Aaron Kopp
Dec 15, 2022


Aaron Kopp | Folkestone Fringe

Currently lives and works in: Innsbruck and Kartitsch (Austria)

Practice: Place-making

Areas of interest: Space, otherness, nature, magic, individuals

Through my work I explore the relationship between physical and mental structures – the built environment and social values. Within my exploration, two subjects are particularly fascinating and fruitful to me. First, what I call “other spaces” – places that distinguish themselves from their surrounding by being or encouraging otherness. Second, the political and philosophical dimension of place-making. Within the last years, I have been working on three distinct scales: individual freedom, community perspectives, and urban policy shaping culture. What I produce and offer are spatial-strategies that empower individuals.

Why are you a part of MagiC Carpets: It is an interesting platform to interact with diverse communities and experience new places – both essential elements of my practice.

MagiC Carpets project

A Path Is A Conversation

Folkestone is a seaside town and everything is directed towards the coast. In the opposite direction, Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty begins, but the connection to it is physically and mentally fractured. Recent development has only increased this discrepancy in valuation. However, the festival “SALT+EARTH2022” changed this narrative by inviting artists to engage with the sea as well as the land. Through the MagiC Carpets platform, I was invited to participate in the form of a one-month residency. My starting point was to explore the connections between the town and the landscape. After extensive walks and conversations with people who make use of the land, I discovered a short path I wanted to work with. The path is beautiful and the entrance to the landscape for some, but I realized nobody knew or thought anything about it. I began to inhabit the path and spend several hours every day observing, collecting trash and talking to whoever was coming by. My intention became to give the path an identity, to encourage people to form a relationship with it and to make it a destination in itself. Because if someone visits this path on the edge of town, they are already on the doorstep of the Kent Downs – a vast and iconic landscape. For the festival and beyond, I have created and installed several objects along the path to break it into specific locations. At the beginning and at the end, I placed an object combining a flag, a bin and a signpost. Next to the path I created three very distinct places to rest and enjoy the landscape. Finally, dotted along the path, I installed several small indicators of animal paths criss-crossing and which animals might be using them.

What inspires you as an artist? Nature, make-shift solutions, folk-culture, paradoxes, philosophy, history.

What do you think is the purpose of art? What I want art to be is the creative-productive aspect of culture, creating new situations, making specific perspectives accessible and functioning as the renewing force any society needs to stay healthy as well as active.

Contacts

Email: [email protected] | Phone: +436706052070 | For more work by Aaron please visit here