Amalia Laurent – The Window in a Wall

3 Mar

Amalia Laurent is one of Shoreditch Arts Club’s first artist collaborators, having provided the now iconic first image used on our homepage, that of a door-printed-on-fabric-with-red-curtain, we are now happy to hang one of her physical artworks in the space, titled La fenêtre d’un mur, or The Window in a Wall.

Our collaboration began after seeing Laurent’s A glimpse of a brick wall through white walls – a large hanging artwork in a group exhibition titled Home is Where the Haunt Is curated by Leonore Larrera for Des Bains Gallery, in East London.

La fenêtre d’un mur, like A glimpse of a brick wall through white walls defies concise définitions – made from cotton, dyed with fruit and vegetable skins – it appears as though it’s a transparent painting, with hours of hand-stitching to replicate window frames and balustrades seen through the work from the front and back.

The artworks speak to both the physical architecture of the space and to invisible architectures, the psychological, physical and social barriers, spaces in between. This expands to cultures and eras, as Amalia tells us more in the lead up to her commission for the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

Home is Where the Haunt Is, took place in two locations, in East London at Des Bains, and in a dilapidated castle Château de Jolimont in Brussels. How did you respond to the exhibition concept?

The idea behind my work is often to say to the viewer that somehow a place can contain multiple places at the same time, although it is often a fragile balance to see it. For example, in Jorge Luis Borges’ Aleph, behind the stairs of the narrator’s home, you have a place that contains the entire universe and time but there are conditions to see it. First, you have to find the exact point of view which allows one to observe this incredible panoramic site. I also feel that the notion of time is playing a role in the discovery, the perfect moment has to be reached.

In the exhibition, there was a similar belief, because of the confrontation between a white walled gallery in London and an 18th century castle in Brussels. When one entered the show in London, my fabric took the railing motifs behind it, and also the construction motifs of the castle façade. In the middle, a breach seems to open and lead to another place. Instead of perceiving something similar in Brussels, one found the negative pattern stitched on the fabric but no breach and no visible connections. These two works show how difficult it is to synchronise places together.

Amalia Laurent, *A glimpse of a brick wall through white walls*, 2022, bark and leaf die on cotton. Image courtesy Des Bains.

Rien De Nouveau Sous Le Soleil, Faugeres, Herault, France, 2021. Photography by Amalia Laurent.

The narrative of barriers or boundaries, both perceived and real, form something integral to your practice. The resulting artworks literally float between and confuse reality with fiction. Can you please tell us about the origins of this in your practice?

Years before my first BA in Strasbourg, I learnt batik in a small village on a Javanese island. Batik is a dying technique which consists in blocking fabric pores with wax, allowing a negative pattern to be left undyed. While studying I became interested in graphic design, especially printing techniques such as etching, screen printing and lithography. When applying to the RCA I began to experiment with mixing techniques, trying to reveal even more, interested in the small scale random effects of print.

All those different ways of understanding layers, both in the batik and printing processes, were the foundations of my interest in anomalies or in-between among steps. I was very interested in mental projections of the result and the actual result.

As another example, in gamelan we say that ancestors appear in the silence full of vibrations made by the percussive Javanese instrument. When musicians have finished their play, the vibration is still perceived albeit inaudibly.

You are currently working on an exciting commission for the Gothic stained glass masterpiece Sainte Chapelle in Paris. What are you most excited about for the exhibition?

This exhibition is the perfect synthesis of me: it links my artistic and musical practices as well as my university research and my fascination with the Middle Ages.

The most exciting element is the group that we have formed. We are medievalists, gamelan experts, dancers, architects, writers, a heritage curator, a sound engineer, a melting pot! The project began with a realisation of a link between two distinct practices of music: Javanese gamelan and Middle Age polyphonic music.

Sainte Chapelle is a marvellous demonstration of gothic architecture. Built by Saint Louis to shelter relics of Jesus Christ, it was meant to be the symbol of a political, religious and economic power. Adding to those criteria, art was the most powerful demonstration of sovereignty. As a result, this is a jewel with immense stained glass windows that characterise the chapel.

During the time it was built, at the School of Notre Dame, two composers, Leonin followed by Perotin, were inventing polyphonic music with two, then three, four, and five voices… that allowed the architecture to vibrate as efficiently as possible. The polyphonic music is very linked with the gothic architecture.

What’s important to you about being in Genthasari, the Javanese Gamelan band?

I have been part of the gamelan band since 2018, and was playing gamelan at the Southbank Center back when I was studying at RCA. The director of this ensemble is Christophe Moure, a very patient man with an extraordinary sense of sharing. I learned a lot from him even though I didn’t want to be part of any music band at first. I loved gamelan because it was the best way to listen to this music every week. Concerts are so rare so I thought it was a good strategy!

After one year learning the instrument with the group, it became serious and followed them to concerts. Now, Genthasari is a family I hold in my heart and a part of my work. I am now working with Christophe and his wife Kadek Puspasari, a choreographer, for the performance at la Sainte Chapelle.

Beside this love story, gamelan is a beautiful philosophy and I learn a lot by playing it. First, it is one instrument composed by many. Which means that we can’t play alone at all, and I think it is a way of life that we forget these days. Secondly, the space created by this music is very impressive and links the musicians, the community around it to the invisible, as gods and ancestors. The perspective of almost touching the invisible through music is for me the most powerful experience ever. My research at school and in art have evolved a lot since I practised gamelan as a musician.

You found that Gamelan tones relate to polyphony, a sound which has its origins in the Sainte Chapelle. Do you feel this draws connections between your origins and your home?

In my research at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris (EHESS) I am developing a new method to analyse a procession of sounds created as they relate to the architecture through the spectrum of music.

When researching Javanese temples, I became frustrated by the limited anthropological and ethnographic perspectives as well as a seemingly superficial ethnomusicological analysis that I was able to find, so based on Louis Dumont’s research, I tried to figure out how I could give a new perspective.

Gamelan, Philharmonie De Paris, Arrived In 1887 For The Exposition Universelle In 1889, Genthasari Played In June 2022. Photography by Amalia Laurent.

Amalia Laurent, Loro-loroning atunggal, Unifying that which is dual, at Sainte Chapelle, Paris. Photography by Charlotte Robin.

As an anthropologist, Louis Dumont built bridges between Middle Age philosophy in Europe and Vedic philosophy in India. It led me to a fascination about the Middle Ages, and I started my research based on the way of writing down music in the XII century. We can’t say that Europe and Indonesia are similar in any way, however in fact the quest of pure beauty and the act of materialising it can be put in parallel.

The so-called ‘polyphony’ is accurate in Europe, born in Ecole Notre Dame both in the monument of Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle of Paris because it’s a combination of several melodies brought together to ascend in the architecture.

In Indonesia with the gamelan, it is more difficult to understand how music relates to architecture, because the music is everywhere, even outside. My theory is that music gamelan creates the architecture.

The gamelan is composed by many percussive instruments that all together create the music. We are fifteen musicians, and it’s not possible to detach any of us, as a result the music will not be complete. Each instrument is playing the melody in octaves, which means that it is more accurate to call it ‘plural homophony’ as the ethnomusicologist Catherine Basset calls it. The fact is that plural homophony can be linked to polyphony on how the space of the music is perceived.

What I’m excited to do is create a practical relationship between Polyphonic music as it’s understood in a European context, and Plural homophony, familiar to Indonesia. I didn’t expect to link the two cultures. I am sure that it is possible to practise a new methodology that could be relevant for many other cases. The fact that I am linking my origins to my home is making it very easier to develop this. I see it more as a case study in my research at school, and more as a revelation in my artistic practice!

Coming back to your work for Shoreditch Arts Club, which has similarities to the work exhibited at Des Bains, can you explain why you were excited to respond to the space? I’m especially interested in how the windows and balustrade interact with the work.

The former Des Bains gallery and Shoreditch Arts Club indeed have architectural similarities, in both spaces my artwork is situated in front of the balustrade and facing a window which leads to the street. For Des Bains, which was a double exhibition linked to Brussels, the fabric was creating a relationship to that other location through the idea of a breach. Here, the question was: what are the strategies to link two spaces? Is that possible?

At the Shoreditch Arts Club, the questions are about the breach itself: What is a space between? It relates back to earlier questions and the gamelan, invisible architectures. It also relates to levels of access, the work, which is roughly three by five metres, replicates, albeit abstracted, the huge window which can be seen from outside. I’m very interested in windows because they allow seeing although also create separation, they themselves are a breach, a barrier.

Laurent graduated with an MA from the Royal College of Art, London and is now studying anthropology at École des Hautes Etudes, Paris. For more information on her commission for Sainte Chapelle see: sainte-chapelle.fr/Actualites/Loro-loroning-atunggal-Unifier-ce-qui-est-double

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