This year she returned with a special project: an artistic reconstruction of the past, based on three diaries written by her grandmother during her stay in a Japanese women's camp in Indonesia. Through Museum Helmond and curator Mariëlle van de Kerkhof, Tahné was pointed to our campus as a possible location. "I was looking for a space of six by six meters, but got a much larger place. This allowed me to build five sets at a time instead of breaking down and starting over each time."
A warm workspace, literally and figuratively
For Tahné, the heated space was a luxury. "As an artist, I'm not used to that. It was also nice to talk to someone from time to time." Tahné continued with a laugh, "and to shock people with what I was doing. Bringing a bag of maggots, a big load of sand on the floor, that evoked reactions." The interaction with other campus residents, from helping hands to spontaneous conversations, made her feel welcome.
"Corporate and art mixed together, I like that. There's a lot happening here in terms of culture, and that motivates."
Woman, work and resilience
Tahné's project touches on themes that are also central to the current art tour on campus: women and work. Tahné's grandmother described in her diaries what it was like to live as a woman in a Japanese internment camp and have a child, Tahné's uncle said. "As a woman, you get into a situation you don't want to be in and yet you have to go on. I wanted to make that story tangible." That resilience and the courageous perseverance of women is where Tahné's work and our art tour intersect.
From diary to exhibition
The sets Tahné built are reconstructions of the situations her grandmother described in the diaries. The sets have now all been photographed by Tahné and those images can now be seen in her exhibition at Pennings Foundation in Eindhoven. To be visited from August 15 to November 22. A tangible bridge between personal history and collective memory.
A campus that provides space for stories
The Brainport Human Campus turned out to be the ideal place to give shape to this vulnerable and powerful story. And who knows, there may be a sequel.
Would you like to know more about Tahné and her work? Then check out her website: My Dearest Teun - Tahné Kleijn.
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