Nele Brökelmann

adapting the first page of Franz Kafka’s novel The Castle, which I was reading as a literary inquiry into researching the gap during my residency in Ålvik, Norway

experimenting with monotype printing during my residency in Ålvik, Norway

experimenting with and (re)arranging materials, including photos taken during attempted hike to Heller during my residency in Ålvik, Norway

, photo taken during field-research in Meijendel, the dunes around Wassenaar

There is a continuous movement, a driving force toward one side and then the other, circling around an unattainable central-point. When I approach points of interest, something always eludes itself, what I am aiming to reach moves away from me. What I desire to know turns out more complex than I anticipated, forcing me to take a step back to see things in relation with each other. It is just as my mother described in her notebook when I was an infant: “Nele is crawling backwards, which means that she is moving away from the things she wants to approach.” It was late in the afternoon, when I arrived. A decent layer of snow, covered the small town. The surrounding landscape had been swallowed by mist and darkness. From my bedroom window, I was told I could see the all encompassing mountains – all I looked up to was an apparent emptiness. (adapted from Franz Kafka’s Das Schloss) Some clarities only come to me, when I am observing in a very specific situatedness – it is in those moments that I experience things in their totality. I have read that at a certain age an infant starts to experience their separatedness from the world around them. They are forming an idea of an ‘I’, all of a sudden a border around themselves arises, sensing that they are situated within a separate body. Before, everything appears as one big mesh. 1 Moving away from things, does not bring me to an end of my wandering – it solidifies a perpetually changing in-between. Different sides and points appear, revealing transitions and gradients that I relate to through the created distance. Situating the things I am looking at and sensing their entangled relations clarifies and muddles at the same time. The awe I am experiencing leaves me torn between wanting to know and feeling not knowledgeable enough to even be where I already am standing. January 2023

There is a continuous movement, a driving force toward one side and then the other, circling around an unattainable central-point. When I approach points of interest, something always eludes itself, what I am aiming to reach moves away from me. What I desire to know turns out more complex than I anticipated, forcing me to take a step back to see things in relation with each other. It is just as my mother described in her notebook when I was an infant: “Nele is crawling backwards, which means that she is moving away from the things she wants to approach.” It was late in the afternoon, when I arrived. A decent layer of snow, covered the small town. The surrounding landscape had been swallowed by mist and darkness. From my bedroom window, I was told I could see the all encompassing mountains – all I looked up to was an apparent emptiness. (adapted from Franz Kafka’s Das Schloss) Some clarities only come to me, when I am observing in a very specific situatedness – it is in those moments that I experience things in their totality. I have read that at a certain age an infant starts to experience their separatedness from the world around them. They are forming an idea of an ‘I’, all of a sudden a border around themselves arises, sensing that they are situated within a separate body. Before, everything appears as one big mesh. 1 Moving away from things, does not bring me to an end of my wandering – it solidifies a perpetually changing in-between. Different sides and points appear, revealing transitions and gradients that I relate to through the created distance. Situating the things I am looking at and sensing their entangled relations clarifies and muddles at the same time. The awe I am experiencing leaves me torn between wanting to know and feeling not knowledgeable enough to even be where I already am standing. January 2023

description of research conducted during the three month residency at Destination Unknown 2021 in printed book shown during the concluding exhibition

installation view at the Destination Unknown 2021 exhibition (11a. book): Upon moving from A to B, you enter a state of being in-between, guided by a map through parallel regions. Wandering under diffused light, it is unclear what passes through, and when the map fails you markers appear around you. What do you see, where do you go, which of them to follow? Every now and then you pause, taken in by odd details breaking through the order of things - being lost feels different. 11a. book 11b. found object 11c. marker 11d. marker 11e. marker

In collaboration with Joost Dekker the commons of De Fabriek in Eindhoven and the limits of the present world got twisted. The visitor is invited to participate in keeping De Fabriek going until the year 2080, which would be the 100th anniversary of this artists' initiative.

Four participants are each assigned a role based upon archetypes from society. Wearing white suits they enter a space with a set of arranged objects. They are responsible for how they want to act out their roles and the co-creation of the situation. They are given 20 minutes inside of the space. There is no camera or spectator allowed with them.

Two characters are constantly rearranging a setup of chairs, flowers and other objects, failing to enter each others' worlds.

Alone in an empty office, a business man elaborates on the beauty of co-action. Meanwhile, he gets more and more excited by his own chain of thought.

The 8 o'clock journal is reporting from a conflict caused by faceless rebels. This work is investigating the influence of the language and images used within news casts and how those shape our view of the world.