Light Up the World with Paintings: HOME@EMOH #STAY At HOME
2020-05-10 09:44:40余德耀美术馆
"One piece of paper can change the world.” – Piroska SzönyeThe Swiss artist Piroska once mentioned in an interview that her favorite medium is “all kinds of paper”, because it possesses infinite possibilities. It could be “fragile and ephemeral, or very meaningful and represents values and holds trust and commitment.” In her works, however, paper is regarded more of the latter. She used paper and books to create the installation Children Village, a house built to support African children who suffered terminal illnesses. It is interesting to see how she turned this easily changeable medium into a more permanent representation of the larger concept of “home.” Indeed, “home” is one of the overarching motifs in her art and education. Last December, we invited Piroska to lead a workshop at Yuz Museum, in which she took all children on a creative journey of artmaking. She again incorporated the image of home into this educational activity. Through blindfolded painting and some hands-on practices, the children have successfully built their own mini book houses, in which their little artistic souls might be resting up. The intrinsic power of color and paper was delivered in the process of making art. Art brought joy, delight, and even a sense of belonging.In 2020, an unprecedented pandemic suddenly has disrupted daily lives. In response to the international crisis, Piroska has initiated a new art-educational project #STAY AT HOME with children all over the world, hoping to encourage compassion and cooperation across the continents. Yuz Museum is honored to be a co-sponsor for Piroska’s project in China.In Piroska’s eyes, home is our sanctuary from the pandemic. We spend most of our time at home in the days of quarantine. At this moment in time, she wants to accentuate the role of home and brighten our lives within. She contends COVID-19 is a shared catastrophe of the human race, and therefore, we should stop blaming each other and instead working positively together to defeat the virus. Piroska invites all the children who have access to colors and papers to participate in this project, using art to light up the dark. “When such drastic life-threatening things happen, art can be used to show people the thoughts and feelings of that time. In children’s drawing, you can see how children perceive the moment.”#STAY AT HOMEIn order to avoid the influence of COVID-19, there are many other children in the world who are forced to stay at home just like you. Home is the safest place during the pandemic. What does your life at home look like? Yuzm and Piroska are inviting you to depict your dream home and bring hope to the children in quarantine in the other parts of the world. You could consider the following questions as a starting point:1. What is going around in the world?2. How do you feel about the days staying at home?3. What do you hope the future would look like?
How to submit: Take pictures of your paintings and responses separately, and send your electronic version to Yuz Museum at publicprograms@yuzmshanghai.org by June 7, 2020Reward for participation: Your work will be exhibited in an online form on the website (https://savetheworldandstayhome.wordpress.com/ueber/), together with the works of children all over the world. There will be an actual exhibition and printed publication of your work as well. All who have participated in #STAY AT HOME will receive the publication.Project Initiator：Swiss artist PiroskaCo-Sponsor of China：Yuz Museum, ShanghaiLet’s love and warm to the world together, looking forward to the children with childlike words and bright colors, let each of us to give birth to the hope of the flower field from the bottom of our hearts!Warmest greetings from Yuz Museum!
To get to know more about the project and Piroska’s overall artist career, we had the honor to conduct an interview with her.Yuzm x PiroskaYuzm: Paper is one of your major medium. Could you tell us more about this choice? Paper is usually associated with impermanence for its fragile nature, but you use it to make works like Children Village, which is supposed to have a solid construction. Will the impermanent medium contradict the idea of “home” in your works?Piroska: Space is spare on paper but not in mind. Paper has multiple pages, not just two, it also has rough edges. Paper is infinite, if you appreciate it, it plays with opinion. It plays with values, and it is changeable and can transform values. Important texts will be written down. A note can be worthless or can have a lot of value as a bill or contract. It has everything from disregard - discarded to viewing the picture and much more. Bringing something to paper has something important and has something final. Bring thoughts or texts on paper or sketch pictures, the lightness of the thoughts of the moment. If you don’t hold it, paper can fly with the wind. Paper can even protect against the cold. Paper is not easy to be, fragile and ephemeral or very meaningful and represents values and holds trust and commitment. You can philosophize about it for hours.Yuzm: As a public installation made of books, what do you maintain? How does it survive through rain or storm? Piroska: When it rains, winds or when the sun shines, it is the passage of time. Humans are also exposed to the world and the events. What do we do? When it rains, we protect ourselves, when it is cold, we dress more. Here the children’s books mean human lives. Behind each book, different people are involved in bringing a story into the world.The Book house is an art installation that stands for protection. We feel protected at home, and now we had to stay at COVID for a long time to be protected. Who had a good book, it was never boring. This unconventional installation touches, because we have a strong connection to books that can be turned and turned over. That grow with us or grow old. We value the books. An emotional value or even a collector’s value in the future. With this interpretation, the house and the books interact with the people. It stimulates talking and thinking when and how we evaluate.Yuzm: In your artist career, “home” seems to be an important motif in your works. Could you tell us more about it? What is your perception on the concept of “home” and why is it important for us keep it in mind? Piroska: Everyone wants to go home. At some points, you go home from this life. Being in a home means arriving, welcome and belonging somewhere, but it also means protection from the outside and feeling protected. Whether alone or as a family. I also think it has its origins in birth, a child’s first home is in the mother’s womb. It is an existential primal need. And it also means which house you come from because it lasts for generations. For me, it is our skin that we are at home, it is our own home. If you don’t have that, you’re a soul that gets lost … and is always on the lookout … to arrive. At home, that is why it is important to ask or to know how someone feels.Yuzm: You are known as the “Spokesperson of Heidi,” and have dedicated to children’s art education. What have motivated you to do arts with children? Would you like to share with us an unforgettable story when you make arts with the children?Piroska: Art is important for the soul. As an artist or as a designer, it is important to grow in the world as a role model as a maker, as a creative person while a person with the challenges of life. Passing on my knowledge and ability, feeling and working creatively, to try out or invent new worlds and ways. To promote the next generation. Children are naturally open to everything. We the adults should create the freedom to develop, means allowing a new form too. For example, take a perfect paper and fold it into a ship, it glides over the waves, or you fold a plane and let the paper fly, or you fold it into a symbol and it’s nice to look at.It is most beautiful for me if I get to know from the parents or children that their children were so happy, after the lesson, they continued the same at home. Then the parents see the children being happy and make them happy themselves working creatively. Only when you be with yourself or to come to yourself, then in the flow of feeling happiness, it is honest and authentic, directly colorful and full of life. The energy and the flow of happiness is in exchange. It is wonderful for me to see every time how the children blossom and give everything.Yuzm: What have inspired you to initiate the project Stay at Home? What makes you so excited to do it? What do you want the children to get away from participating? Piroska: To participate means to be part of the action. We don’t just want to read or see the media reports from business or the world. The child’s soul sees, feels and thinks differently. It is delivered to adults. You can’t just take children to a school pool or put them back on the lawn after war or threats. Children’s souls are fragile and stronger than we think. Children want to understand what is happening. They perceive more, they can also feel the anxiety from parents. When such drastic life-threatening things happen, art can be used to show people the thoughts and feelings of that time. In children’s drawing, you can see how children perceive the moment. To be honest, today’s children are tomorrow’s adults. We pass on our world from now to the children. The children’s voice as a symbol for the future. Everyone would be proud to be a part of it.Yuzm: What role do you think an artist or work of art should play in such a special moment? Piroska:
It’s a sign of the times
the voice of the moment
A stroke of thought for people
it donates strength
Promote cohesion
You are important!
Your being counts!
We exist!
We perceive and give trues!
Yuzm: What do you do usually in your daily life aside from being an artist?Piroska: I am a lateral thinker that means I invent new ways, create feelings with my works. First of all, I’m a real artist and I do art and art and installations. At the moment, I am doing hidden works of art with books. The hardest or easiest job as an artist is to meet people who believe in me and in my art or my work. If it affects you, I’ve done my job right. Art does not go the way of money, it goes the way of calling. The hard reality is that I have to work more as a normal worker to make my living and that I can do my art. It’s not an easy live but full of beauty and value. Art is a mirror of the world and our soul.Each country has its own view of art, but without art you are a poor country. The cultural wealth is shown through the various works of artists. Let’s make sense.After knowing more about Piroska’s artistic vision and her #STAY AT HOME project, now it is your show time! About the Artist Piroska SzönyePiroska Szönye，a famous Swiss artist, painter, writer, designer and gourmet, who comes from Heidi's beautiful hometown and is known as the Swiss spokesperson of Heidi, the classic work of western children's literature. She has written a cooking art philosophy poetry book Heidi And Friends and is writing a new book Heidi Goes China. She is reputed as "the most respected female artist in Switzerland ", who is dedicated to charitable art as well as the creator of “the largest sculpture class” in the Guinness Book of World Records.She has won several top international design awards: Red Dot Award 2018: Winner, Gold Award winner of the 2017 International Design Award, Silver Award in Schweizer Buchpreis (Swiss Book Prize) and other international art awards.
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