Art Uncovered

salz, 2023, salt, Hafenstr. Kassel

As I’m working with text and poetry myself I’m always excited to see other artists working with text and it’s even more exciting when it’s as amazingly done as Franca does in her work.
It’s a great mix of text/poems which are touching and make you think at the same time and a way of materializing it in space which brings out the meaning of the text and work even more.

For the following I asked Franca if she wants to do an interview with me:


Luna Maluna Gri: Tell me a bit about yourself and your work.

Franca Brockmann: My name is Franca Brockmann. I live in Bremen with my daughter and husband. In my artistic practice, I explore the different dimensions of text and language in the visual arts. I combine poems and sculptural forms to create large-scale installations. Tensions arise between the content of the text and the material the letters are made of or which accompanies the work. Traces of use, intended purposes and memories influence how a material is experienced. I try to utilise this potential by adding it to the poem, creating another layer. Descriptions of social injustices run through the exhibited poems using images to question the relationship between the individual and society and the (im)possibility of distinguishing between the political and the personal.

LMG: How and why did you start creating art?

FB: I come from a creative family. My mother majored in english literature and used to read a lot with me. We would watch films together and discuss them afterwards. My stepmother and father would draw and paint with us. They took us to the theatre and museums at the weekends. My father taught me how to use an analogue camera and how develop the photos afterwards. My stepfather made sure I had good tools and brought home wood and soft stones for sculpting. There were limitless possibilities in making something and I liked exploring them. It was never really a question of why create. Everyone in my family was creating in one way or another. They wrote, acted, painted, took photographs, played music, renovated and decorated houses. We took joy in sharing our projects with one another, and we still do today.

salz, 2023, salt, Hafenstr. Kassel

LMG: What role does creating art play for you?

FB: It’s what I studied for many years and what I’m trying to build a professional career around. It’s what I am good at. It’s also a constant that I can always turn to. As I said, I find the limitlessness of possibilities rather soothing.

LMG: What does your creating process look like?

FB: I try to spend the first one or two hours in the studio writing and experimenting with material with no specific expectations. Playtime, if you like. Sometimes, I continue working on an idea that comes to me during this time. A poem, that needs completing. Research on a topic that came up. Further tryouts with a material. Usually, I leave the process there. When I am preparing for an exhibition, I first try to get a feeling for the room. Where are the spots that I find interesting? What comes up, when I look at the architecture, the colours, the materials in that room? Then I revisit what I have been working on in the studio. Do I have the beginning of poem or a material that might fit with what I am getting from the room? I then try to coordinate these elements – room, material, form and text – into a finished piece that looks like it belongs there.

dissonante zustände, 2025, woodchip/styrofoam/wood, CIAO Container Bremen

LMG: What inspires you?

FB: All sorts of things: Contemporary dance, poetry, the opera, museums, architecture. It often comes down to someone making an effort to express and share something in a precise and concrete way with others.




LMG: What is your experience with the art world?

FB: It does not hold a lot of space for parents. It is not a provider. There are also many kind and caring people supporting and accompanying each other in it. Lots of courage and badassery wherever you look.

left: forellen machen und sinken, 2025, aluminum, Städtische Galerie Bremen

right: having loved you, 2019, acrylic paint, Kunsthochschule Kassel

LMG: Is there something you want to change about the art world? If yes, what and why?

FB: I think it should be more accessible to people doing care work and to those without a financial safety net. Artists need to be able to achieve a degree of stability in their lives that allows them to provide for themselves and others, also in times of illness and in old age.




LMG: What do you think is/are the role/-s of artists and art in our society?

FB: They document and comment on the world they see around them. Their work brings joy and/or provides space to think, act and feel in a different way.

LMG: What artist/artists would you like to meet (dead or alive) and if you had one question what would you ask them?

FB: Jenny Holzer, Amanda Palmer, Zsusza Bánk, Olivia Gatwood. What’s the best part of your day?

LMG: Is there something you want to achieve in your art life? Dreams? Future plans? Or projects you would like to do?

FB: I want my work to move people in the same way that I am moved by a good book, standing in a museum, watching someone dance. I carry that feeling with me throughout the day. It alters the way I experience and describe the world around me, opening up new ways to engage with it. In my poems I try to capture these moments of change, where something boils over and shifts.

berg, 2023, plaster/sand, Kunstbalkon Kassel

LMG: Do you think there is something you can bring to this world through your work as an artist which you couldn’t in any other field of work?

FB: No. I think there are many ways to do and achieve things. I’m most interested in doing them through art. It’s also what I am most experienced in and good at.

Credits:

1. and 2. photo: Nicolas Wefers

3. and 5. photo: Franca Brockmann

4. and 6. photo: Michel Ptasinski

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/francabrockmann/