CLOSE OR NOT (2020-2022)
a collaborative project with Grietje Bouman
Grietje Bouman and Iris Poljan co-created a collaborative social distance project titled 'Close or Not' that resulted with an artists' blog.
Close or Not is online. Feel free to have a look!
https://closeornot.wordpress.com/
How it all started:
Grietje is from Winterswijk, the Netherlands. Iris is from Zagreb, Croatia. Both are visual artists that know each other from various art projects. At the end of March 2020, when the government measures took place, Grietje and Iris got in touch over a Facebook chat. At this time both were in a kind of shock and despair from the virus situation they both had to deal with. So one would say, at a far enough social distance, separated by borders, they came up with a plan to motivate and encourage each other. The idea was that they would send texts about their soul stirs each day by email. The recipient of the text would then create a reply in a form of an image/artwork. It worked like this: Grietje reacts with a photo to Iris’s text and Iris replies with an image to Grietje’s text. The artworks were made as interpretations of texts and both artists were free while doing this.
The artists agreed that the project would last for as long as the measures are in order. So as they did not know until when this would be going on or how big the project would grow.
They were actively working on it side by side and this is what kept them going.
Project duration: March 2020 - March 2022
Exhibits from:
Close or Not at SchoK 2021 (Schoorlse Kunsten 25th edition, Schoorl, NL): www.instagram.com
and Close or Not at Vrijhof, University of Twente
