Labour (2014), birth pool, birth ease ball, plastic hose, surface transducer, small amplifier, audio player and incense.
On the same day as my second child was born I received an email by artist Terry Vreeburg asking to participate in this exhibition. It made sense to transfer the experience of the birth of my daughter into a work at the church.
Reading about the theme for the exhibition, focussing on the Jonah and the Whale story, the church becoming the whale and Terry's version of a whale's belly, I was thinking about the womb.
In the story there is an interesting moment where Jonah gets swallowed by a big male fish, he is there for three days, and in these three days the fish turns into a female fish and only then gets spitted out. When Jonah is out of the fish he decides to help the people of Niveneh from its destruction.
A few days later I started reading the book Psychoanalysis & Religion by Erich Fromm. The book also discusses different religions in the broadest sense of the word. Freud was quoted, saying that religion is a repetition of the experience as a child. "By obeying commands and avoiding transgressions of the parent, a child receives love, protection, superior wisdom and strength". This describes elements existing in all authoritative religions.
Personally I feel more connected to conceptions of humanistic religion then this authoritative figure that stands above all. God has created man and is therefore his property and can destroy them. Just like God wanted to do with the city Nineveh and its people. Humanistic forms of religion centre around the individual, to his or her strength, to recognise the truth regard to the person's potentials and limitations, to develop the power of reason, for self-understanding, the relation with fellow man, his or her place in the universe and to love the self and others.
So for me all the above mentioned about the humanistic aspects of religion, was making sense relating to the birth of my daughter. Understanding my preceding emotions, distractions and egocentricity. The experience created a personal realisation of somewhat my own truth, what is important to me and how to approach this change in my life.
With this installation work I wanted to bring my personal life and art even closer, use it more direct and to create an small intimate environment. The birth pool turns into a speaker and one can sit on the ball. Enveloped by the sound recording you can grasp or get a feeling of what happened during the home birth taken place in the birth pool. By creating a space where the birth is re-lived, I wanted to bring some life and warmth in a cold and desanctified church.
For the installation I re-used several objects and materials that were used during the birth.
On the same day as my second child was born I received an email by artist Terry Vreeburg asking to participate in this exhibition. It made sense to transfer the experience of the birth of my daughter into a work at the church.
Reading about the theme for the exhibition, focussing on the Jonah and the Whale story, the church becoming the whale and Terry's version of a whale's belly, I was thinking about the womb.
In the story there is an interesting moment where Jonah gets swallowed by a big male fish, he is there for three days, and in these three days the fish turns into a female fish and only then gets spitted out. When Jonah is out of the fish he decides to help the people of Niveneh from its destruction.
A few days later I started reading the book Psychoanalysis & Religion by Erich Fromm. The book also discusses different religions in the broadest sense of the word. Freud was quoted, saying that religion is a repetition of the experience as a child. "By obeying commands and avoiding transgressions of the parent, a child receives love, protection, superior wisdom and strength". This describes elements existing in all authoritative religions.
Personally I feel more connected to conceptions of humanistic religion then this authoritative figure that stands above all. God has created man and is therefore his property and can destroy them. Just like God wanted to do with the city Nineveh and its people. Humanistic forms of religion centre around the individual, to his or her strength, to recognise the truth regard to the person's potentials and limitations, to develop the power of reason, for self-understanding, the relation with fellow man, his or her place in the universe and to love the self and others.
So for me all the above mentioned about the humanistic aspects of religion, was making sense relating to the birth of my daughter. Understanding my preceding emotions, distractions and egocentricity. The experience created a personal realisation of somewhat my own truth, what is important to me and how to approach this change in my life.
With this installation work I wanted to bring my personal life and art even closer, use it more direct and to create an small intimate environment. The birth pool turns into a speaker and one can sit on the ball. Enveloped by the sound recording you can grasp or get a feeling of what happened during the home birth taken place in the birth pool. By creating a space where the birth is re-lived, I wanted to bring some life and warmth in a cold and desanctified church.
For the installation I re-used several objects and materials that were used during the birth.
