Laura Killer

My work starts with awareness.

I become aware that a subject is bothering me, that I am already working on something. That’s a moment hard to grasp but wonderful at the same time: to be hit by something that needs your attention. A subject can appear in everyday objects, a heard sentence or in dreams.

As soon as I am aware of the subject, its deconstruction begins – the digging and (re)searching. Every aspect that emerges is worth showing. In a way, my work process is an emphasis on the many in the one. It’s important to take a look at everything, again and again, from all angles. I think that’s simply how life works. Everything moves and only seems to come together, just momentarily, so that we can grasp it intuitively and let it go again.

I am interested in the intensity of feelings: strong heat, strong anger, strong power/lessness. The alternation of active, physical movement and passive faint into which a material can force us.

In my work with fire, all these thoughts are evident: fire is a threat and a warm necessity at the same time, fascination and hypnosis, something that we want to control and that controls us. Assigning a place to thousands of matches in a wooden box is a concentrated act of control. Setting them on fire is to accept that there is no such thing as control. Working with fire means relinquishing responsibility at a certain point. It’s to let go and be good. It’s to worship the traces.

My fire serieses „Want to talk about light“ and „Fire cleanses“ consist of multi-component works. They unfold, emerge from one another, collapse into each other or replace one another. I intend to make connections visible and to point out the fact that there is an individual internal experience that’s complementing my work.

Movement and processes are an essential part of my studies. (Video) documentations become performative, independent works that complement their surroundings. I like to work physically, both in the production of individual works and in performances.

Repetition is to be found in most of my work. There is originality, curiosity and perseverance in repetition; it is satisfying, balancing and honest. You can use it wonderfully to understand something while remaining humble. Repetition means working without the prospect of getting out, but with the prospect of insight.

Therefore I naturally work mostly in series or studies. It is only in ‘retrieving’ the same thing that it becomes clear that there is no such thing as the same thing. Everything is always new. I believe in a nourishing rhythm of repetition.

As I react very strongly to language, it is naturally a part of my work. Sentences extend and complement my work without imposing meaning. In speaking we can disappear and appear at the same time, it’s a matter of trust towards ourselves and the other. Language internalizes secrets in a peculiar way that belong to no one and offer themselves to everyone. We just need to talk.