This e-book is a digital record, documenting the gathering of materials and the process of creating the project The Scream of the Strawbear. In his photographs, videos, installations and performances, visual artist Matthew Cowan surveys European customs and traditions and their continuing social function today. This interest originally stemmed from learning English ritual dances in New Zealand and has sparked an ongoing exploration of folklore and its contemporary connotations in a wider European context. A sequence of rituals, materials, costumes, plants, and museum artefacts form the central staging point of his artistic research.

In The Scream of the Strawbear, the New Zealand-born artist documents selected traditions from the German city of Giessen and the surrounding countryside, placing them in the context of contemporary art. The publication includes texts that reveal the process of artistic research involved in the work. It covers diverse yet connected themes of folklore originating from traditions in Hesse as well as historical links that cross the world from New Zealand to Europe and the United Kingdom.

Matthew Cowan collaborated with communities whose annual traditional ritual customs, such as the Strawbear and Maimann, take place close to Giessen. These community rituals provide a focus for the aesthetic material of the project. Straw, eggs, leaves, tobacco, cameras, and sound recording devices all feature as artistic motifs in the resulting exhibition at Kunsthalle Giessen.

The e-book contains extensive photographs and documents from the research and exhibition and five performance videos produced over the course of the project.

The Scream of the Strawbear was exhibited at Kunsthalle Giessen and the Oberhessisches Museum from September 7 to November 17, 2019.

The post The Scream of the Strawbear Edition T-shirt appeared first on EECLECTIC.

This e-book is a digital record, documenting the gathering of materials and the process of creating the project The Scream of the Strawbear. In his photographs, videos, installations and performances, visual artist Matthew Cowan surveys European customs and traditions and their continuing social function today. This interest originally stemmed from learning English ritual dances in New Zealand and has sparked an ongoing exploration of folklore and its contemporary connotations in a wider European context. A sequence of rituals, materials, costumes, plants, and museum artefacts form the central staging point of his artistic research.

In The Scream of the Strawbear, the New Zealand-born artist documents selected traditions from the German city of Giessen and the surrounding countryside, placing them in the context of contemporary art. The publication includes texts that reveal the process of artistic research involved in the work. It covers diverse yet connected themes of folklore originating from traditions in Hesse as well as historical links that cross the world from New Zealand to Europe and the United Kingdom.

Matthew Cowan collaborated with communities whose annual traditional ritual customs, such as the Strawbear and Maimann, take place close to Giessen. These community rituals provide a focus for the aesthetic material of the project. Straw, eggs, leaves, tobacco, cameras, and sound recording devices all feature as artistic motifs in the resulting exhibition at Kunsthalle Giessen.

The e-book contains extensive photographs and documents from the research and exhibition and five performance videos produced over the course of the project.

The Scream of the Strawbear was exhibited at Kunsthalle Giessen and the Oberhessisches Museum from September 7 to November 17, 2019.

The post The Scream of the Strawbear Edition Tote Bag appeared first on EECLECTIC.

In The Scream of the Strawbear, the New Zealand-born artist documents selected traditions from the German city of Giessen and the surrounding countryside, placing them in the context of contemporary art. The publication includes texts that reveal the process of artistic research involved in the work. It covers diverse yet connected themes of folklore originating from traditions in Hesse as well as historical links that cross the world from New Zealand to Europe and the United Kingdom.

Matthew Cowan collaborated with communities whose annual traditional ritual customs, such as the Strawbear and Maimann, take place close to Giessen. These community rituals provide a focus for the aesthetic material of the project. Straw, eggs, leaves, tobacco, cameras, and sound recording devices all feature as artistic motifs in the resulting exhibition at Kunsthalle Giessen.

The e-book contains extensive photographs and documents from the research and exhibition and five performance videos produced over the course of the project.

The Scream of the Strawbear was exhibited at Kunsthalle Giessen and the Oberhessisches Museum from September 7 to November 17, 2019.

The post The Scream of the Strawbear appeared first on EECLECTIC.

For thirteen months, Regine Steenbock  wandered her way through textile mass production for the world market in the Pearl River delta and discovered, in startingly coexistence, the highly elaborated traditional textile culture and contemporary fashion of the Miao and other Chinese minority groups 1300 kilometers inward in Guizhou. Mythological treatment of the past encounters a hopeful faith in progress; politics controlled from afar encounters local anarchy.

Organized in thematic chapters, this publication presents the essence of an extensive archive of visual material created between 2016 and 2018, complemented by commentaries expanding the specific contexts. The e-book also includes twelve brief videos.

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Regine Steenbock spent over thirteen months in southern China for this visual and textile research trip, roaming through the textile mass production for the world market in the Pearl River Delta and discovering the highly elaborated traditional textile culture and the contemporary fashion of the Miao and other Chinese minority groups in an astonishing coexistence 1300 km further inland, in Guizhou. Mythological coming to terms with the past meets hopeful belief in progress, remote-controlled politics meets local anarchy

Divided into thematic chapters, this publication presents an essence of the extensive image archive created between 2016–18, supplemented by commentaries expanding the specific contexts, diary entries and a foreword by Barbara Vinken.

The e-book contains additional image galleries, an interactive map and over 25 minutes of video material.

The publishers:
EECLECTIC (Berlin) and Textem (Hamburg) have been accompanying and supporting the publication project since 2018. Their complementary skills make Chinese Weave a publication that is available as an e-book almost anywhere in the world at the click of a button and can be held in tangible physicality as a print version.

The post Chinesisches Gewebe – Chinese Weave appeared first on EECLECTIC.

The book is an ode to a mystical childhood and a thank you to the author’s culture and roots. The tales are accompanied by the author’s own animated illustrations.

The post Treasures from the Forest – Tales of Brazilian Folklore appeared first on EECLECTIC.