This week I’ve seen the first promotion for the Dede puppet exhibition, which will be at the end of June in the Depot at Devonport (Auckland, New Zealand). It was printed in the Gallery’s quarterly magazine. The blurb reads as follows:
Dietlind Wagner, Dede puppets 22 June to 4th July. Opening Saturday 22 June 3pm to 4:30pm
In a hyper-communicative world Dietlind Wagner slowly transforms old news into her vibrant colourful character heads, Dede puppets.
For Wagner, these sculptures are a vehicle to express introspective views on interpersonal communication. Her puppets are designed to charm, bewilder and even repulse thus inspiring reflection within the viewer. The puppets uniquely sculptured and collaged faces allude to the fractured personalities in the fast paced world of modern-day communication. The stories they tell are homage to real friends and real people with all their flaws and idiosyncrasies. Being a very private person Wagner has not exhibited extensively but her puppets have managed to tease her out into the public. An installation of five puppets was selected into the finals of the 2012 Wallace Art Awards.
I’d better get back on track…I am meandering a bit at the moment!
When I arranged the exhibition, I knew I was cutting it a tad fine with the renovations that are going on in my house. The Dedes didn’t even exist, when we started planning the extension two and a half years ago, but the physical build started in February this year. Silly me, I didn’t expect the actual build to impact on my psyche. The whole thing is supposed to be finished at the beginning of June. Has anybody ever finished in time?
The pictures here are two weeks old and the build has progressed since. In the meantime everything is wrapped in building paper and the cladding is nearly completed. Soon we will have a staircase going up to the first floor. The floor boards are still missing though. And yes, we are really living on the site. Under the remaining black tiled roof.
dedepuppets 
The link doesn’t seem to work for me.
Thanks Arindam. It’s fixed now.
Oh, das sieht aber jetzt schon sehr schön aus – und so ein schönes Holz aber auch! Und – alles wird gut!
Das Ende kann nicht schnell genug kommen!
Klingt apokalyptisch :-)
Ich glaube im Augenblick lebe ich im ersten Vorhof der Hölle :)
Devil kann dir da sicher weiterhelfen, der kennt sich mit Hölle wohl aus!
What will happen in this new addition…guestroom, studio, etc…?
That is a very good question. The new addition will become a living space (one big room including kitchen and a deck in the tree tops). The old space underneath was supposed to become work area for the graphic design business (that we currently run from rented premisses) and a studio space, so that I can work in the studio when I don’t have enough jobs on :). However the business has taken a new direction and we might stay in the rented premisses. I would love to have the entire downstairs area as studio, but this is an indulgence I simply can’t afford.