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flora valeska woudstra

to draw, Language, cooperation, process, Literary, Body, Gender

in my work as an artist I write, make drawings and organize different moments that bring people together. I look at the influence of (and relationships between) bodies, and forms of embodiment. sustaining a brain injury in 2019, and how it changed my own somatic experience is part of this.
I work out of curiosity about how a shared action, text or drawing can correlate with and work through the body – and the different layers of feeling, experience, symptoms and histories that move through bodies.

GRIEF'S HORSES (2020 - 2022) - composition of photographic print on paper, and handwritten text on ripped paper from a previous grief ritual, 29,7cm x 65 cm - part of a series of analogue photographs and texts, excerpt from exhibition view of my solo "GRIEF IS A DAILY PRACTICE ", between march and may 2022, in Daily Practice. the black and white photograph shows the shoulder and velvet ribs of a dark gray horse and the text reads: "he cannot die".
GRIEF'S HORSES (2020 - 2022) - composition of photographic print on paper, text on carbon paper, 29,7cm x 71,7cm - part of a series of analogue photographs and texts, excerpt from exhibition view of my solo "GRIEF IS A DAILY PRACTICE", between march and may 2022, in Daily Practice. the black and white photograph shows light coming through a fragment of a horse's manes and fur and the the text reads: "being here is to ask and envision how a space can hold grief, shared, sheltered, unseen, mutual and diverse. and just as much: how one can bring grief into a space. like a summoning, a gathering of thin lines."
HERD AS WHOLE BODY AWARENESS (2023)
HERD AS WHOLE BODY AWARENESS (2023) - at Manifold Books, surrounded by the delicate and lingering works of Marianna Maruyama, we hummed. i read from a piece that is still unfolding. or perhaps, still finding its shape, its sharpness. a piece on crip time and rest, on a herd of horses, on the habit of willing the body, and, just as much, being used to a body that is willing — one's own, or that of another. being at a loss and searching for a new language, as the relationship between bodies and will changes.
GRIEF RITUAL FOR THE WAITING ROOM, POEM (2023)
GRIEF RITUAL FOR THE WAITING ROOM, POEM (2023) - Excerpt from collective publication made as a result of "Dreaming Otherwise", a weekly, six week workshop on movement organizing and crip poetics, for a selected group of 12 Sick, Disabled queer artists. Dreaming otherwise was facilitated by Jody Chan and co-hosted by Whippersnapper Gallery, Toronto and Tangled Art + Disability, with support from the Images Festival and Canada Council for the Arts.
SLEEPLESSNESS SOMEHOW TAKES OVER (2024)
SLEEPLESSNESS SOMEHOW TAKES OVER (2024) - The booklet “Sleepnlessness Somehow Spills Over” came out of Sarmad's anonymous collaborative writing project between Fileona Dkhar and myself, and was designed by Limestone's Chen Jhen. A shared contemplation on sleeplessness, resting and digesting, disability and illness through reading, weaving conversations and collectively taking a pause.
SILENT GRIEF DINNER (2022) - a guided grief ritual held during the finissage of "GRIEF IS A DAILY PRACTICE". for the duration of two hours, eleven invited guests and I were seated on the ground at Daily Practice, surrounding a composition of candles and handmade wooden bowls on a long, folded cotton cloth. after a reading and gentle guidance, five courses were served, which we ate in silence. each course held an element of grief, offering a means to explore grief's physicality through digestion and taste, as well as it being both a shared and solitary experience.
BODIES HORIZONTAL, LISTENING (2022) - poetic essay written for Stephan Blumenschein's publication 'We Were Listening to Records'. in the piece I look into parallels between listening to sound and songs and listening to physical pain, approaching both as landscapes and practices. design by Bram van den Berg.
SUNDAY MORNING WITH LOGAN FEBRUARY (2022) - poetry event at Shimmer. through poetry, dialogue and a collective reading experiment Logan February, myself and our audience explored whether translation can be seen as an act, or labor, of solidarity, as a form of closeness, or getting-closer – through distant, differing bodies. photographs by Jason Hendrik Hansma.
WE ARE THE RAIN ON THE OPEN WINDOWS (2022) - text piece written for Shimmer's alternative newsletter project that thinks through ways of expanding the accessibility of their archive. based on their archival material, the text piece explores the notion of 'image caption' as a poetic space, and blue wavy lines indicate that the text can be read in multiple directions. a voice-recorded version of the text can be found on Shimmer's website. design by Christophe Clarijs
LISTENING FOR BODY VOICE (2019 - 2021) - watercolour, pencil and pen on paper, 15cm x 21cm - series of drawings that form a practice of mapping physical symptoms. the drawn texts read: "voice as torch" and "intensities - if i could i would just burn and burn and burn - body map - fire - heat".
SPELLBOUND PAGES: A BOOK IS A BOND (2019) - performance icw Leon Filter and Valentina Curandi during the launch of 'On Disappearance', SpellBound Pages's first publication in an edition of 64 copies, with contributions from 12 artists, printed through mimeography and risoprint. SpellBound Pages is a publishing effort that rehabilitates the active verb of dying. during the performance we bound the books manually - the first half was bound just by ourselves, the second half with the help of the audience. November 2018, WALTER BOOKS, Arnhem.

Sunday Morning With Logan February

Date:
Location: Shimmer
In association with: Logan February

poetry event at Shimmer. through poetry, dialogue and a collective reading experiment Logan February and i explored whether translation can be seen as an act, or labour, of solidarity, as a form of closeness, or getting-closer – through distant, differing bodies.

https://shimmershimmer.org/moment-1-2-3-2-2/

grief is a daily practice

Date:
Location: Daily Practice

solo exhibition exploring the ways a space can hold grief – as both a shared experience as well as one contained within the limits of a body. in correspondence with Suzanne Weenink, i have created a series of grief rituals. one of these, a silent grief dinner, was held among my series of drawings, texts and photographs.

https://dailypractice.nl/grief-is-a-daily-practice/

The Future is Polyphonic

Date:
Location: Poetry International
In association with: Dean Bowen, Mona Kareem

guest speaker during The Future is Polyphonic, with poet Mona Kareem, curated by Dean Bowen, during Poetry International Festival.

Artificial ignorance: Digital Failure

Date:
Location: Writers Unlimited

Poetry reading for Artificial Ignorance, Winternachten Festival: Who Wants to Live Forever, curated by Maarten van der Graaff. Writers Unlimited, The Hague

https://www.writersunlimited.nl/en/programme/artificial-ignorance-digital-failure

Residency Stiftung Künstlerdorf

Date:
Location: Stiftung Künstlerdorf

Month long residency with collaborators Leon Filter and Valentina Curandi at Stiftung Künstlerdorf, Schöppingen. working on our publication project SpellBound Pages, A Book is A Bond, in which we worked to "rehabilitate the active verb of dying".

https://stiftung-kuenstlerdorf.de/de/home
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