Multimedia-artist working with video, photography and installation, based in Rotterdam.
(work in progress)
PHOTOGRAPHIC INSTALLATION
2024
Countless street tiles are scattered under our feet, and when a cluster of stones is full of cracks, they seem to want to resist the function they are supposed to perform; carrying the daily burden of thousands of anonymous feet. What happens when these materials are taken out of their daily context and allowed to perform a different function? Do they then transform as autonomous, self-contained art objects, as carriers of photographic material, rather than the everyday passerby?
Presentation during GRAW 2024 at Studio Tuinlaan
In the context of their work, Boiten associates construction materials with resources and building blocks prepared to become part of something new, as a metaphor for (self)transformation. However, in Utrecht, where Boiten grew up, and Rotterdam, the city where they now live, it does not feel as if construction actually leads to renewal. Roads are paved and cracks in that asphalt are plastered up again with so-called bitumen. New construction houses consist of hundreds of thousands of identical bricks, filled with countless identical living rooms, bathrooms and kitchens. Uniformity and homogeneity are tangible and visible as a normalized (urban) ideal.
Boiten's research on the theme of gender chafes with this homogeneous ideal. Like the cracked paving stones and cracks in the asphalt, the concept of gender cannot be placed in homogeneous and/or heteronormative frameworks. In this spatial installation, Boiten experiments with pulling building materials out of their normal context. By placing them as image-bearing characters in a narrative, Boiten, using photographic archival material, constructs a story that deals with autonomous transformation and resistance to uniformity.
The installation will be on view at Pennings Foundation in Eindhoven from 30.11.24-01.03.25
