Press Release

In her exhibition Still Shifting, Mother Field, Jennifer Tee probes the question of how we can return to—or redefine—humanity’s place in our natural environment and the cosmos. Her works—most of them created specifically for this presentation—are characterized by her experimental use of a wide variety of creative techniques. Tee’s collages and sculptures including ceramic domes, knitted floor objects, and textile shells activated in weekly performances, are imbued with a quest for a spiritual dimension in art. Taking inspiration from the idea of the transmigration of the spirit or the lost soul, she puts a particular focus on forms of transition, the passages and processes of ongoing and incessant change.

 

 

International Archives 2nd half of 2022

Jennifer Tee, Still Shifting, Mother Field

Secession, Vienna (Austria)
16.09 - 06.11.2022

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The exhibition’s point of departure is the series of Tampan Tulips, which Tee has developed since 2016 and now presents for the first time in an extensive assembly. The motifs of these collages made of pressed tulip petals are based on tampan fabrics, ceremonial cloths from where they were exchanged in rates of passage. The ship is a central motif in the emblematic representations woven into the cloths, sailing toward another world with a company of humans, animals, and plantlike shapes. The geometric and often mirror-symmetric patterns visualize the orders of society as well as the universe and are seen as portals leading from the material to the spiritual world. By joining the Sumatran tradition of tampans to the tulip and its cultural history, Tee’s collages evoke a multiplicity of new narratives that refer to global networks and the exchanges and transfers of culture, nature, and commodities they power as well as to migration and intercultural identities.

Jennifer Tee, born 1973 in Arnhem, lives and works in Amsterdam.

Performances: Every Sunday at 11am while the exhibition is on view. Duration ca. 45 min.

Commissioned and produced by Secession, Vienna and Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam.

Exhibition 16 September - 06 November 2022. Secession, Friedrichstraße 12 - 1010 Vienna (Austria). T +43 1 587530710. Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm.  

 

 

 

 

© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2022. All Rights Reserved

Jennifer Tee, Tampan World Mountain, Ancestral Creatures (detail), 2022. Tulip petal collage, 172 x 185 cm.