Karri Dieken

I have recently completed an installation “Calling All Dancers”. This particular installation consists of various handmade items including, wood tables, false wall covered in wallpaper, two fabric dresses, paper phones, balls yarn, and a screen print of a jack-o-lope.

The body of work was instigated from a memory, that maybe factual or fabricated. The overall theme of the installation reflects on memory and the sense of nostalgia through a narrative, with relevance to contemporary culture and domestic space. I am in search for a common place between societies today and the nostalgic or innocence of the past. Through these processes I am concerned with exploring the social relations and familiarity in domestic environments and past objects. The set or place I am creating is meant to be a place the viewer can relate to more as an illustration or narrative. The work addresses common issues of placement, self-awareness, use and loss of, emptiness and uncertainty. Along with the cultural and generation disconnect between objects we no longer use.

Formally the work is designed to engage the viewer on an immediate physical level by recreating elements from an actual domestic space. It brings the viewer into the space of the objects, in the hope that it will portray a particular narrative or suggest a time or place that has been lost. The wallpaper grounds the space within a specific area, while the other sculptural representations give relation to objects from the past. The development and creation of my work involves handmade or hand crafted labor intensive process. This relates to the way I grew up making everyday items from scratch out of necessity and accessibility. I have the desire to continue to create handmade items for their quality in contrast to the mass produced. However, I have attempted in various areas of the space to create quantity without losing quality. I am interested in the contrast between my upbringings within an environment of handmade quality and the transition to my current way of life with in a readymade society of mass production. Along with what could happen when the handmade becomes the mass produced.

My research question’s what compromises a domestic space, the home, and the objects with it as well as the role of the family. Why do we desire to attain old things and hold onto a past that may or may not be our own? How does a room hold on to a memory? What kind of message can be interpreted from the items used and then discarded and held onto? Disconnect between what once was and moving forward, the desire to cling on to memories.

Karri Dieken

karriadieken@hotmail.com