WORDS FROM JAN BRUGGER

I engage with a variety of media to stage colorful formations that activate the senses with attention to physicality, rhythm, and mise-en-scène. (Vibrant sculptural constructions float on a quiet body of water. Rigid paper balances on rusted metal. Disassembled mannequins pose inside colorblock installations. Playful characters animate digital and physical scenes. Secret messages blur into moody, amorphous pools.) These performances offer opportunities to increase bodily awareness and encourage us to reconsider how we experience and relate to the world. Set within isolated contexts like water or grassy fields, I ask questions about the passage of time; relationships between labor, movement, and product; and the impermanence of human bodies.

Thoughts on the lab

During my residency at LATITUDE in March 2025, I created numerous prints using 34,415 square inches of ink on over 7 different types of materials (!!). Many of these were large-scale prints, the largest of which was approx. 12.5" x 23'.

When I arrived, I was excited to learn how to print on fabric because I knew that leaping into the unknown would lead to unexpected discoveries! I first made two huge, 42” wide prints on organza fabric. Ghost images were revealed from ink bleed-through on the semi-transparent fabric's paper backing. I took these fabric prints and their backings to LATITUDE's overhead scanner where I layered the fabric rippling and undulating over their phantom doubles. Then printed those images on both rag paper and fabric. In the summer, I brought a few of the prints to Promontory Point and photographed them submerged in the water to create ethereal, textured images.