DENNIS FEDDERSEN
It is not the END of days
The last year has been a challenging and an inspiring year at the same time. Although not that much has changed for me due to COVID-19 over here in Berlin, Germany. For sure, I am missing bits and pieces of my social life like meeting people, attending openings, eating my favorite food, etc., but as an artist, I am a loner most of the time anyway. Therefore, the best hideout has been my studio or the workshop, where I am building my sculptures and ceramics.
During the last months of several lockdowns, I used the additional time for myself, to get lost, confront myself with things I have seen or experienced, to transfer them into a shape, a sculpture or an idea. I did the same thing I always do, I struggle with thoughts and material to enter the loop of construction and deconstruction, to create something new.
I dedicated most of my time to work with ceramics and managed to create twenty three new ceramic sculptures, each 20 to 30 inches high, which deal with the topic of connection, distance and how to connect or disconnect from each other or even from yourself.
I figured , I am kind of used to crises, but this time, the world, kind of stopped around me and suddenly with everything slowing down, being more isolated, less work etc. I found myself with a lot of time to start things that I wanted to do or finish for a long time, like building a new website, finishing a lot of ceramic sculptures etc. I guess that is just the way how things work, how creation or a process starts....the fluidity of the process, the struggle with whatever, that vector of not knowing, that is so attractive, that creates struggle and creation at the same time.
So in the END, COVID-19 will hopefully be just another crisis. And I ll handle it like any other crises I experienced in my personal or artistic life so far. I ll never lose my positivity and the strength that comes from it. Every crisis is taking something from you, but as you enter the void of a process, something will happen, you ll gain something and something will come out of it... no matter what you do...
For me, like always, the secret is to keep going, AGAINST ALL ODDS.
Dennis Feddersen was born 1979. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany