12.3.2010. JAJE

Conscious, 2010.
1 egg, 1 condom
5cmx5cmx4cm


In the Netherlands the biological production (the moral conscious of the level of our comsuming) of food is a topic in political debates. In the government there is a Party for Animals, which shows with their presence that Dutch citizens think that the moral aspect of , for example egg production, is an important issue.

Over the years there appeared several ways of producing eggs chickenfriendly. In the supermarkets nowadays you can choose between a dozen of different eggs. One even more frienly then the other. They all have names that tell you that the mother of the eggs in the box was free to squirrel around (scharrel eieren), was allowed to walk outside whenever she wants (vrije uitloop eieren), had access to grassland (gras eieren) etc.
Beside the name and design of the box there is a list of signs and stams indicating that the farm got checked and approved by this or that bureau, which means (or should mean) checked by the government. The more ecological the egg, the more you pay.
Now are there some proofs every now and then that the egg with a stamp of ecological origin can still come from a chicken in a cage. Eggs get recategorised because there is not really a prosecution against it. I think the whole ecological standard on eggproduction is questionable as well. The European standard for 'free walking around' lies around 6 chickens per m2, meaning the only thing that actually disappeared is the cage. It is a fact that the chickens in a cage are more healthy (in the Netherlands). It might sound strange but the last decade there hasnt been any of the common diseases like parasites, due to the fact that since chickens came off the ground they dont walk around in their own shit all day. In the biological farms where they do, it is impossible to get it to dry, which leads to an increasing dioxide level which causes the quality of the egg to go backwards. Some other common happening in biological farms which stopped happening in the cages is cannibalism. As there are no ill or weaker chickens in the cages they dont get picked on, killed and eaten by the others.

With all that being said I'm not sure which way is better. Health or freedom. And why should we transfer our ethics to the foodproduction? Isn't massproduction of lifestock unethical in every way? A prison and abuse don't disappear when you make it prettier.
To get to the top of the foodchain we had to group together until the only natural enemy left was our own specie. And to protect ourselves against ourselves we started to crawl together in big cities and countries. In order to survive that way of living we have to produce loads of food as there isn't space for everybody to have chickens in the backyard, if you have one. That's the concequence of the way we live. To protect yourself from feeling bad about it, you either escape the city or buy yourself a better conscious.

22.1.2010. VJETAR

Strange wind, 2009.
1 Ventilator, Iron wire, Wool, Tape, Electricity.
85x60x60 cm


This piece is the result of intuitive creation, without a clear statement or philosophy behind it. I think in order not to destroy certain pieces you should work without actual thinking, just the need to make something this or that way. Maybe I could store this inside a research I've been doing about a year ago. It comes down to the search for a 'soul' of machinery. Ever machine has a certain aura, and when you change and reconnect the functions it gets a character and starts to show live instead of pure mechanical functionality.

My startingpoint was wind, so I took an old ventilator that i found somewhere as it creates artificial wind. However, in order to use the wind it creates I had to get it running first. When I took it apart my interest in researching any type of mechanism took over, along with the fun of playing with it. I forgot about the theme, and created some sort of animal out of it. It's disability to actually fly comes forth out of my own disability to use technique to create a miracle such as overpowering certain functions of a weak engine. Nevertheless there grew some character in the creature while working on it, and a dislocated bird is the result.

13.11.2009. SLOBODNA TEMA

Innocent <> Guilty, 2009.
site-specific installation
military helmets


The installation consists of a room with the floor paved with army helmets, welded together in tiles so they form a stabile surface, where the visitors have to cross the room in order to get to the next part of the exhibition. I force the public to step onto the helmets, and walk across them.
The installation could roughly be divided into two parts. One is that I force the people to put themselves physically in a higher position then the military. To step on someone’s head is to humiliate someone completely, putting yourself in the highest position compared to the other.
The base reason of existance for any army is to defend the homelands, which is nothing more then a useless piece of nature if not for the people inhabiting it and giving that piece of nature a bigger meaning. But then the military is allowed to be in a physically superior position compared to the rest of the population, granting them a more powerful position. Every war thats fought in the end hits the innocent people more then the fighters. The most deaths in every war are not the soldiers fighting, but regular people that just want to do their job and see their kids grow up to have a better future. Most people don’t really care what’s happening outside of their village, though still they are the ones that have to pay the price for warfare.
Then rises the question, are those people really innocent? Thats the second part of the installation, the question about guilt. Who is guilty and how can you say what’s guilt? What seems guilty in one situation can be innocent in another. In the installation everybody enters innocent. They didn’t do anything yet. Then they are forced to disrespect the massgrave of soldierhelmets, and walk right across it as if it’s just streetstones instead of the most vital part of armor to a soldier, without knowing who wore it and who died in it. They don’t have another choice then to do so, just like most soldiers in war don’t have another choice then just to do try and make the best out of the mess they’re put into. Or most people don’t really have a choice to think different from what information they’re given. Propaganda makes it too difficult to the majority of people to see what’s real and what’s fake, as most people aren’t capable of criticising mental superiority. Then the question rises, who really is guilty? The german soldier that has been fed fascist propaganda his entire life and can choose between massacring innocents or being an innocent that sees himself and his family getting slaughtered? The palestinian freedomfighter that is willing to turn his body in a bomb as that really is the last resort in a country that has been one giant concentrationcamp for the last 50 years? Or the european citizen that can vote between one that puts afghanistans oil in a higher standard then a human life or one that will debate about it endlessly while the war keeps going on so not giving a solution either?
In the installation i switch the roles, turn the innocent visitors into guilty tombraiders and the guilty soldiers into innocent victims that helplessly get raided.

6.11.2009. SLOBODNA TEMA

Worldpeace, 2009.
ventilator, motion sensor, trashbags, package tape, metal stand
Ø 50-300 cm

I made an inflatable cruise missile, that rises like an erected fallus when someone comes near, and when you stop moving it goes down until there remains a residu that gives the impression of a giant used condom. I called it worldpeace as I think it’s interesting to see how for the past 100 years the worldleaders try to secure global peace by bringing in more and more indestructable weapons. In name they arm themselves for peace, but to me it seems more like porn for the powerful. All the propaganda with which people are made to believe that it’s necessary to have all those weapons, or that it actually would be possible to get to peace by making more and more weapons, is just a bunch of hot air. Those weapons are the reason it’s impossible to get anywhere near worldpeace. It’s such a ridicule that by the end of the cold war there were so many weapons we could tear the whole planet apart 6 times. All the money spend on these weapons could have solved the same problems I think about 6 times on a peaceful way, but it was obviously a better idea to throw all that money at the trash next to sanity.
It’s a such a big farce. The lies and propaganda about how good the cause is supposed to be make me look at it more like those people are teenage boys, showing off with the size of their ‘cock’ instead of leaders of a country that are trying to accomplish worldpeace. All these weapons are about as usefull to peace as using the same condom the next day again is usefull to protect yourself from getting any disease.

30.10.2009. SLOBODNA TEMA

The camel, the lion and the child, 2009.
wood, metal, velcro, curtain, 230V- 12V transformer, electro engine (12V, 5A)
250x100x100 cm

The base idea of this installation is the philosophy of Nietsche's Übermensch, from the words of Zarathustra. I combine it with various theory's on mankinds development actually going backwards, gets retarded or is non-lineair. Personally i prefer to see it as a circular process without end nor beginning. At the point that we've reached Nietsche's child, we will become the camel again. As one theory on extra terestial life says, we are the most developed species in the universe but for some unclear reason we decided to go back to the level of 3 or 4 dimensions instead of 8. To me it doesn't matter whether it's true, stupid or smart, I think it's a cycle like any other evolution in the universe.
In the installation that development is symbolised by a curtain, attached to a continuously spinning electro engine, slowly wrapping up as it's being secured on the floor by a rigid surface of velcro (the camel, dragging through the desert without a free will. Just going on from oasis to wherever you will tell them to go). At the point that it starts to lift the weight it will start losing grip on the velcro surface, until it rips loose with the familiar sound of fabric rippin loose from velcro. It starts spinning around like a storm (the lion, who developed a free will, ripping loose from any higher power. Going around with the power of a storm but as well with as less directions as a storm) until it gets closer to the floor where it will end in a souffi dance (the child, peacefully playing, dancing, creating). At the point that it reaches the floor it will grip the velcro again and the whole cycle will start all over.

ŽIVOTOPIS

Personal information:
Name: Marijn Abelman
Born: 18th of June 1987, Amsterdam
email: marijn.abelman@gmail.com
telephone: 0955359423

Training + courses:
(Highschool)
1999 – 2004 OSG de Meergronden
level: HAVO
Profile: Culture and Arts
2003 – 2004 Drawing class at CKV culture centre of Almere
2004 – 2005 Night School ROC: English and History of Arts
2004 – 2005 Pre-college program at the Academy of Fine Arts of Utrecht
(College)
2006 – 2009 CABK Academy of Fine Arts Zwolle
Faculty of Autonomous Arts
2009 - Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb, Department of Sculpture

Work:
2003 – 2005 Voluntair at Youth Centres: Jc Cobra, Jc Totum, Jc Trapnotov (Almere)
2005 (3-8) Founder and compagnon of the company VOF de Kunst, for all graffiti related projects.
Jobs:
March- Wall decoration for a tv show on the reïntegration of drugadicts into society, by the dutch public tv channel KRO
June- 80 metres wall decoration for the company RAI Amsterdam
June- One week graffiti workshop for 1st and 2nd grade of highschool Helen Parkhurst in Almere
July- 20 metre wall decoration for Indoor Kart even Kart RAI Amsterdam
July- Wall decoration Afro Hairdress Salon at Spaklerweg Amsterdam
July – August- Hiphopfestival for the city of Diemen containing various workshops on the insights of Breakdancing, BMX cycling, Graffiti painting, Rapmusic
October 2005- Painting for the Royal Celebration Train ‘Silverline’
November 2005- Participant Graffitiwall for the 50 years anniversary of Unicef, in Almere
July – August 2007- Conceptual and executive production for the launch of the new season for theatre ‘De Spiegel’ in Zwolle, with Niek vd Sprong Cultural Productions.

Exhibitions:
April 2006- Exhibition for and about graffiti at Multiversum Ateliers, Almere
June - August 2007- Exhibition ‘Shelter’ at ‘t Nyenhuis, museum de Fundatie, Zwolle
April 2009- Exhibition ‘Vrolijk is Anders’ in the watertower Turfmarkt, Zwolle