Avye Alexandres, Once
“[An] immersive installation that functions as a memory might”
Once
My body would try to locate the position of its limbs so as to deduce from this the direction of the wall, the placement of the furniture, so as to reconstruct and name the dwelling in which it found itself. — Marcel Proust
Once is a mixed media, immersive installation that functions as memory might. Placing the viewer on the precipice of control over an ephemeral space, it aims to incite questions about the placement, origins, and malleability of our memories.
An image, buried deep in the mind is always perfect – until it is sought after. An image deep in the mind sleeps until it is woken. Or perhaps it trips, catching its sleeve on the banister or stumbling over the floorboards. Upon which it springs into action, its chemistries shifting, multiplying, riffing. It assumes characteristics of all it passes on its way, and appropriates aspects of ideas it aspires to be. Transforming, it wonders “how did I get here?” and yearns for simplicity. It imagines itself in its perfect form – the form now lost, shed over many miles – searching for its way back home.
Biography
Alexandres presenting her proposed project at the Experimenting with Art in Public Places symposium.
Avye Alexandres is a multidisciplinary artist born in Athens Greece currently living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work often integrates both new and traditional aspects of performance and media and meditates on themes of place, memory, body, perception and reality.
Alexandres received her BFA in Theatre with an emphasis in directing and a minor in Photography from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she first discovered her interest in creating original and cross-disciplinary work. She has studied and employed traditional and alternative photographic processes as well as performance methods ranging from Stanislavski to Linklater to Tim Miller to Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints.
Since moving to Minneapolis, Alexandres has created original performances for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, Red Eye Theatre and the Soap Factory as well as exhibited photographs at various local and national venues. She received the Garland Wright award for Directing from Southern Methodist University and is a two-time recipient of Red Eye Theatre’s Works-in-Progress program Fellowship.
Support
Once is a commission of Northern Lights Art(ists) On the Verge program with the generous support of the Jerome Foundation and fiscal sponsorship of Forecast Public Art. The Minneapolis College of Art and Design supported the related symposium Experimenting With Art in Public Places. The Weisman Art Museum will exhibit the AOV commissions July 5 – August 23, 2009. Additional support for Northern Lights provided by the McKnight Foundation.