Know the Ways // 2016 Project Space Festival

KN’s entry for the 2016 Berlin Project Space Festival was a collaborative group installation inspired by Hildegard von Bingen and created by members and friends of the KN collective.

The twelfth-century medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen wrote works of philosophy, sacred music, plays, and mystic texts. A pre-Renaissance woman, she also made contributions to early theories of human anatomy, nature, and illustration. Von Bingen’s creative life was the thematic centerpiece of Know the Ways, a celebration of the creative process that physically transformed over a month-long exhibition as KN member artists contributed new work that focuses on the processes of inquiry and unknowing.

Visitors were invited to bring a personal object that serves as a medium or token for processing memory, creativity, or the sacred. Objects will be documented, and can be taken home or contributed to the exhibition.

Winston Chmielinski’s performance, “Screening, with breaks,” is the overlap of two infinite loops: a camera records what a painter sees, and a painter records what a camera captures. Chmielinski’s process is one of inversion and emergence, so that disparate practices percolate into one another, turning self-reflexive. This cultivated awareness, in Chmielinski’s own words, “is more than just an opening up of experience–it shapes your entire world.” As part of the performance, Chmielinski has also invited a practitioner of Alexander Technique into the space to adjust his posture as he paints, so that the infinite loop will ultimately bridge itself out of repetition, and take some revolutionary breaks along the way.

Curator

Carleen Coulter

Artists

Katie Armstrong 
Winston Chmielinski
Kika Jonsson 
Vivian Kvitka 
Jana Nowack