Before and After the Now
Research- project (2013 - 2014) to transmit images of my performances to a permanent medium, in collaboration with a photographer, a poet, and different film makers.
To feel.
Her arms are light. Her calves are of iron.
The trees too and the streets, the houses, the
tables and the chairs are iron. They are bent
to form leaves, white and thin as cotton yarn.
They are only heavy when you lift them up or
push them aside. All you need to do is to
touch them. Then you stare into space, because you
hadn’t expected to have all that iron on your hands.
Kreek Daey Ouwens
Girl
with bare feet
like all spring blossom
in her mothers' house
with the shyness of a new moon
Kreek Daey Ouwens
To see.
One day I got a pair of glasses.
The world became clear.
Things took on shape.
People their form.
I thought everyone saw as I did.
My eyes were enormous behind the thick lenses.
It looked as though I was always in a state of surprise.
Kreek Daey Ouwens
Before and After the Now
Starting point for Before and After the Now were performances around the senses To see, Hear, Taste, Smell and Feel, performed in Modern Art Oxford (see and feel), Dorchester Abbey (hear), Fierce Festival Birmingham (taste and smell). Nils Kenninck, photographer, documented my performances. Kreek Daey Ouwens wrote poems after the images. Working with different filmmakers, Aliona van der Horst, Myrthe Mosterman, Claire Pijman (all camera) and Fokke van Saane (sound), assisted by Milda Navickyte, we created footage of performances at different location.
Before and After the Now was financially supported by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts