J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Sonja Thomsen
Episode #25 Summary:
Sonja Thomsen translates movement and the embodied experience of art installation into book form with the intention of animating thought, expanding perception and challenging the generative nature of relationships.
Episode Notes
This tactile hand-bound book is anchored by text excerpts from overshadowed contributions of three female visionary artists whose theses and research are seminal to our understanding of visual culture. Thomsen choreographs light and space to elicit wonder and activate curiosity to imagine post patriarchal structures of meaning and experience.
In this book group, Sonja discusses, among other things:
Simultaneity of mind, body and spiritual experience
Co-authoring as a transformative art practice
Editors as essential translators of ideas into material and form
Books as portals, fluid conduits to generating ideas and innovation
Creating language reflective of non-binary experience
Defiance of a singular (or linear read) of an image or experience
The necessity of rules to create elegant structure for specific design elements
Referenced in the episode
Resmaa Menakem - Grandmother’s Hands