THIRD SPACES: The Bridge to the Other is Imagination

In the sculptural installation that is presented here the trails of these diverse experiences made as a travelling sculptress are converging. Inspired by the concept of Third Space by Homi K. Bhabha, a theorist of postcolonial studies, I have tried to depict how identities of different cultures are challenged in intercultural encounters. My artwork itself consists of many different pieces, each of them is representing a unit, a unique culture resulting together in an open network. Together they form ways or waves which are crossing or going side by side in order to express the fluent character of the term culture, it is moving and changing any time.

For Homi K. Bhabha the possibility to enunciate cultural difference arises from the shared incompleteness of every production of cultural meaning. Cultures are not closed entities, they are in a permanent process of evolvement with uncountable ties to other cultures. Culture cannot be fixed but evolves in the interaction between people anew at every moment. This in-between is represented by the Third Space, a space of ongoing negotiation, articulation of difference, a space where something new and different can come into existence.

To make Third Spaces possible some basic openness is required as well as confidence in the other, but also self-confidence and the pursuit of one’s own way. On the one hand imagination is a very personal thing being always tied to one specific human being, on the other hand it is the human capacity to transcend one’s own self and approach the Other. Therefore, Christoph Wulf is writing: “The bridge to the other is imagination.” What imagination is representing here, is a positive openness towards the other, confidence in oneself and in the other, a positive uniting power that is capable of changing and crafting reality. 

Curved lines, arches, paths, bridges, ties, converging, diverging, intersections, distances, a complex network of links, possibilities appearing and disappearing, spaces to rest, paths to follow, flowing time like water beneath the bridges used by travellers to walk across, dynamics within statics, stability that enables mobility, oppositions in tension to each other and in harmony, giving space for something new, something different.