Chaveli Sifre
COCONUT BOMBS
Artist and curator Chaveli Sifre was born in Würzburg, Germany, in 1987 to Puerto Rican parents. She has a Bachelor in Image and Movement from the School of Fine Arts of Puerto Rico and a Masters in Museums Kunde from the HTW University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Sifre has participated in a variety of exhibitions including “Welt ohne Außen” in Gropius Bau and “Perspektive Wechseln” in Hamburger Bahnhof. Sifre co-curated Peripheral Intuitions, a two-week-long program focused on the regenerative power of nightlife propelled by people from the peripheries.
The Artist was invited by the curator Natalia Viera Salgado, to share a selection of her most representative works.
COCONUT BOMBS
In 2011, I developed the first works using smell as a medium. The first "coconut bombs" were a mixture of chloroform, Puerto Rican rum, and other herbs used to clear nerves. Coconut Bombs is a work "in progress", each of these sculptures contains a particular scent which is generally linked to the space where it is displayed. I liked the idea of having something on the ground like a bomb that the viewer could inadvertently throw. Contrast the natural coconut with the glass stopper to play with the aesthetics of perfumes or colognes. In the end, it's a cologne or a pump or both.
Auras I, II
Auras I, II
For some time, I have been working with the idea that art gives us a space to converge and I have chosen to turn this "space" into a sanctuary. This sanctuary is fed by different belief systems, it is syncretic. It promotes forms of care that connect us with different traditions. One of my favorite works is Félix González Torres' Perfect Lovers, which consists of two battery watches that eventually lose synchronization.
For Aura Portraits I wanted to make a portrait of myself and my partner channeling esoteric ideas about compatibility, the idea of the soul and soulmates, this is how Aura photographers sell their technology. I also wanted this portrait to have tactile, floating qualities. The final format also makes portraits feel like flags. People always ask me if I believe in all these alternative practices, aura reading, reiki, asmr. That is not necessarily what is important to me. I find infinitely much more interesting the fact that we believe.
I understand that the relationship that people have with objects they understand as sacred is similar to the way we relate to art objects. Both cases exist as acts of faith.
Healer’s Mask
Healer’s Mask
‘Two years ago I started to work these masks with beeswax, white quartz and resin. In those days, no one foresaw the leading role that masks were about to take. I wanted to work with the pantocrat, emojis, and personal purification rituals. Now the mask works almost like a premonition.’
Personal Attention
Personal Attention
Turning the exhibition space into a temple, into an opportunity to connect is one of the pillars of my practice. For Personal Attention I invited my mother and my aunt to offer a Reiki session to viewers who wanted to participate. I designed their wardrobes using the icons of the largest religions on the planet. I dyed a large fabric with the Pantone colors of the year, "rose quartz" and "serenity" and used it as a meditative background for the performance. I wanted to work on ideas like "wellness" that were entering design and mass consumption markets. I appreciate that alternative knowledge infects collective behavior, especially alternative health therapies that emerge in communities in response to the absence of traditional medicine. Several years have passed and I feel that now more than ever art must offer its spaces to give us these opportunities.’
Welle, Sitting Sculpture
Welle, Sitting Sculpture
‘The word Welle means wave and wave in German. As part of my research in alternative health practices, I offered the people who visited my exhibition a Reiki session. Welle is a modular sitting sculpture that works on its own or is activated by a Reiki session or meditation. I like to develop works that work when we approach them multi-sensory, being touched, felt, these other ways of learning are usually prohibited in exhibition spaces. Welle is itself a playful relaxation space for the viewer, simultaneously a wave and a wave.’
Sifre co-founded Scent Club Berlin, a community focusing on scent and olfaction as a medium, and La Escuela del Olor / school of scent, an artistic collective undertaking the ambitious task of processing, collecting and creating the first olfactory archive of the Caribbean.
IG: @chavelisifre