Thursday 30 January, 2025, from 6.30 pm
Granderson Lab
Lara Dahlmann has been artist in residence at Alice Yard since the end of December 2024, working from Granderson Lab. On the evening of Thursday 30 January, she will present the results of her five-week creative and research residency, Swamp Nights.
She writes:
During my first visit to Trinidad in 2000, I was invited on a boat tour through the Caroni Swamp. That moment, as we slowly drifted past the mangrove forest, touched me and also left a lasting visual impression. The strange, almost dance-like beauty of the aerial roots is still vivid in my mind. In my artistic works, I engage with my surroundings, responding with site-specific installations. In this process, I have discovered paper as a sculptural element, both two- and three-dimensional. Over time, the drawings have gained autonomy, transitioning into cut-outs.
The tropical subject has always been metamorphic, meaning it is in constant change — a cycle of creation and decay. At Granderson Lab, I have used the space and time to create a site-specific installation that stages a dreamlike unreal state that, for me, interprets the melancholy and utopia of the tropical context.
All are invited. The installation can also be viewed from Friday 31 January to Sunday 2 February, by arrangement with the artist.
The evening will also include a reading of new creative work by writer Hassan Ali.
Lara Dahlmann lives and works in Hamburg. She studied at HAW Hamburg and received a travel grant from the DAAD to Trinidad. Her artistic development includes residencies in Buenos Aires, Curaçao, and Cape Town. In 2019, she participated in the Architektursommer Hamburg and was invited to the prestigious Thupelo Workshop in South Africa. In her works, Dahlmann engages intensively with her surroundings and the peculiarities of spaces, responding with site-specific installations.
