Ik ben (niet) bang

Heba Bardan

Ik Ben (niet) Bang

Welke invloed heeft angst op onze gedachten en de beslissingen die we nemen?
Hoe ver kan onze affiniteit met onze comfortzone gaan?

Via de speelse metafoor van een kip die de straat probeert over te steken, wil mijn experimentele film Ik Ben (niet) Bang onderzoeken op welke manieren angst zich manifesteert. Hoe het allemaal redelijk en verstandig kan lijken, terwijl het ons in werkelijkheid alleen maar tegenhoudt. We kijken langzaam toe hoe ons verlangen om ‘de andere kant’ te bereiken verandert in een vorm van gevaar.

Als multidisciplinair kunstenaar experimenteer ik graag met verschillende elementen zoals beweging, kleding, geluid en poëzie om een gelaagd oeuvre te creëren dat tot doel heeft een bepaalde emotie te verbeelden.

Highlights of my minor journey to

Ik Ben (niet) Bang

I'm deeply in love with traditional clothes so my journey this minor started with a piece inspired by a wedding hat from the Kazakhstani culture.

Upon making anything I challenge myself to instantly think of it in the context of a bigger story, using the mediums photography/film/performance.

For that hat I made a film about the dark side of weddings in many countries in the world, that being the objectifying of women and turning them into a mere belonging of the man.

Speeltuin is a playful outfit inspired by a park.

I enjoyed making exaggerated sleeves and using basic colors.

I wanted the photoshoot of it to emphasize the form of the outfit and how it can move.

My main reason of joining this minor is trying to understand outfits making a bit better in order to use that knowledge in planning an outfit for a performance.

Performance outfits are mainly focused on the movement so I wanted to first and foremost research how clothes exactly influence movement.

In this documentary I summarized all my findings and showed a test piece I made that enriched my research.

The bellydancer outfit is my first moving outfit experiment. I made it to have many loose moving compartments and made a short film of it to test it come to life on camera.

I noticed the method of deconstructing clothes being used amongst my classmates and did multiple experiments of clothes morphed into something more costume-like.

During those experiments I found that I can make my fabric make sounds, so I experimented with adding bells in the bits that move in an outfit.

To register those findings I made two films that used the movement as a main element of telling a story.

- The Flower movie tells the story of flower waste and how they can be recycled and given a second life instead of ending up being a mere pollution source.

- WORK is a playful film inspired by the massive use of meth by office workers.

I started at one point feeling less connected to fabric and clothes making. The process felt too planned and precise, I couldn't make it playful anymore or have fun with it. It felt too intimidating and bigger than me.

It made me feel like a coward chicken that just wants to run away and hide.

Inspired by that fear I picked up the sewing machine and made a hat inspired by a chicken head. I added all sorts of pieces and patterns, simply followed my heart.

Outfit plan was that it could have parts the are stuck to a wall, loose enough to give the illusion that you're moving, yet only get you so far. I wanted that to be a metaphor of how fear works, how it sounds all logical when it really just sets us back.

I love maximalism and during this minor fell in love with crocheting so I wanted to include these two elements in the outfit.

I wanted in the exhibition to include both film and performance as I want these two mediums to be my main focus during my journey as a maker.

I enjoy experimenting with shapes a film can take so my idea was to show one film onultiple screens. This way the focus can be on certain bits all at once, and you as a viewer can choose where to look and when.

I planned the story of the film to use the metaphor of famous joke "the chicken that wanted to cross the street"

The whole film would be an abstract illustration of a chicken's worries as she plans to cross the street.

For the text I planned something poetic yet direct. Something that shows how fear and worry manifest in our mind and keep us from growing.

For the performance I wanted the movement to represent ones of a music conductor. I was watching an orchestra and the movement of a conductor felt to me like the ultimatektpp metaphor for wanting constant and full control over every little bit.

As wanting full control is something birthed by fear and worry.

For the music I worked with a composer and made music influenced by Tango, a feelsy genre of music that is fun to conduct and move to.