Offsite_Onsite / Research +Production Residencies + Installation Projects
Nisrine Boukhari (Austria)
“The light that gets lost”
“Blue is the colour of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world.” Rebecca Solnit
It happened because of how the sunlight reached Earth.
According to Nasa; sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the air’s gases and particles. Blue light is scattered more than the other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.
In the “Space between us” art residency, I continue my research on the idea of exile within exile I live since the Pandemic started where the notion of Home dissipates amidst the layers of a traumatic life experience, the thing which makes it also relevant to the residency theme since I could not take part of it but virtually.
Staring at the sky became part of daily rituals during the lockdown; studying the blue colour to understand the space between us, between Earth and the sky, real and fiction, the tangible and perceptible. The light that gets lost before reaching the final place to reside in, scattering to give us the beauty, purity and calmness of the Blue who doesn’t bare a long journey but comes in small waves, scattered in every direction to reach our eyes.
Description of the space:
To become present in my studio, I thought of two elements relevant to the senses we mostly use right now –sound and sight while the others are missing because of being distant. So the studio space will become blue space lit by a particular blue colour from Philips Hue system. In this way it is like displacing the sky -metaphorically- and inviting it temporarily into the tiny space in the gallery, it is also about the magical presence of the artist who is there and not, only as a blue spirit with a voice. It is how today’s technology replaced our physical presence with waves and frequencies.
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Nisrine Boukhari (b. 1980) studied Sculpture in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, finished her M.A. in Social Design at Angewandte Kunst Wien (University of Applied Arts Vienna). She is pursuing her art-based research internationally. She had an artist/research residency at Iaspis/Sweden, Serlachius Museum/Finland, Trapholt Museum/ Denmark, MAWA art residency Winnipeg/Canada, NKDALE art centre Norway, Art Omi in NYC, and many other residencies.
She exhibited her work internationally at MMSU Museum of Modern and Contemporary art at Rijeka/Croatia, Buildmuseet Umea/Sweden, Trapholt Museum Kolding/Denmark, The World Culture Museum Gothenburg/Sweden, The National Museum of Contemporary Art (Museu do Chiado) Lisbon/Portugal, Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde/Denmark, Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam/Netherlands, Casoria International Contemporary Art Museum Casoria/Italy, and other places. Boukhari was selected as “Artist of the Year” by the Swedish Art Association in 2019. Some of her works are acquired by international museums and art institutions.
Besides her artistic career, Boukhari is a co-founder for AllArtNow, the first independent contemporary art organisation in Damascus since 2005, The co-founder of Living Spaces international festival for contemporary art in Damascus, and the co-founder of Studio1 The Informal School for Contemporary Art in Damascus 2011/2012.
Offsite_Onsite Installation Project – The sound and blue room installation project “The light that gets lost” is visible day and night @ the Comox Valley Art Gallery corner of 6th Street + Duncan Avenue lower level window and gallery entrance space.