Maria Barnas
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Maria Barnas (1973) is a writer, poet and visual artist. Both in her written and visual work she investigates how descriptions shape and distort reality. In 2014 she won the Anna Bijns Prize for Jaja de oerknal (2013). Barnas studied at the Rietveld Academy and the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. Her poetry debut Twee zonnen (2003) was published and awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize in 2004. In 2009 she was awarded the J.C. Bloemprijs for Er staat een stad op from 2007. Barnas writes about poetry for NRC Handelsblad. Her NRC Handelsblad columns from 2007 to 2010 have been collected in Fantastisch. Barnas also published two novels, Engelen van ijs (1997) and De baadster (2000) [Source: www.writersunlimited.nl]. For Constant 101 she is one of the poets of the Constant special edition of De Gids out December 2021. Her poem is called Picknick.
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Maria about Constant
It struck me that the idea of the free, creative being, liberated from physical labor by machines, is indeed sympathetic. Nevertheless, it is, in this time, no longer tenable. That’s what I dedicated my poem about a picknick-table to.
The picknick-table is contradictory, like New Babylon,: if you are to be playful at a specific time and place, it is questionable for who’s entertainment that is.
I especially admire his New Babylon project, because of the mental space it creates. When looking at it I don’t know whether it is a model for something or a work of art. It makes me aware that perhaps every work of art, like every poem, is a proposition, a space for thoughts, and not just the object itself that you hang on a wall or put on a pedestal.
