Laura Cemin. Persistance of Memory/4 minutes warm up

Laura Cemin
Persistence of memory, 2020
Sauna suit, hand warmers, hairdryer, heated blanket, θερμοφόρες, sweat belts, warming cream, t-shirt, glass, steel, insulation material

4 minute warm up, 2020
Single channel video, 4΄
Cinematographer and colorist: Alis Mäesalu
Sound designer: Indrek Soe

Courtesy of the artist

With the countless tools available on the market, it is now possible to warm up alone, to simulate human presence, but also to shape our bodies to conform to current beauty standards. Laura Cemi’s sculptural collage Persistence of memory consists of products and devices that are used in close contact with the body to beautify and warm it: a sauna suit, hand warmers, a heated blanket, hot-water bottles, sweat belts, and skin-warming cream. The artist is interested in the agency of these heat-inducing products, what they do and how they perform in relation to different bodies. These tools are familiar but the way they are deployed in absurdly combined sculptural collages, is slightly twisted. Shown alongside the tools is a 4-minute warm up (2020) a “how-to” video that depicts a routine on how to “cope” with the fake intimacies and loneliness. The video uses the objects of the installation, which become substitutes for the body of another. Digital consumerism promises that we can build relationships without constant effort or emotional investment. But is that actually possible? Can we re-learn how to spend time together in our bodies and in the warmth of our flesh?

Laura Cemin’s work in performance, photography and installation examines relationships, encounters and interactions between people and bodies, and how technology affects social relations. Her practice focuses on understanding movement in relation to language, on searching the poetics in everyday gestures, but also on repetition, humour and absurdity. She is interested in the intersections and overlaps between language and movement and how verbal language, with its metaphors and rhetoric, shapes our movement, physical interaction and our relationships more generally.

Βiography

Laura Cemin was born in Italy in 1992. She lives and works in Tallinn and Helsinki.  Cemin completed her MFA at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts (SE) in 2019. She has performed in several venues, festivals and exhibitions in Europe. Recent exhibitions include: EKA Gallery and Drakooni Gallery, Tallinn (2022), Studio17, Stavanger and Kosminen, Helsinki (2021), and Bildmuseet, Umeå (2019).

www. lauracemin.com

 

 

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