Exhibition Stéphanie Giorgis

DUBBELZINNIG

A solo exhibition by Stéphanie Giorgis (CH)

Opening: Friday 24^th of February, 18.00 – 22.00

Exhibition opening hours: Saturday 25^th – Sunday 26^th of February 14.00 – 18.00

During her residency Stéphanie Giorgis produced a sound installation and a text piece questioning the phenomena of communication, language and translation. The sound piece focuses on this confrontation with the slow and steady process of accessing meaning and the frustration of a partial understanding. Two speakers are positioned opposed to each other in an empty space. A recorded loop is heard consisting out of words in English, Dutch and French, pronounced by two voices (native Dutch and native French). The words in English are heard simultaneously. The words are detached from their original contexts and intrinsic meanings. Moments of recognition and familiarity happen, but on a superficial level where a further contextualization is impossible. As part of her research Stéphanie Giorgis read a Dutch and a French newspaper every day, creating tools of translation without the helping hand of a native speaker. By working with materials at hand she tried to trespass this wall of incomprehension, searching for similarities in the images and articles. Characters cut out of these newspaper form a text, glued onto a wall in the salon. This text creates an insight in its own translation process from French to Dutch. It is written in a complex structure with long sentences, blurring the interpretation of the viewers, as to confront them with a similar sensation of incomprehension.

Born in 1985 in Switzerland, Stephanie Giorgis lives and works in Vevey. She studied in Geneva (Bachelor in visual art, Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design) and Siders (Master of Art in Public Spheres, Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais). She has participated in several group exhibitions like: Bis, Ferme-Asile, Sion (CH) in 2011; Masterpiece, Saint-Valentin, Lausanne (CH) in 2011; Situation 1, Ferme-Asile, Sion (CH) in 2011; Too early, too late, BB4, Bucharest, (RO) in 2010; Double Exposure, MEG Conches, Geneva (CH) in 2010. Stephanie Giorgis is active in the collective Synops and also in different curatorial projects, including the proposition Tu vois c’que j’veux dire she organized in March 2011.

This project is the result of an exchange project between the ECAV in Sierre, Switzerland, the St Lucas School of Arts, Antwerpen and AIR Antwerpen.

Thanks to: AIR Antwerpen/Sint Lucas Antwerpen/ ECAV Sierre/ Chloé Dierckx/ Liesje Vangeneugden