Gestures/References Marjolijn Dijkman
During the past two years, Marjolijn Dijkman has been working on her ongoing research project Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. In this project, which consists of a growing series of photographs that already holds thousands of photos, Dijkman explores ways of understanding the world through her practices of mapping and archiving. In previous exhibitions, she has presented the results of this work in various forms, including installations and a publication. Up until now, Dijkman’s research was based on gestures. Examples of these gestures are found in the way that elements are adapted, concealed, demonstrated, mirrored, constructed, and so on. Dijkman systematically photographed how such modes of spatial organization could be investigated as gestures made to organize, maintain, or sometimes disrupt a certain order in our lifeworld. During her explorations both in the Netherlands and abroad (Russia, Georgia, United Arab Emirates, USA, Europe) however, Dijkman also started photographing other forms of organization that relied on references to other places. These references have led to the possible development of a second archival system that gives rise to a different geography and perception of the world. If the focus on gestures gave form to an archiving of autonomous places that would only in the greater collection of photos establish relations with other places and gestures, the new focus on references locates relations between different places in the world itself.
For Los Angeles Works, Dijkman plans to inventory this recent direction in her ongoing research project, and will start a second dimension in her archive based on references made in one place to another place. Los Angeles is a particularly relevant place to start working on this new phase. Los Angeles is a place that seems driven towards creating other places within itself. It does this, of course, by recreating other places in movies, but also in its own built environment, which is one of the most diverse in the world. In neighborhoods like Chinatown, Little Odessa, Little Italy and Koreatown, the places that are constructed exist because of their references to other places in other countries. They are perceived through these references. Through architecture, garden design, interiors, shops, restaurants, and objects, these places constantly point back to absent places in other parts of the world.
Dijkman will explore these references and their meaning in an archival system in two phases. The first phase of this research will consist of a number of research trips: long walks through a city that was not designed to walk, during which Dijkman will scout and photograph the city’s locations for references to other locations. Moreover, she plans to broaden her practices of documentation with video and collect material from a wide variety of locations that reference to other places.
The second phase will be developed in the form of a dialogue on mapping and archiving with the Los Angeles based Center for Land Use Interpretation, whose gigantic archival system is based on sticking to one approach for 25 years. That dialogue will include an interview with CLUI founder Matthew Coolidge, an investigation of their archive and a study of the center’s methods of presentations.
For Los Angeles Works’ two exhibitions, Dijkman will seek to present her work in several forms that allow for further investigation of the implications that the new direction in her work will have. Forms of presentation she plans to work with are color-printed grids of her photos, a slide show and video, and a publication. She will work on a series of interviews and discussions as a contribution to the Los Angeles Works publications. Building on her previous work on geographies of gestures, in Los Angeles Works she explicitly seeks to address what a shift in content of her archive means for the forms of presentation and publication she employs in her archive. Dijkman’s Los Angeles Works project, finally, will continue existing forms of collaboration and start a new collaboration: as she did for her previous archive of gestures, Dijkman will again work together on a publication with designer Julie Peeters.
