Buffalo Fight, performance, 2008 ‘Sisters’ is a collaborative project between Marenka and her sister Nynke Gabeler, a sound and performance artist who lives and works in The Hague, the Netherlands. Together Marenka and Nynke explore their Dutch-Indonesian family history through site-specific research based performances and installations.
Buffalo Fight, 2008. Performance.
Bull Fight in Tana Toraja, 2008. Sulawesi.
Indonesia sisters, performance In search of information about their grandmother’s Indonesian past, Marenka and Nynke attempted to reconstruct and imagine stories from the past through re-enacting old photographs of their grandmother and her sister from memory.
Photograph grandmother (left) and her sister, around 1931
Soap Factory, 2006. Performance developed into slide show. Nynke and Marenka created a performance in an old soap factory in Delft. Dressing up like soap ghosts, the two artists explored the architecture and historical elements of the space, creating an atmospheric scene.
Soap Factory, 2006. Performance developed into slide show.
Russian Dolls, photograph of performance, 2001 Playing on a theme of twinning, Marenka and Nynke’s first collaboration was a performance in which they dressed up like Russian Dolls. The Russian dolls inhabit a … world. They seem disturbed by the presence of the viewer. Looking back fearlessly, you can feel their gaze.