Xpat Life - Artist of the Month - Allard van Hoorn
Expat life is a one of discovery and adaptation but also one of discovering cultural diversity. Not only the differences between the people you meet and work with when arriving in a new country, but also its history and traditions. There is much to say for celebrating the differences between cultures. Wade Davis, longtime reporter and researcher for National Geographic, starts his TED talk with stating that of the 4,000 languages spoken today only half will have survived by the time our kids have our age. A risk of globalisation is uniformity that makes us vulnerable in situations where creativity through diversity is needed.
As a nomad without a house since April 26, 2006 I might apply as the ultimate expat, continuously encountering new environments tackling them by making location-specific works in which I try to re-code the ways we relate to public space, the way we understand living in our cities. I embrace the differences by underscoring them, acknowledging them. MATCHMAKER is about these differences, the impossibility of really becoming part of that environment but being a happy and interested visitor, an observer. No system we invent describes completely the phenomena it studies. Quantum mechanics are unsolved, language incompletely describes our feelings and the measuring of skies around the world, trying to match them always fails. The art of expat- or nomad life is then to become part in your own way, touching, matching, integrating here and there, being a happy visitor whilst learning whilst embracing the differences and going with them according to the motto 'When in BA...', uhhhmm, 'When in Rome....' that is. Salve!
About Allard van Hoorn:
Allard van Hoorn is a Dutch sound- , installation- and performance artist collaborating across the disciplines of architecture, design, music and theatre creating visual, acoustic and spatial scripts and scenarios that investigate our relationship to public space. He has been shown at institutions and events like de Appel arts centre, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Hear it! at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Gwangju Design Biennale, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Gasworks in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, The Moore Space in Miami, Museo de la Ciudad de México, the German Architectural Centre (DAZ) in Berlin, the Zendai Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai and CCCB in Barcelona.
