Dirty Art Department
Ana Lipps+
Born in 1997, Vilnius, Ana Lipps (they/them) is a Lithuanian-German artist, currently studying and working in the Netherlands. Their art practice is predominantly based in large scale installation. Through creating objects, photographs and interactive installations they aim to train the viewer’s eye to recognise liminal moments of suspension encouraging choices of change rather than a continuation of the expected.
‘Liminality’ was coined by anthropologists to denote the in-between state within rites of passage. Over the course of history the liminal has been suppressed from being a vital part of life for individual and community growth, to being seen as a dangerous and undesirable space. Liminality, the centre that divides two binaries moved to the peripheries of our society. This neglect of transitional spaces harvests an anarchic undergrowth and the liminal becomes a portal which can be utilised as a tool for resistance.
A trained eye can recognise the liminal within almost anything, as it is all around us. However, through the way in which power structures have situated it within the outskirts of society we rarely recognise such an opportunity when it occurs. For those reasons my graduation project aims to create a rupture in the predominant version of reality.
This years graduation show will take place at the Courthouse underground parking lot. I was interested in working with an object that belonged to the space as the parking lot is already a liminal space. Taking the car as a starting point for the project, I was looking to create an opportunity for the visitor to become an active agent in the queering of the space.
“Intake Manifold” consist of a car with broken windows that are made of candy glass. From the back you can see the break lights glowing. As you approach the vehicle strange coloured lights and sound draw you closer. Parts of the car seem to be overgrown with other strange and fluid shapes. From the inside of the car you can hear the broken radio playing a tune that calls to you to break another piece of the glass and let it melt in your mouth.
The participatory breaking off of candy pieces from the car allows the visitor to have a part in shaping the form of the environment. In that sense it becomes a tool in unraveling preconceived notions of what can be real, or can be possible. It is giving the parking lot as a liminal space a more central role, as well as collapsing in what the space is meant to be and what it can be. The car becomes then a vessel for this change.