Tasse et soucoupe « Swiss Souvenirs »

Swiss Souvenirs | 2003–2005 A greyish-blue web of contour lines denoting altitude – the massif as a schematic representation – and the pattern of a road network: the source imagery is two-dimensional. A map is a scientific instrument for the purposes of orientation, being signpost and companion in one. A map is always an aid that assists purposive action. It is never an end in its own, and through its functional fixity and universal language it has its own personal aesthetic. Nothing is as abstract as the lines on a map, and yet they trigger a mental process in which images rise up, stories are spun or real events are summoned up from the vaults of memory. The map is the proxy of events that have already occurred or have first to take place. With her series «Orte» (Places) Margareta Daepp presents dream destinations: Berne, Geneva or Zurich, the Matterhorn, the Jungfraujoch, or the Engadine. The sections of map she selects are large enough to capture the characteristic form of the city or the topography of a landscape at first sight. It is left to the viewer’s ability to transpose them and to set out on a journey in their minds, picturing places, evoking smells and experiencing colours before their mind’s eye. These everyday ceramic objects are transported to a perpetuum mobile by the decoration – which not only serves as adornment but also is content. It triggers new lines of thought and make us see beyond the end of our noses – at least for the duration of a coffee break. Susanne Schneemann http://www.margaretadaepp.ch/e-a-swisssouvenirs.php