Joanna Mangold wants to trace the collective dream of St. George while living in the Global Forest in the mountain town. But first of all, the artist must act as a dream collector.
St. Jurgen – Virtual Reality, Sculptures and Drawings – The media collection that Joanna Mangold uses to express herself artistically is large. But objectively, she has a clear focus: the artist is interested in dreams and memories. Or better: for its components. The artist is fascinated by the mixture of real experiences and surreal elements as well as the subconscious and the unexplained.
During her stay in the Global Forest, she was collecting dreams
Mangold knows his way around dreams. At the Municipal Gallery in Villingen-Schwenningen, she recently presented her work “You can throw a kaenga,” a kind of multimedia record made up of drawings, paintings, notes, and apparent virtual – i.e. conscious – dream experiences based on fed by Mangold’s own experiences. While residing in the Global Forest, Mangold now wants to delve deeper into the dream world of St.
To this end, Mangold is looking for volunteers who would like to share their dream experiences with the artist – either in a personal conversation or via dream notes that can be sent to the Kunstverein address. The shape is entirely up to the dream. “I’m grateful for every story,” Mangold says. “Sometimes there are real stories that come up in a dream. But sometimes, it’s just the mood or the colors or the atmosphere.”
Dream experiences translated into pictures
The artist then translates these personal dream experiences into her visual language and then into virtual reality, supposed to represent the totality of Saint George’s dreams and what they have in common. Viktoria Tiedeke of the Board of Directors of the Global Forest Mangold Art Association explains many of the artistic media and techniques used in the context of this work such as a magnifying glass or filter. The focus is not on specific descriptions of the dream, but on the impression and perception of the artist. Are there parallels, overlaps, and connections? Mangold wants to know.
Because the artist is sure that dreams on the one hand are very subjective, but on the other hand are influenced by the dream environment. This interplay of the private and the collective is central to Mangold’s work and, conversely, implies that something like the group dreamed of by the mountain town must be derived from the collective dreams of many St. George’s residents. Perhaps, Mangold hopes, the final work will also enable St. George’s City’s subconscious to be tested.
About the person: Joanna Mangold
Born in 1984 in Kempten, Joanna Mangold studied painting from 2007 to 2015 at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Then she was a master’s student with Ricarda Rogan. She currently lives and works in Ulm. Mangold uses many different artistic mediums – from drawing and drawing to text, audio and video to digital and virtual genres such as virtual reality (VR).
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