“Only in Los Angeles can you drive to an Assyrian Palace to buy Blue Jeans and leather goods”


Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton is strongly related to Berlin. She was born there, graduated from the Berlin University of Art, and she still resides in the city. She is the author of many exhibitions presented not only in Berlin, but also in Hamburg, London, Paris and in New York as well. Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton has also written some publications. She has been working with the Basso Magazine since 2008.

During the Night of Museums and Galleries in artnewscafé she will talk about her project   “A narrative of an Expedition from Assyria”.

Your works combine past and present. Why history is so interesting for you?

The focus point of my work is usually architecture. So I look at how the past stands in our present in form of buildings. For my installations I work around a particular site and the stories it tells. History is a part of my research but it is more how history is dealt with what interests me.

Can you tell a little bit more about your project  “A narrative of an Expedition from Assyria”, which  you will present  during the Night of Museums and Galleries?

The visual material of this lecture piece comes from the research of my projects from the last six, seven years. I have been looking at how Assyrian artifacts are displaced – into museums, into historic reconstruction and then appropriated by contemporary culture, where they leave traced for example in architecture and film. The lecture will follow some Assyrian artifacts that appear at different places and times, the European Museum of the 19th century, Californian architecture of the 1930s and a fun park in Dubai. The title is taken from a popular travel report that the archeologist A.H. Layard wrote in the 1840s.

“Only in Los Angeles can you drive to an Assyrian Palace to buy Blue Jeans and leather goods”. Can you explain this sentence?

This is an advertisement slogan from the website of the Citadel Outlet Center, the shopping center in Los Angeles that the project “City of Commerce” is based on. The shopping center has a historic building façade that was modeled after an Assyrian king´s palace.

Your project (presentation) will be shown here for the first time. Why did you chose Bulgaria?

I met Vesselina in Berlin before and like what she is doing in Plovdiv, so I was excited to come to Bulgaria. And this lecture format is a great way to present art when traveling.

During your “Expedition”, audience will visit different places. Can you tell  why did you decide to show exactly these cities.

The cities I show are places I have visited to develop work. So these places in Europe, the US and Middle East connect for me over my projects. My interest for Dubai developed after I had spent a few months in Los Angeles. As cities they have a lot in common, the landscape, built for cars and architecture based onreferences.

You are part of the Basso Magazine. Can you tell about your this cooperation? What is unique about the Bassomagazine?

For me Basso in Berlin worked mainly as a social space. It was an interesting crossing point for different scenes and forms of cultural practice. I was also involved in some art projects there. The magazine I think can be seen as an extension of this social space.

Author: Jakub Munko


NIGHT OF MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES – PLOVDIV 2011
17.09.2011

Artnewscafé

38 Otets Paisiy St.

www.artnewscafe.com

17:00 – 18:00

An Expedition in Asyria – lecture/performance by Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton

Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton was born in 1979 in Berlin. She continues to live and work there. Between 2001 and 2007 she studied at the Universität der Kunst Berlin. In 2004, she took a year abroad at the Cooper Union in New York. Sophie is a regular contributor to Basso Magazine.

Jointly with Goethe Institute Bulgaria



Общност от предимно не твърде обременени от журналистически навици ентусиасти, мотивирани от силната си пристрастеност към Нощните маршрути, оценили възможността за изява, за срещи с интересни хора и изживяването да усетят "Нощта отвътре".


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