KONIJNE.
KOEKE
Konijne.koeke, Katrien Vandemeerssche, (Belgium, 1991) is a visual artist working in the crossover of performance, installation, audio and video. Her work is based on restrictions, rules and patterns which she applies in movements and site-specific actions. After she earned her teaching degree in the arts, Katrien started to study the Fine Arts: Mixed Media at LUCA School of Arts in Ghent, where she finished her Masters.
Soundless
Video, audio, installation
8’40”
2022
I think or I feel.
I don’t know which. I don’t know how to tell the difference.
But I feel or think that feelings rule my life. Much more than thoughts.
Thoughts are used to structure and control feelings. Or pretend that they are something they are not.
Yes, but what about the quiet voice?
It’s a secret. It’s serious. The quiet voice is the loudest.
It’s silent. It’s soundless.
Yes, but tell me about total darkness.
I can do this.
But most of the time it’s too loud for this deafening silence.
People often talk about silence as a healing thing. Mindfulness, yoga and taking long walks in the forest. Silence is the way to hear more and listen better. In a way, this is true. But what they don’t say is that silence also can be very devastating.
It was the first and only time I endured the destructive character of silence. Their silence filled up the negative space of the room and then it brutally embarked my entire body. I don’t mean it as a metaphor, it’s an actual tangible shape.
It was the secret of the silence and the silence of the secret.
I want to forget. But the weird thing about forgetting is that you will never realise when it happened.
Yes, but don’t break the silence.
In conversation, I can’t stand the silence. I think it’s awkward. But it becomes more awkward when I try to fill up the silence.
Afterwards, I feel like an idiot.
I feel or I think.
I don’t know which. I don’t know how to tell the difference.
But I think or feel that thoughts rule my life. Much more than feelings.
Feelings are used to give them a form. Or pretend that they aren’t something that they are.
BETWEEN RED AND GREEN
Video, audio, installation
10’08”
2021
You know the moment when you are showering and the temperature of the water actually feels good but you think: it could be a little bit warmer? You turn the thermostat very carefull upwards for a little bit more. And suddenly the water is too warm and you turn the tap in it’s original position. But than the water, that previously felt good, had Now you're swaying between that slightly too hot and slightly too cold water until the end of your shower.
At the end of her life, when the dementia took her over completely, she daily went into her garden. Every day the bruises on her wrists and arms got worse. Because of the dementia she didn’t connect them with pain anymore. She went into her garden to pick flowers. Despite the many beautiful flowers in her own garden she rather picked them in the garden of her neighbour, trough the fence. Such an everyday fence in long rectangles.
The flowers that stood closest were soon flaunting in her porch. But for the flowers who were less easy to reach she had to put her entire arms, up to her armpits, trough the fence. Which she did daily.
My family worried but I never had felt more connected with her. I understood why she had to put her arms trough the fence. She wanted to possess unattainable beauty that was located at the other side. Her whole life she was in love with beauty. Beauty and excitement.
Nerve and a total surender to the need to possess the world at the other side. It was clear to me, by that seemingly childish act of a demented woman, she had lived her whole life with her arms trough the fence reaching for the outside.
In the end, I fight much more with that fence than she did. I'm also constantly rooting my arms ignoring the bruises and contusions.
Do you also sometimes feel that unbearable burden?
Do you sometimes feel the burden of brushing your teeth? That you will do this for the rest of your life, twice a day? I can burst into tears when I brush my teeth. Brushing teeth is heartbreaking.
ENERGY IS YES!
video, audio
loop 2’20”
2018
as part of the third part of Circumstances organised by Croxhaphox and Platvvorm
HUMAN SIZE
Multiple screen installation, audio, performance
15’18”
2017
The Size of the Human
The Size of the Past
The Size of the Present
The Size of the Future
The Size of a Ford Fiesta
The Size of a Building
The Size of the Universe
The Size of My Pants
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