Artworks
&
Residencies
Het Peukenbos
2024
Medium: Mycelium and half a million cigarettes
This living artwork stands as a testament to the positive impact that is created when we choose to work together as communities and with nature.
The process of making this art working included the co-creation of the WasteBar initiative and establishing and inspiring community of clean up initiatives and individuals from across the Netherlands to help collect the cigarettes.
It included a two year year research process of experimenting in labs to find a method for growing the cigarettes and mycelium together. Once the method was formalised it then took an additional 8 months to grow the artwork. The choice has been made to exhibit this artwork in locations where the message of the artwork can reach and inspire the general public. Locations such as Coast Busters in Katwijk and the Stadskantoor in Utrecht.
For Far Future Generations – The Collective Time Capsule
2024
The “Good Ancestors” exhibition at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Commissioned by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Jamaica.
The exhibition highlights the importance of collectively thinking and working together for the benefit of future generations. “Good Ancestors” is a result of the collective effort of many individuals from across the globe who think long-term and see the important role art and culture can play in inspiring actions and support for future generations.
The post box and postcards next to the poster invited visitors of the exhibition to write what they would like to last or what they want to leave behind for future generations. Two postcards with these questions were provided.
Helpful replies shall become part of the Memory of Mankind Project. Text on the postcards will be archived on ceramic tablets and stored deep in the oldest salt mine to be found and read hundreds of thousand years into the future.
They will also be placed on a website to encourage wider reflection and to make it more likely that there will be a long future. In a long future there should be someone who is aware. Someone who can understand what you wrote and can answer these questions for their future generations.
What Must Die? What Might Spring New?
2024
Re_Nature Festival at Ruigoord Amsterdam
Medium: mycelium, chalk and wood
There are phases in life where we have to let go of things, parents letting go of their child, ones home, land, food, way of life, habits, ideologies, comforts and what you’ve known and step into a new phase. A letting go of the old, makes room for the new (life) to spring anew.
This participatory artwork by Angelina Kumar invites you to reflect on two profound questions: What Must Die? What Might Spring New? Using the chalk provided you can write on the circles.
Kumar’s current research dives into the ever changing aspect of nature, and species that have a very transformative character and vital role within the ecosystem such as Funghi.
Our Micro – Universe
2024
Down To Earth summer program at the Sonnenborgh Museum in Utrecht
Angelina designed this artwork in a way that the the visitors co-create it together. The artwork invited the visitors to explore our planet on a micro level with the same wonder that we explore the solar system.
Angelina carefully selected intriguing organisms from they Utrecht University Museum’s archives for people to observe during the summer evenings. She installed a special lighting set up with a range of unique light sources found in the Sonnenborgh museums archives.
It was lovely to see so many of the hundreds of people that joined, light up with wonder, draw, play and contribute their findings to the light installation artwork.
Generational Spores
2024
Land Artwork at the Sa Ladakh Art Festival in Ladakh India.
Sponsored by the Dutch Embassy in India
Materials used: Clay, Rocks and Mycelium
Description: This artwork is composed of approximately 400 mycelium circles in three sizes and local rocks and clay. Mycelium, a living organism dating back 715 to 810 million years, played a crucial role in breaking open rocks, and enabling life as we know it today. Each mycelium circle symbolises a spore planted into the soil, inviting contemplation on the legacy we are creating for future generations. Kumar highlights the interconnectedness of life and our impact on the planet’s future.
The work is biodegradable
Powerhouse RAUM
Aug 2023 – Jan 2024
Every six months, RAUM invites powerhouses – exceptional, creative Utrechters – to move into the Makershuis and do their inspiring work temporarily on Berlin Square in Utrecht.
Museum of Small Wonders
July 2023
At Co-Transpose an art residency in Dikea, Greece.
Inspired by the book, My family and other animals, my 8 year old daughter and I created the Museum of Small Wonders during the 2 week art residency Co-Transponse in Greece. During our stay we repurposed an abandoned building in the village of Dikea’s army base. At the start we shared our vision and invited the other artists in residence to contribute their findings to our efforts in collecting and gathering small natural wonders found in the surrounding area. During the 3 day festival for the village the museum was opened to all ages inviting them to explore the small wonders exhibited in a minimalist form.
The museum consists of a three room building, the entrance was the observation room, set up with magnifying glasses and a table full of jars with small treasures, pencils, papers and a wall for hanging documentations. Room 2 and 3 were subtly curated with over 40 different local species of animals, plants and insects.
SymbioFest
June 2023
Fort Werk aan de Waalse Wetering, Netherlands
We live in concrete houses and check the weather on our phones. As humans, we have slowly become disconnected from nature. It is therefore high time to usher in a new era: the Symbiocene! This term, coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht, suggests an era in which humans, nature and technology create a new balance together.
This is why the SymbioFest is being organised! A festival where you can reconnect with nature and discover what it looks like. Have a picnic with a rabbit, listen to your houseplant behind the DJ set or take a walk that will open your senses wide.
A festival where you can reconnect with nature and discover what it looks like. Have a picnic with a rabbit, listen to your houseplant behind the DJ set or take a walk that will open your senses wide.
Want Utrecht Die Is Jarig en de Vlaggen Hangen Uit
Nov – Dec 2022
The Stadskantoor Utrecht
This is a project devised by Kunstliefde for the celebration of Utrecht 900 years of city rights.
In ten Utrecht neighbourhoods, an artist, seamstress and the local residents conceived and made a neighbourhood banner using waste fabric. The ten banners together form a special and personal portrait of the city.
Group exhibition at Casco Art Institute
Sep. 2022
Group exhibition with alumni of the Masters of Fine Art, presented by Mutual support Platform (MSP). At Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Utrecht, Netherlands
Guṇá
Oct – Nov 2021
Art Residency at De Voorkamer, Utrecht, Netherlands
In 2021 Angelina Kumar, did an art residency at De Voorkamer in Utrecht NL, where she created a series of workshops with the concept of Guna. Guna, a Sanskrit word, was chosen to give the participants, who were asylum seekers, an opening to express parts of their culture and stories with each other. Zines, artworks, paintings, and drawings were created together and accumulated into a book. This book offers its readers a view into the heritages, struggles and characteristics of these participants.
Reflection Pods
Exhibtion at The Creative Playground, Utrecht, Netherlands
Reflection Pods
(Size: 21 x 120.5cm each)
The Reflection Pods presented in this exhibition are made from rescued wood and created with the
intention to quiet the busyness of the external world. They invite you to step inwards, to
connect with oneself and with nature–from whence we came.
Both of the Reflection Pods are situated within a larger social art project called The Creative Playground, which is part of Angelina’s art practice and is co-created with like-minded visionaries.
Mango and Me
Group exhibitions video links:
Re-Nature, Den Bosch, Netherlands,
A Short Film 8’48”
The short film Mango & Me follows a child’s journey through natural and man-made habitats and explores another perspective on
dwelling in, and dealing with, shifting turbulent times.
The film invites the viewer to step into a moment where they can travel through time. Our past and present history as humans seems to be on repeat and only getting worse.
The underpinning factor of the way we engage and negotiate with and within our environment determines current and future results. And whether we dawn on a utopian or dystopian approach we still have to live in and deal with the present moment in time.
This film raises all these elements to the surface in a clear and simple format, while capturing a perspective that could be used when tackling current global issues.
Artist’s Treasure Hunt
Exhibition for the Belofte at Kunstliefde gallery in Utrecht Netherlands.
Collaboration with artist Joyce Overheul.
Choices and decisions, paths and pitstops are all, seemingly invisible, parts of the journey of an artist. This journey as an artist can’t be easily split from daily life as a lot of it, most of it, all of it, flows over and into each other. They consciously and subconsciously affect each other. Some paths taken are circumstantial some are deliberate, intentional, designed or planed. Some are value driven, others to push against the status quo, others are taken to fit in or reach a particular trajectory.
Monetary value also feeds into how this game is played. It dangles in front of you, a gleaming box with the promise illusion that you might obtain it. The choice made in the game seem to be evasive towards the pot of luck. However, some play for the pot and others, choose for the fun of the game alone. Others are so fixated on finding rules and structure that they forget it’s a game. Others are settled and don’t bother with the money but casually make choices without a concern about the outcome or results.
But what begs the question is… Where did the money come from? Is it from a fund? Is it from the government? Is it privately funded? Or is it from the artists themselves as an investment into a social interaction? A leap of faith! An inquisitiveness of what would peek the players interest and the choices they would make when faced with these invisible layers of life and art.
Bob & Bits
Bob & Bits
Group exhibition by Het Klimaatmuseum at the Central Station in Utrecht Netherlands.
Artwork collaboration with artist Jur de Vries
The idea of creating, Bob and Bits, came with using the analogy of a claw machine game. Bob as an artist, is surround by wealth of art, which essentially is made up of materials that he could very well use in his own creative practice. But there is a disconnect within this art game and that’s what is being questioned with the Bob & Bits artwork.
During the making process of Bob and Bits the ideology of repurposing materials was constantly and consciously incorporated as much as possible. It took looking in different places to get materials, such as the kringloop, instead of just buy things brand new, but it was amazing to see the variety of materials available that could be reused.
