WOODBEDS, BRIMMING
ESTER FLECKNER
29 November / 24 January 2020
Ester Fleckner wants to break with the common and limited understanding we have of gender, body, identity and sexuality – give room to human dissimilarity. Fleckner describes how stepping into the fields of craftsmanship – an arena that might still be perceived as a male profession, is a way to physically claim her space. Working with wood, cutting tools, and large machines, she literally makes her imprint on these issues.
Fleckner creates her own languages, as an attempt to make up a vocabulary that does actually correspond to people of flesh and blood, with thoughts and feelings that are not translatable to simple categories. When we try to fit people into narrow and simple categories we end up being simple minded and narrow sighted. Fleckner shows that the language, and world that it tries to grasp, can appear in many different ways. Rather than shouting out their points, Fleckners works silently, but surely, sharpens our hearing. They are serious in a playful way.