One Day
One Day
How can you expect a man who is warm to understand one who is cold?
(‘One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’)
The exhibition at Salongen is an interaction between the book ‘One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the artist Linde Pieper. The book describes one day in the life of the innocent prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, in a Russian forced labour camp. It was the first published book (1962) that openly talked about life in the Soviet gulag (prison camp) system.
Over the last year, the artist has re-read the book several times, whilst simultaneously creating a 360 degree representation of her own experience of a day. How would the reading of the prisoner’s challenges affect her creative process, in light of her own relatively care-free day?
As the work developed and world news changed, Pieper came to realize that it was easier to keep focused on her own day and push away the struggles of others. As a result, the urge to use more colour and to seek beauty took over. She recognized that looking away or being distracted is often easier than facing reality. Is this avoidance or can this be a necessary act of self-preservation? Does seeking beauty enable us to carry on? Should we feel obliged to care? Should we acknowledge and respond to what is happening to others much less fortunate than ourselves?
The suspended flock of book-birds cast shadows on the artist's own day around the room...a metaphor for a promise of freedom or impending disaster. Despite looking away, the suffering of others is still there ‘overshadowing’, hanging and questioning…
‘One Day’, monotype, woodcut, carborundum, cyanotype, chine collé, collage, 40cmx22m