The name BLOB is inspired by the blob fish: an underwater creature that lacks structure and form above the water and only gains substance and sustenance through the pressure of the environment in the depths of the ocean. In our practice, we foreground the conditions within which our practices can take place and constantly seek new ways in which (sometimes seemingly limiting) circumstances can be artistically generative. The alleged “ugliness” of the blob fish refers to a non-confirming attitude when it comes to aesthetic norms. BLOB is a caring and restorative art practice with humoristic and absurdist edge. BLOB interventions take shape in fluxus-like performances, gatherings, installations/spaces, exercises and small publications. 

Artistic careers are more often than not rather messy and nonlinear. In order to uphold an artistic practice, one often has to perform paid or unpaid labor that allows for the conditions in which a regular practice can be maintained. Caregiving responsibilities may interrupt a disciplined work hygiene as well as conditions often discussed as vital in artistic practices, such as flow, receptivity, or intuition. Not only are these forms of artistic embodied labor over-romanticized (see also Scholtes, 2024), they may be at odds with other forms of labor that are part and parcel of an art worker’s daily life. The professional art world—residencies and funding—often foregrounds either the work of young artists or the work of those who have had a consistent artistic career.

BLOB is initiated by two professionals (Ulrike Scholtes and Mariëlle Kleyn Winkel), who try to rebuild their artistic practice after a period of upholding the work necessary for motherhood, teaching, and massage therapy. Both of us are experienced art workers, who find themselves in a routine that makes building a strong artistic practice challenging. We wonder: could we, together, function as one “proper” artist? And what would this mean for our individual and collective artistic practice? What challenges would come with radical collaboration and giving up the idea of individual authorship? But we also wonder what our work besides our artistic work has to offer. What sensitivities, ways of knowing, and embodied skills did we cultivate through caregiving work, that our artistic work can actually benefit from? What are ways of merging two practices into one and allowing aspects of life that may not be artistic to merge into our practice in substantial ways? And how to articulate all of this?

In our daily practice of "parenthood", the pressures and demands echo those of the artistic process—both can be spaces of vulnerability, uncertainty, and relentless dedication. Unlike the conventional studio, creative practice has unfolded within the confines of home, shaped by the rhythms of children’s sleep and the spaces of their nurture. This shift from a workspace to one interwoven with the acts of caregiving challenges the norms of artistic production and invites an exploration of what it means to create.

Artistic output during this period has often manifested not in prolonged compositions but in the quiet immediacy of haikus, sketches, and brief notes and voice messages. These forms of expression, born from the necessity of managing brief moments of artistic engagement, mirror the stretched and pressed conditions—constantly being pushed against both time and space constraints.

This lived experience exposes the artificial separation often perceived between ‘legitimate’ art practices and the creative acts emerging from maternal duties. It raises critical questions about the spaces we deem appropriate for art-making and the value assigned to works created in non-traditional settings.

Embracing this, BLOB creates work around these topics, while critically examining and expanding the definitions of artistic spaces, processes, and values. It challenges the "art world" by exploring how its frameworks can be more inclusive of diverse life experiences, such as parenthood, which profoundly shape the artistic perspective and output.

This approach also invites a reevaluation of the vulnerability and ‘not knowing’ inherent in both art and parenthood. By acknowledging and integrating the flux and the minutiae of parental life into the fabric of artistic practice, proposing a model of art that reflects the real conditions of its making—a model where the intertwining of life’s duties with artistic creation is seen not as a limitation but as a rich, generative ground for innovation and expression.

Blobbing is a concept that challenges the view of the human body as a (closed) whole. Instead, it posits the body as permeable and interconnected with its environment, highlighting the fluidity between one body and other lifeforms. This perspective encourages a reevaluation of individuality, suggesting that some kind of “self” is not contained within physical boundaries but extends outward, mingling with the world around us. Inspired by the essay “The Second Body” by Daisy Hildyard (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017), we propose a multiplicity of bodies (Mol, Annemarie. “The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice.” Duke University Press, 2002), never whole and always leaky (Shildrick, Margrit. “Leaky Bodies and Boundaries: Feminism, Postmodernism and (Bio)ethics.” Routledge, 2005).

How can the idea of blobbing illuminate the intricate interconnections between human existence and the natural world? This concept seeks to dissolve the perceived separations between human and environment, emphasizing our integral role within the natural cycles and systems.

“Blobbing” emerges as an artistic research method that embodies the principles of leaky bodies. It is a practice of opening up the senses, dissolving the barriers between bodies, and engaging in a form of exploration that transcends conventional understanding. “Blobbing” allows for a flow of sensations, emotions, and consciousness that defies the normative segmentation of experience. This method encourages artists and participants alike to embrace vulnerability and permeability, fostering a deep, experiential understanding of interconnectedness. As an artistic research method, blobbing encourages not-knowing, tentative attempts, and mistakes, and a culture of “leaking”: a sharing of the process at every stage of the research. Questioning individual authorship and foregrounding the specificities of the situatedness of the researcher, it aims for maximal fluidity of the process. In blobbing, we experiment with forms of documentation that support, facilitate, or contribute to this fluidity.

As a method, Blobbing advocates for fluidity and the dissolution of rigid forms. It pushes the boundaries of creation and thought into the ambiguous peripheries where ideas merge and transform. How might we employ Blobbing to navigate and reinterpret the boundaries between certainty and the unknown?

In practice, we explore this method in two ways. As two part-time artists (who are both mothers and uphold their teaching and/or massaging practice), we want to experiment with radical collaboration. We take turns in the studio, picking up the work where the other left off. By articulating what kind of artistic processes this way of working allows for, we merge into one “blob” creature and question individual authorship, aiming for a practice that is truly collaborative and situated.

Second, we open our studio practice  for other artistic practitioners by hosting movement practices. We critically engage with the art of gathering (Priya Parker, “The Art of Gathering,” Riverhead Books, 2018) and hosting (Simon Kentgens & Florian Cramer, “Hosting as Artistic Practice,” Humdrum Press, 2023): the explorations of the conditions in which hosting a gathering is done “well” will be an important part of the experiment, as it allows us and others to experience how a “leaky” artistic practice is or can be conducted.

Blobbing is practiced as a fluid and dynamic somatic methodology, inviting participants and practitioners to continually discover and redefine its boundaries. Rather than being a fixed set of rules or techniques, ‘Blobbing’ is an open invitation to explore the unknown and to engage with the process of artistic creation in a way that is perpetually unfolding. This ongoing journey of discovery not only challenges our preconceived notions of identity and perception but also enriches our understanding of the ways in which we can connect with the world around us. As makers and researchers, we practice blobbing as a way to cultivate fluidity, interconnectedness, and leakiness. We move, visualize, go on walks, and experiment with techniques from somatic movement, mime, Butoh, massage therapy, and haptonomy. Again, multiplicity is foregrounded, as we search for a variety of imaginations of the body that foster specific ways of using and moving the body and relating to realities.

Incorporating Blobbing into somatic practices, how can we enhance bodily awareness and responsiveness to both internal and external stimuli, fostering a deeper kinesthetic understanding of the concept of perpetual interaction with the environment?

We are two art practitioners who have collaborated in the past (see, for instance, the project Out of Your Mindfulness) at the intersection of somatic and artistic practice. For the past five years, we both went our individual ways. We developed a successful massage studio (Movement Matters) and a PhD at the intersection of social science and artistic research (Ulrike Scholtes). We both became parents (individually) and deal with the challenges of navigating multiple lives. We want to question conventions within the art world that foreground youth, such as residencies and funding for “young artists” — we are both in our mid-thirties — and coherent CVs. Questioning individual authorship and makership, we merge our two CVs into one, as part of the experiment that is foregrounded in this project: a leaky artistic practice that merges bodies and blurs boundaries. Without taking for granted what parenthood (or motherhood) or being an artist means, we practice with curiosity and rigor, articulating the sensitivities that our very situatedness (including its problems and challenges) develop and questioning how these sensitivities can be practiced as generous and generating artistic skills.

Viewing Blobbing as a persona invites a dialogue about identity in a fluid and interconnected world. What does it mean to adopt a Blobbing persona that neither fully identifies with humanity nor nature, but exists in the dynamic interstice? What defines a persona? What if we embrace the concept that it’s an intersection of many? Perhaps a multitude teeming with presence and absence. What can be found in the shared spaces?

Can we consider that perhaps, within the conventional confines of ‘one person,’ there could reside multiple dynamic existences, interconnected and interdependent? What does it mean to inhabit multiple bodies, to share intertwined yet distinct realities? How do these gaps, these voids that we strive to overlook, define us more accurately than the obvious, the visible? How might we dissect and reconstruct the notion of self that traditionally binds an artist to a single body? Can we, through artistic expression, explore the fluid boundaries where identities merge and dialogue begins? Where does one end and the other begin? We break with this artificial boundary, a construct of social convenience rather than a reflection of reality. In exploring these questions, we aim to create works that resonate with the complexities of human identity—fluid, overlapping, permeable.What if our artist research identity lies not within the singular, but across a spectrum of shared and individual experiences, a collective woven from the threads of somatic experiences? How might we articulate this dynamic, this constant flux of becoming and unbecoming with artistic research? By embracing the ambiguity inherent in these questions, the residency becomes a space for unfolding the multiple layers of human connection. It challenges us to think, to question, and to reimagine the essence of being in a world where boundaries are both defined and dissolved by our perceptions.