Neuseenland 1/
New-lake-land 1
Neuseenland 1/ New-lake-land 1, 2024
Etching, charcoal, found butterfly, gold mineral pigment on handmade flower-pressed paper,
25 x 37 cm
This mixed-media drawing was created during my exchange program ‘Ecologies of Water’ 2024 at LIA Leipzig International Art Programme in Leipzig, Germany. As the exchange program fosters engagement between resident artists with artist duo Maria & Vlado Ondrej’s long-standing etching studio, this work was as a result from my participation in their etching sessions, with the generous support of German artist Maria Ondrej.
I used some images and texts from the comprehensive display of coal/lignite mining history from the archive of Bergbau Technik Park (Mining Technology Park). Interestingly, the large-scale park presents the entire cycle of an open-cast lignite mine, located on the waste site of the former Espenhain mine with its connection to the formerly-mine now artificially-recultivated Lake Markkleeberg nearby. The shark-like structure of the playground slides came from the actual information at the kids’ playground inside the park, referring to the geological transformation of the site.
The hand-written lines were extracted from an article stating “And once the lake is finished, I’ll build over there our weekend house...” with additional translations into German and Vietnamese. Moreover, the choice of gold mineral pigment came from the idea of “kohle” in German meaning both “coal” and “gold” or “money”.