Doris Hardeman

The interests I address in my practice linger around the thematics of ageing as a transformative system that affirms certain social patterns and structures in society. Especially the transformative state of adolescence is present throughout my work; the state when shifting from pre- to post- puberty, from naivety into economy, the fantasy into the arbitrary, and so on. This shifting to-and-from the ‘in between’ becomes a prototype of how human interaction can be seen through the lens of transformation. I use visual inspiration from what I call ‘Disney aesthetics’; the pop-cultural representation of fantasy and mythology used in models of entertainment and theme parks. By emphasising these visual aesthetics I attempt to activate one's tacit knowledge and by those means, generate a more intuitive and emotionally loaded response, rather than a cognitive one, based on logic and reason. The territory where the fantasy roams becomes an interesting place of departure as it balances on the borders of personal freedom and uninhibitedness as well as the pre-commercialized structures of our capitalist society. The heterotopic ‘in betweenness’ of this space creates an abstraction that allows a certain distance necessary in order to rethink or re-imagine our place in society.