, turning 7.705 pages (printed on colourful paper) of the IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) working groups I, II and III reports of the sixth assessment cycle and the Synthesis Report, into confetti as an example of the lack of sense of necessity.
Description of the performance:
I use a two-holes hole puncher / paper puncher.
I sit for almost 6 hours daily (the opening times of the museum) at a table, repeating the same movement of hole punching.
I walk into the room in silence just after opening of the museum and I leave in silence just before closing time.
I do this 6 days a week (the opening days of the museum Tuesday to Sunday), for 20 days from June 22 until July 14 - 2024.
During the hours of the performance I don’t speak.
During the hours of the performance I don’t eat, I only drink water.
During the hours of the performance the only intermission I allow myself is going to the toilet; I stay silent.
On day 20 I leave the table in silence, the confetti will remain for about two weeks.
After that I come back and clean in silence.
This performance, a stark reminder of how we continue to ignore the pressing reality of the changing climate, the loss of biodiversity and the impact of pollution.
Inspiration: performance
Spring 2022.
Blossom, the spring confetti, drifting like snow through the streets.
The sense of joy, spring dispelling the gray skies, where this winter seemed like an everlasting autumn.
The winters are getting milder, the summers with more extremes, drought, floodings, wildfires.
There is a party on the corner of the street, I remember the fuss in February about whether carnival could continue because of the pandemic (Covid19), if there were no more important things at stake.
My thoughts melted my sense of joy, the new IPCC reports made a fresh new memory, showing the lack of sense of necessity.
The performance is about labor, sacrifice, and dedication, It’s the time span which gives the performance its strength and significance along with the immense monotony repeating movement of what I do over those 20 days
The physically and mentally exhausting performance underscores the endurance and devotion needed to create change.
The wooden table and chair are deliberately chosen as crucial elements of the performance, a chair with no ergonomic value, knowing it will cause pain..
The confetti purely symbolizes festivity to evoke a mindset, the contrast between the cheerful confetti until they read the accompanying text what is an important part of the performance where every detail was meticulously planned even the overall I did wear.
Ctrl-alt-del, a soft reboot.
Labour and time are two ingredients that often come to the fore in my work, in combination with an activist undertone.
My inspiration is life, the cross pollinations to explore, to question, to provoke, to inspire, to disturb, and to connect in the search for new answers.
Life is a proces of temporality, we evolve and erode in time.
CTRL+ALT+DEL,
2020 - 2021, years that felt as a soft reboot, with all the knowledge and experience I’ve gained so far at that moment.
New steps in a familiar world.
Combining passions, in art, nature, landscaping, food, a blend in my one man company with so many inspiring people in all kind of ways around. And I couldn’t do it without all of you.
It’s adventure it’s research, it are the cross pollinations in life.
Johannes-Harm Hovinga @ Studio Hovinga,
Where it all started in 2012
Fragmented society 1
Where it all started in 2012, temporarily mural 70m2, Emmen the Netherlands.
Fragmented society 2
In 2012 the organisation of the Elephant parade in Trier Germany contacted me to be part of this outdoor exhibition and auction in Trier Germany in 2013 to raise awareness for need of elephant welfare and conservation,
For this I made this work based on Fragmented society 1.
The orange shoaling fishes on the elephant are a representing of the people in our society who are very well connected trough social media by facebook, twitter, instagram.. But more and more people stand alone in our fragmented society, and we are more
divided than ever.