The project Blue Meetings was composed of weekly conversations between Blue House (see Identity Builder below) residents Daniela Paes Leão and visual artist Roe Cherpac, in the basement of the Kalvertoren at the HEMA café in Amsterdam. They invited friends to join them around a table with coffee and the predisposition of debating any subject that would come up in the moment. This project came from the necessity of bringing discussions outside the physical walls of The Blue House, a project space in IJburg, Amsterdam, where both artists had met each other. With this project, Daniela aimed to develop the process of openness and porosity of spaces. Believing that it is possible to bring the blue house with them, they use its ‘absent presence’ as a pretext for the discussions. The conversations were registered and edited by Daniela, who also posted online.
From each audio-recorded conversation, Daniela would select different fragments to upload onto the Blue Meetings website, together with a photo of the surroundings. The selected recording tools were deliberately low-tech in order not to interfere with the intimate settings of the talks. Every segment would have a title, directing the listeners’ attention to a specific subject. The conversations ultimately ended up covering a wide variety of subjects, not having a specific focus or objective. Just like the typical conversations anyone has with friends in a café for example, Daniela and Roes conversations would ramble trough a lot of subjects that would for one reason or the other interest them at that specific point in time. The notions of the porosity and flexibility of space and being able to use or manipulate space itself as a medium played an important role in the project KijkRuimte developed by Paes Leão immediately after.
http://bluemeetings.blogspot.com
Daniela Paes Leão 