Blooming while we are sinking

BLOOMING, WHILE WE ARE SINKING

Blooming, while we are sinking

by: John Sturgeon & Edda Akkermann

Blooming, while we are sinking - is a video installation, with sculptural elements, sound and spoken text. The installation displays two videos, one for large-scale video projection on a hanging wall-like screen in the rear of the gallery. The other video emanates from a monitor at the bottom of a well, built in a mound of desert-like sand, in the center of the gallery.

The video projection features two actors, who portray the eternal male/female dynamic of enticement and rejection, approach and distance, submission and power with movement and dance. With mime-like characterization, the performers explore the cyclical change and inherent tension in these archetypal polarities.

A circular tower, a subterranean stone labyrinth, the ruins of the Pueblo Mesoamerican in the vast desert of the American Southwest frames this psychological scenario, in which the actors are isolated and relate in recurring patterns. Climbing the mound of sand and stones reveals the view at the bottom of a circular well. There beneath the watery undercurrent, floating and twisting the couple locked in their mantra:

and these are the stones

that we hold,

while we are sinking...

und diese sind die Steine,

die wir halten,

während wir untergehen...

flowers are everywhere,

spread out

for this occasion

but, only in the mind

Blumen sind überall,

ausgebreitet