Marianne Lammersen is a Dutch artist, who in her work reflects on how we as human beings relate to an environment that is in continues change. Change that happens due to technological development and often driven by economic interests. This tendency intrigues her, but it makes suspicious at the same time. In her work she shows interest the tension between the speed of change and the maintenance and preservation of human identity.

Can we keep up with these fast developments? When do we pass the stage of what kind of environment we match with when exploiting our natural environment/recourses and utilizing ourselves?

These questions are the foundation of Marianne’s artistic research. She doesn’t claim to have the answer, but questions the position of mankind, who designs this world, and has to deal with the consequences of our actions.

Many works of Marianne’s sculptures, installations and collages breath a desire to offer a moment of rest in the daily hectic of modern society. A contemplative moment, in which the viewer is challenged to question his position in the ongoing changes that surround him.

Her newest installation“Get Lost”is a plea for Wandering. The diptych was made for a private park. Being there felt as a welcome change to her life in the city. Outside, where you can wander around, loose the time. In wandering you can stand still, be, without goal. But the park turned out to be an over-designed garden, with plants from all over the world, a bat cave, a fake waterfall, fake rocks. A pleasure ground for the previous owner. A complex brick path was created to connects all follies. A man worked on this path for 8 years, using a tent on wheels to protect him from the rain. But wandering is only possible if you go beyond the path.

Her research in the park started as a ‘plea for wondering’. Her work developed into a visual research on if it is still possible to wander here, in this cultivated landscape.

Between the trees a diptych of 2 lost objects are visible. Something that looks like a signpost, falling apart, and a tent on wheels, that hangs in and around a death tree. Form and function don’t match anymore, by placing an object that we recognize as such in an unconventional way, or by deforming the shape itself, by fooling around with our expectations.  In a game of recognition and estrangement, where the viewer is lost between form and function, she found the answer that Wondering is still possible.

Related Information

Marianne Lammersen / NL

Visual artist, engaged in sculpture, installation and collage

Master of Fine Arts, Sandberg School of Art, The Netherlands

Teacher of the Enschede Art Institute (AKI), The Netherlands

Participating artists in the 2018 Paltz Biennale

http://mariannelammersen.nl/

Image credit © Gerard Wielenga