Collaboration with my deceased grandad Frank Basler

 

During his lifetime, my grandad Frank Basler was an avid crystal collector. But his interest went beyond mere collecting, he was invested in investigate the inner life of crystal, to find an access to their world beyond their surface. Over the course of 30 years, the time in which I was born, he not only collected but photographed his extensive collection of crystals. My memory of my grandad is largely one of sitting next to him, him telling me about his crystals and trying to make visible their inner structures with torches. Upon his death in August 2023, he didn’t only leave behind his collection but his extensive notes written in minuscule pencil writing and photographs.

 

I was invited to do a joint residency at Forum Schlossplatz in Aarau as part of the program Residenz Residenz and asked if my residency partner could be my deceased grandad Frank Basler and his crystal collection. 

Over the course of the residency I have created three rooms, with three degrees of crystal abstraction. Starting with my grandad’s crystals, I created three-dimensional wooden structures reminiscent of my granddad’s boxes with oversized, soft fabric-crystals and slides to end in an immaterial kaleidoscopic re-iminaginations of my grandad’s crystals in the last room.

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2024

dimension variable

wood, slides, video, fabric, silver tape, crystals, audio

 

Supported by:

Aargauer Kuratorium

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Exhibition:
Residenz Residenz, Forum Schlossplatz, Aarau, Switzerland, 2024

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photo: Leonie Brandner and Peter Koehl