ARTIST STATEMENT
I explore text and textural dimensions through materials and installations. My podium ‘Script under Suppression’ stages memory with varied levels of legibility, investigating suppression and connection across beings. It highlights voices too often unseen, using light as tool, material or metaphor. Handwriting captured my interest when I received my grandmother’s diary, written as our country (Netherlands) was being invaded (1940). Although I grew up close to ‘oma’, I had no idea of her trauma prior to reading her journal. I re-marked her voice and discovered through her words that handwriting is a vital artform. It has led to my ongoing artist initiatives with women (most inclusive) experiencing restricted freedom due to state sanctioned detention (since ’17). My work investigates complex dimensionalities of freedom within violence, offering dual power and care through creative making.
BIO
A former public defender of the Netherlands, Marcia Haffmans has continued her women centered interventions over the past decade through art and installations highlighting voices impacted by systems of domination. Her art has been exhibited in Europe (NL, Italy, Spain), S Korea, and across US, including a traveling exhibit organized by Norman Rockwell Museum. Since relocating from Midwest to Southeast, Haffmans has been Trawick Prize Finalist (MD), and her work has been included in NCECA Annual showcase (‘Rendered Fusion’, Harnett Museum, Richmond, VA, ‘24) and also ‘Word Powered’ exhibition, National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, ‘25.
Benefits of her artist initiative have been published in Women’s Health Reports 2020, ‘Inside Out: Change Through Art’. Haffmans has participated in residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Tower View (MN), MAS museum (Antwerp, BE) and at Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VA (studio access).
Select funding sources have included Jerome Foundation (Textile Center MN), MN State Arts Board, CultureWorks/NEA and Dutch Culture USA (‘26).