Judith Stenneken's most recent body of work, a mountain is only a slow wave, continues her inquiries into a world of constant change and how the radical acceptance of impermanence might enrich our lives. The exhibition of the work at Marshall Gallery is comprised of a wide-ranging scale of new color and black-and-white photographs as well as video and audio-based media.
In “a mountain is only a slow wave”, the assumed solidity of our world crumbles and reveals a pattern of constant change. A world of shapeshifting, where inside and outside merge, where rocks turn into water and identities are fluid. As the clarity of these demarcations slowly fades, a sense of the interconnectedness of all things manifests itself. The collection of still images on view were made over the span of more than a decade (2008-2021) in a multitude of locations including Japan, USA, Germany, Austria, Greece and England, and include portraits, landscapes, architecture and abstractions. The color portraits were made in collaboration between the artist and asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan, at Berlin’s defunct airport Tempelhof, which was partially converted into a refugee camp between 2015-2018. Culling conceptual inspiration from a range of sources including quantum physics, eastern philosophies, mindfulness practice and neuroscience, Stenneken interprets a complex, ever-changing world through stoically composed imagery. A recorded piece by Syrian poet Lina Atfah, written in collaboration and in response to Stenneken’s work, plays within the space, as well as Stenneken’s video work “Staircase” from 2018.
