Historical-contemporary art project Gestold Verlangen

Within the framework of taNDem-art connection 2020/2021 we are working on the project "Gestold verlangen - Geronnen Sehnsucht – frozen desire“.

We research and collect images of paradise and paradisiacal conditions in the museums, collections and archives of the EUREGIO Gronau-Enschede: religious paintings, idealized landscape paintings and other representations of (individual) desire. We will compile the collected items into an installation which will be exhibited at different places in the Euregio.

About the project:
Paradise as a closed, ideal place for eternal happiness and well-being needs demarcation. Only the contrast with the outside world allows paradise to appear in its full splendour and emphasizes its otherness. In earlier centuries, the great monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) set out the ideas of paradise in an ideal and afterlife for believers. Today, we create paradises for ourselves, also apart from religious ideas, in the here and now.

Has the border to paradise disappeared in today's time? Has paradise shifted from the afterlife to this world? And: Do we lose our ideals when we reach them, so that we want something different or more and more?

We take a tour through the paradisiacal ideas and representations in the cultural heritage of our region, the EUREGIO: What historical and contemporary images can be found in the common cultural heritage? Do the images of paradise change in the course of history? In this way, we also look for the elements that make up a society and give it its identity.

For further questions and information do not hesitate to contact us!

Tandem team

Alexandra Meerdink Winterswijk NL / Info@alexandrameerdink.nl
Alexandra Bloch Pfister Munster D / ab@alexandra-bloch.de
tandemkunst.eu

gestold-verlangen.eu