Juliane Tübke first studied African art history at the Free University Berlin and later Fine Arts at the University of Arts Berlin and the School of Visual Arts New York.
In 2018, she completed her diploma in the class of Monica Bonvicini and received the President‘s Fine Arts Award for her show "tentare", which explored the idea that material can have agency. In the same year, she was artist-in-resident in Beirut supported by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). Further, she was selected to participate in the Liebermann Villa Emerging Artist Programme organised by the British Council, UK/Germany 2018.
tentare
Her recent project “tentare” is a compilation of different photographs that reveal her attempts to develop a sense for stone as a material.
The word “tentare” (lat.) means both “to feel” and “to try”. The basis of these works is a type of paper, which is used in archaeology to assist in deciphering unearthed stone inscriptions. With the help of a special technique, she examines the qualities of different stony surfaces. But rather than focusing on the text, she prioritises the material itself as co-creator of the final image. "tentare" is thus an attempt to approach a material that appears to passively wait to be shaped by the human hand or to gain meaning through our intervention. How could one think of the material itself as an actor?
tentare - Kochi
After working mainly with photographic images, Juliane recently became interested in exploring architectural space and the body through sculpture. During her residency at Pepper House in Kochi, Juliane will develop a new project dealing with Kochi city’s architecture. After taking imprints of Kochi’s architectural surfaces, Juliane will incorporate them into a site-specific installation. These imprints carry the residue of human touch left over many years. What does it mean to be touched by a surrounding? How do these traces of memory speak to us and how do we speak to them?
This residency is organised with the generous support of Malabar Escapes.
Final Report
I arrived at Kochi airport on July 21, after spending an intensive orientation week with the bangaloREsidency team. The driver of the Kochi Biennale Foundation picked me up and we headed to Fort Kochi through a sudden bout of torrential rain. Later, I started setting up my studio at Pepper House - an old heritage building that is situated directly at the waterfront and is full of huge working spaces. From my studio window, I was able to observe the coming and going of immense container ships. Every week they seemed to disappear more and more behind the blue-grey fog which always appeared shortly before it started to rain.
KUMBALANGI
When the weather was good, I went on motorbike tours along Kochi’s coastline with a staff member from the Foundation. One day, early in the morning, we drove through Kumbalangi - a village located on the outskirts of Kochi amidst a network of lagoons, lakes and rivers. We stopped and walked along a narrow path to watch fishermen preparing for their day. The first person we met was Lalu, a banker from Mattancherry, who invited us to his house where he had lived with his family for several decades. His father used to work as a fisherman. Over the next week, we visited his family almost every day. We talked about the weather and had some fish from the farm right next to their house. Finally, I met Lalu’s mother Lakshmi. She told me more about how the village and its climate had changed over the last 50 years. Lakshmi also spoke about various buildings that we would pass every day on our way to her house and whose surfaces were heavily affected by the rain.
I started to think more about the weather and how it affects our lives and surroundings in general. Exactly one year ago, there was a big flood in the state of Kerala where Kochi is located. Consequently, the whole Foundation team began to monitor the movements of the clouds over Kerala and to follow the news closely for any signs of further floods. Due to its elevated location and geography, Kochi is usually spared the seasonal floods and this year was no exception.
The weather would be a predominant theme in the interviews I would conduct over subsequent weeks. I decided to work in Kumbalangi and talk to the people I met there. During my conversations, I was aided by Jith Joseph, who is a member of the Biennale Foundation and whose father also used to work as a fisherman. Naturally, without him translating, I wouldn't have been able to have these conversations. We often started the interviews with a chat about the weather but eventually ended up talking about something completely different. After each interview, I would also roam the small village for hours photographing my surroundings. The stories and photos would later feed ideas for a project that I plan to realise back in Germany. For this project, I am going to interweave my interview recordings and transcriptions with paper imprints of Kumbalangi's architectural surfaces. When creating these imprints, I was assisted by Antony Ajay, another member of the Biennale Foundation. Additionally, I decided to give myself an extra constraint and only use those buildings that Lakshmi had mentioned in our conversations.
When the rain was too heavy, I spent a lot of time in my studio and started working with the architectural surfaces of Pepper House itself. The imprinting process revealed the tactile textures of the weathered surfaces which included traces of minor repairs. I then emphasised these surfaces by applying black pigments to the imprints. For the open days at the studio, I installed a selection of these paper wall imprints as well as floor imprints that I'd made from clay. I also presented my research material from Kumbalangi as part of the Let's Talk series on August 14th. While preparing for my talk, I came to the realisation that my stay in Kochi had a huge impact on my working process - an impact that I had previously underestimated. One of the strongest influences were the conversations with Lakshmi and Jith that were to significantly change my way of working over the ensuing weeks.
Weathering is the project that Juliane Tübke, bangaloREsident@Pepper House in Kochi, chose to work on during her residency in 2019.
For Weathering, Juliane interviewed people living and working in and around Kochi about the impact that weather/water has had on them and their surroundings. The publication accompanying the project can be viewed here:
