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Dadara Brings Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia to Texas


by Betsy Lewis 9 Jan 2009 4:39 PM

It’s pronounced like you’re saying “darling” but you stutter at the beginning: duh-DAR-ruh. Dadara’s home studio is in Amsterdam. He believes each of you is living inside your own brain, your own bubble, and that “even though you live in the physical world, you always take your bubble with you.” At the 2003 Burning Man […]

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It’s pronounced like you’re saying “darling” but you stutter at the beginning: duh-DAR-ruh.

Dadara’s home studio is in Amsterdam. He believes each of you is living inside your own brain, your own bubble, and that “even though you live in the physical world, you always take your bubble with you.”

At the 2003 Burning Man Festival, he created a fleet of small paper mache grey men, all looking very nerdy and conformist. First he put them in an installation, then he allowed the festival-goers to customize their own greyman, and ultimately incinerate them.

“I’ve always been very protective in my art work, and this was my first step in letting go and letting people take over,” he said last night during a talk at the Dallas Museum of Art.

He frequently destroys his own creations, many of which are several stories high, as an artistic performance piece.

Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia, Dadara’s latest artwork, will be at Centraltrak in Dallas on Saturday from 5-10 p.m. The “compound” has its own currency, passports, contracts, immigration forms and a border patrol car. You will wait in line to get interrogated.

Download your immigration forms here.

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