Bianca Tschaikner: The Far Province

The Far Province is an ongoing series of etchings and drawings created by printmaker and illustrator, Bianca Tschaikner, in the late summer of 2020 in Galicia, Northern Spain.

Galicia, also called Terra Meiga (Land of the witches) is a historical landscape; a remote and relatively unknown province of Spain. “It is a rural, almost medieval land; a mystical and magical country of pilgrims and witches, serving as a backdrop and a mirror to images raising up from within and without, lending a face to that what is faceless” describes Bianca.

This remote place by the rough Atlantic sea, full of windy harbours and endless forests once thought to be the end of the world, serves as point of departure for a non-place, the other side, the subconscious: The Far Province.

“In a time where the whole world comes to a halt and the only step we can do is a step back, the exploration of The Far Province is an exploration of the inside world in a wider sense: Not restricting itself to a “self”, it explores to the all-encompassing collective unconscious, the intertwined, invisible roots that grow between us; the living shadows in which we sleep when we think we are awake: And what sleeps us in these shadows raises to light in the shape of wondrous, marvellous and sometimes horrific images.”

The Far Province alludes to Rumi’s poem The Far Mosque, which describes a place that can only be found within, a secret place in the soul where mystical conversation takes place. Bianca also refers to the image of the “other province” coined by the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, which stands for times that have passed and will never come back.

The project is a mapping of a fluid world inhabited by creatures that are part real, part imaginary, such as a wild horse, a shell seeker, a mermaid, a ridiculous magician, and a secret saint. “These creatures all live in the dark spaces between us, and raise into visibility from the interplay between the wildness of nature and memories of mythologies” says Bianca. Between what is real and what is imaginary emerges imagery that is both foreign and familiar, personal and universal.

www.biancatschaikner.com
@biancatsh

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