Menja Stevenson

>>> Japanese

Menja Stevenson

Born in 1982 in Rottweil, Germany. Lives and works in Stuttgart. Graduated in 2008 in fine art and 2010 in intermedia art at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. Project scholarship 2011 by the Akademie Schloss Solitude and 2012 by the ifa - institute of foreign relations. In 2015 she obtained a scholarship by Künstlerdorf Schöppingen and the Daimler Art Scope scholarship for Tokyo, Japan. She has done various interventions and performance projects in public space as well as video projects, photography and installations for art institutions.

"I observe the unspectacular things and situations of everyday life that, at second glance, evoke the poetry, the uninitentional humour, the absurdity and the abysses behind and beyond them. This subjective, second view of the "normal world" that deals with the "relevance of the profane" becomes the point of departure of my work."
WEB: www.menjastevenson.de
Tokyo Blog: www.hallotokio.wordpress.com

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Stay: September 4, 2015 - December 1, 2015
Sponsor: Mercedes-Benz Japan Co., Ltd.

descent (carpet), 2014


descent (photo), 2014

descent

In the photographic series "descent" the beholder encounters computer-generated non-designed images that have been created accidentally by a technical error.
Facing such a digital "accident" we suddenly feel to be thrown back on ourselves, re-encountering ourselves again: While we stare at the cryptic pixels we start pausing for a moment, recollecting and questioning what we do. What are these images? Are they beautiful or significant to us?
Ornaments and recurring rhythmic patterns are apparent in the images and remind the artist of classical rug motifs. But the connotations are more numerous and yet vague: in satellite views that we know from the media, like street views or spooky anonymous greenish warfare pictures in the news, the unintentional screen shots will probably never reveal their secret.
The very similar but never identical motifs remind us of the variety in the analogue world that seems to lack in the digital one, just like a million waves that roll on the beach but will never be exactly the same. The photos are like captured spiritual seconds that emerge from a non existant in-between zone, bringing back something warm from a cold "place off". The "frozen error" eventually transmutes into a soft rug, like an ancestral timeless asset. The digital image finding process and the analogue realization that leads to the printed large size carpet is a consequent mental leap of the artist's artistic concept.


Bustour RW, 2010


Bustour S, 2008


Bustour S, 2008

bus tour

During a bus ride the artist is wearing a self designed and tailored dress, made from the very same upholstery fabric for bus seats of the bus company she's actually using. The photographs from the series ?bus tour" were taken during the making of the different videos that were accomplished by the artist, both by tailoring the dresses and handbags and by being filmed using the different bus companies in her camouflage outfit. The main idea was to become invisible in the camouflage dresses and at the same time make the overlooked be noticed. It's the ugly design of bus seat fabrics for instance that is being ignored each and every day by the public. The fabric remains invisible and nobody takes notice of it because it can't be changed or undone anyway. With the performances on the ?bus tours" the artist indirectly poses questions regarding art, design, beauty, function and life quality. Why is the functional mostly never beautiful? Why are we simply exposed to such unpleasant design in public space? Who designs these fabrics and is the purpose of dirt-repellency the ever resistant excuse for bad taste in public transportation?