Alina Rentsch

The work originates from the form and system of cutting patterns, templates from which the parts of a garment, so-called figures, are traced onto fabric before being cut out and assembled. Through rewriting the outlines of the figures with seemingly endless sentences by using figures of speech, a configuration results. The idea to combine them stems from the fact that both cutting patterns and figures of speech share a particular “how-to” dimension; cutting patterns are templates and figures of speech, as the engine for the creation of images in language, deliver advice on how to manoeuvre through everyday life. By using vinyl-letters to apply these pattern shapes onto the floor of the exhibition space, the configuration is turned into a living map. They become walkable guidelines, paths which aim to invite visitors to take detours through their reading, intuitively tracing and performing the spatial pattern.