Adam Tenora↓

About the work

Material of the Immaterial

#spirituality #material #the self-given #emanation #holism

What is your graduation work about?

My graduation work focuses on the subject of spirituality, which I have been putting off and contemplating for years. I am concerned with thematizing spirituality, both the religious-institutional and the non-religious, through the themes of space, light, material, and scale. I create a space to halt and live the spiritual experience. However, a far greater impulse for me was to open up and process the issue of experiencing spirituality, which I hope to open up in the viewer.

What do you do besides your graduation work?

Teaching has been an age-old part of the work of artists and craftspeople. For me, it has become a natural outgrowth of my work. When I listen to students, I can see how they perceive and portray the world. Teaching forces me to verbalize the knowledge more accurately, which allows me to develop. I am also interested in learning more about people than just their “products”.

Otherwise, I like to engage in craft outside of its service to “art”. When applying to AVU, they asked me if I came from an “artistic family”. I answered that my family is more about craftsmanship and that I value that.

In what conditions would you like to work on your graduation work?

I can imagine an old farmhouse in the foothills, where I would run up and down the hills and cut beams out of fallen trees and sticks. The mountains have always attracted me more than the waters. And “solitude” more than the city.

What would you imagine to be an alternative culmination of your studies at AVU, in place of the defense of your graduation work?

I have not even thought about finishing my studies yet (but true – I won’t be at AVU anymore). For me, defending my graduation work is not the culmination of it. For me, “graduation work” is a “whole year” of creation and thinking. So for me, it is very much about the process, not just the result. The process is, in my opinion, much neglected (unless the work builds directly on it). I also add in the same breath – and who cares anyway… I try to seek a holistic view and not rely on a doxa. This brings me back to my previous evasive response; and again, I am avoiding the answer a bit.