Iris Eichenberg: Sense - mapping

Artist list

Iris Eichenberg

- How is it that a color is able to evoke the sensations of has? And how does weight, not touched, not carried, trigger a strengthening of our muscles? And why would a visible, endless repetition of handling stretch the notion of time, and have a sound to it, and a rhythm still active after the work has ended?


How can remnants of process be froze in the memory of surfaces and bring back a sense of movement?
How can we feel the pulling and stitching in our hands, how does the process of crafting work enable our hands to think, or is it the hand at work which informs our thinking?


The unconscious recognition of tactility, sound, size, smell and temperature of environments is what allows us to differentiate one context from another.
 These contexts are filled with the event-ness of material: materials in conversation with each other, striking up conversations.
 How do I make sense of my surroundings and how do I sense it?


The intermingling and exchange of senses, conscious and unconscious are the construction elements of what I make of a visual encounter.
The puzzling together, and being puzzled, this process of making sense is what I am interested in.
I avoid the need to make sense of an object instantly, the event should not be linear, but rather gather around, departing and reentering the encounter with the objects.
The embodiments of objects are the sensation I try to find in the uttermost silence - in the presence of work.
The event should be work not consumption.


- Iris Eichenberg 2012

Iris Eichenberg is since 2006 Head of the Metalsmithing Department, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, USA 
2000-2007 she was Head of the Jewellery Department, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, NL