NATURALIZATION workshop
STEPHAN TAKKIDES. krewzberg, Berlin, Germany
STEPHAN TAKKIDES. krewzberg, Berlin, Germany
https://stephantakkides.com/
LEIPZIG, GERMANY
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Sketchbook Creative Research on Naturalization
My objective was to produce a graphic novel about emigration naturalization, forced asylum, displacement, and camouflage. While walking on the streets of Kreuzberg I did drawings on situ and photographed icons and lettering to study the physical evidence of other cultures coexisting in this neighborhood. My brush ink and graphite drawings were influenced by David Salle’s Pastiche compositions[1] and the use of different moments-time, backgrounds, and styles. I experimented with cultural symbols, street signs, iconography, and calligraphy. Using a form of “Daydream” visualization, I made up stories for the graphic novel.
Naturalization workshop reading analysis
BELONGING
Anne Marie Fortier[2] discusses landscape and identity in Naturalization and the politics of desire. Ways of fitting in a different culture.
HIDING
Concealing[3] and trying to disappear while living in a new, different culture. A reconnaissance,[4] a hide and seek game. A form of camouflage[5] to hide permanently within another culture. The exquisite black and white photographs of Francesca Woodman are about camouflage, and her work is analyzed and represented well in Neil Leach’s book Camouflage.
3- INTEGRATING
Mimicry [6] and Psychasthenia or phobias immigrants might suffer while assimilating the new environment. Structures and camouflage[7] in a new landscape. Camouflage as defense
PASSING
5- FAILING
The queer art of failure[10]
Paracas icons inside a Kreuzberg restaurant
After the Naturalization workshop with Stephan Takkides, I walked to the Paracas restaurant in Kreuzberg. Paracas means in Quechua sandstorm; and it’s the name of pre-Columbian culture on the coast of Ica, south of Lima. Peru. It was a Peruvian restaurant I interviewed the chef, cook, assistant cook, and two busboys. They were all Peruvian immigrants and they tried to not be seen by customers[11]. I asked for a mixed seafood ceviche. (Lemon cooked seafood)
I found inside the restaurant replicas- paintings depicting Nazca gods.[12]
These icons are anthropomorphic beings-1 painted on the outside of Nazca ceramics. I have used them in a woodcut print “Transculturation,” the woodcut shows an Andean Mountain woman and child emigrating to the coast carrying with her all her customs, language, and culture. Another process of naturalization.
Included in this blog is the woodcut recently exhibited in Pujol and Bordeaux, France. This woodcut shows icons of Nazca and Paracas iconography. Transculturation, Woodcut, Impresion Temporal, Pujols, France. 2022
1- images have the legs and arms of monkeys. They symbolize high sexuality and belonging to the land of fire, the Antisuyu, and the Amazonas.
2- The body of a human being the wings of a condor to represent air and Waira, and to enter the world of Hanan Pacha, The heavens.
3- All figures have sacred Amaru, snakes, around them symbolizing the earth, and the UkuPacha or the underworld
4- The shamans depicted are also deities with nose pieces and royal golden crowns.
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[2] Fortier, Anne-Marie. "What's the Big Deal? Naturalization and the Politics of Desire." Citizenship Studies 17, no. 6-7 (2013): 697–-711. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2013.780761.
[3] Thayer, Gerald Handerson, Concealing-coloration in the Animal Kingdom. The Macmillan Co., NY. 190
[4] Hanna Rose Shell. Hide and Seek: Camouflage, Photography, and the Media of Reconnaissance. Zone Books, 2012.
[5] Leach, Neil, Camouflage. MIT Press, 2006.
Leach, Neil. "Belonging: Towards a Theory of Identification with Place." Perspecta 33 (2002): 126--33. https://doi.org/10.2307/1567305
[6] Caillois, Roger, and John Shepley. "Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia." October 31 (1984): 17–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/778354.
[7] https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/camouflaged-public-art-by-joshua-callaghan
[8] Ahmed, Sara. "'She’ll Wake Up One of These Days and Find She's Turned into a Nigger': Passing through Hybridity." Theory, Culture & Society 16, no. 2 (April 1999): 87–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632769922050566.
[9] Voit, Robert. New Tree. Steidl. 2011
[10] Halberstam, Jack. "The Queer Art of Failure." In The Queer Art of Failure, 87--122. Duke University Press (2011). https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11sn283.8.
[11] Egoz, Shelley. "Landscape and identity in the century of the migrant." In The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies. Second edition. London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group (2019). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315195063-26.
[12] Zuidema R. Tom, Meaning in Nazca art; iconographic relationships between Inca-, Huari-, and Nazca cultures in Southern Peru. Goteborg Press. 1972. USA
