Andrea Acosta
10 May – 15 July 2021
Muche House
// Open-Call //
Andrea Acosta (born in Bogotá), lives and works in Berlin. Her interdisciplinary work combines field research with sculpture, photography and drawing. Through a processbased practice she investigates established notions of nature and landscape and their relationship with constructed spaces, reflecting on the constant transformation of matter, gaze and territories.
She studied Fine Arts at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and completed a master in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies at the Bauhaus Universität in Weimar. Her work has been shown internationally in Europe, Latin America and Asia, in institutions such as the Institut national d'histoire de l'art in Paris, the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, Les Rencontres D’Arles in France and the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in Seoul. She has conducted a public art commission from Les Nouevaux Commaditaires (Bilbao) and has been an artist in residence at the Palais de Tokyo among others.
Andrea Acosta about the inspiration for her work:
I am not a studio artist but an artist who is always doing research in public spaces and in nature. So, going outside, being outside, or being in new places is a very important part of my work. This idea of going out and exploring a place and bringing back impressions or a collection of materials and information to rethink it within the studio space is a part of my method.
Regarding the Bauhaus and my work, there have been connections at different points. After my studies at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, it became somehow an important topic and since then, a lot of my work relates to architecture and its alliance with nature, the dialogues and tensions between them.
Andrea Acosta about the residency and the atmosphere in the Masters’ Houses:
It has been a strange experience to be here, taking into consideration the time we are in. Coming from Berlin to Dessau and seeing the emptiness of the city and this area, my normal life’s rhythm has changed. Having read a lot about the houses and their history, I raised all those expectations of what it is to be in the house, and then the first days being here were overwhelming, but I realized that there is a big difference between my expectations and the experience of being here, which has been intense and touching. From discovering certain things that I have read and then experiencing them through my body has been quite different. Even thinking of my project, being in the house has reorganized my thoughts and moved everything that I had planned. This was something I had not expected – that the architecture could be so present in such a touching way.
Andrea Acosta about the restrictions in terms of preservation of historical monuments or the touristic use of the Masters’ Houses:
When you go to a residency or do a project in another space besides your own, you have certain expectations, but then everything is always a bit different. Between this dialogue, the project starts taking shape, and I think the influence of the place has an important role in understanding what a space gives you in order to complete a task.
I found it interesting when I read about the rules because apparently the foundation wants to keep the place as it is, but at the same time, they want to bring people to live here, which means that in the end, the place will alternate which is a very contradictory situation. This raised some conceptual questions about the house as a being and what “do not touch the walls” means, and, at the same time, trying to stay close to them. This has also made me be more attentive about the way I am behaving in the house which I would not normally think about.
Regarding the visitors, I had the chance to talk to some, and I feel like being in a vitrine and being part of this monument which has been a particular feeling in this particular space. And somehow all of these things play a role because in the end, the project is going to take shape here in Muche House.
Insights into her artwork:
Before arriving in Dessau, I had a pretty clear idea of the sites and places I wanted to explore, but then the house has been much more present than what I had expected, and it has given me so much information already which made me wonder about the nature within the architecture. I discovered this in ways that I did not have in mind originally, perhaps it will be a negotiation between those two things. I imagine I will be collecting objects as I go along, and I am excited to have so much space to run different tests and to see how I can introduce all of this into the final project.