May 2015 Red Gate Residents
May 01,2015
Mathias Becker, Germany, Puppeteer, Director
I am a young director, puppeteer and performance artist from Berlin who is working with a wide range of puppets, objects and materials which are extending the human body. How does this body change and under which circumstances? This is a question which is really interesting for me. My theater approach is to work in a non-hierarchical process and to find an international visual theater language. I´m really looking forward to go to China and I hope to be inspired by Beijing and also by interesting people I´ll meet.
Julie Forgues, Canada, Photography
For the past decade, my photographic work has explored how the in-between of a landscape is a place in itself, a site that is in limbo between what was (space) and what will be (place). My work postulates the idea of an in-between landscape where nature and culture are in an indeterminate state, in a transformational process. This midpoint should be understood as a site, as an in-between space/place that belongs neither to nature nor to culture. Being an integral part of our conceptions of landscapes, they are thus crucial to ourunderstanding of the before-place and the after-space, hence of the idea of the in-between itself. My work therefore makes this process and this in-between visible. In Beijing, before place / after space = in between will propose three different layers to my ongoing research into the understanding of in-betweens. Since a place is a space with value, this work will analyse (1) how the act of taking a photographic image of a space can transform it into a place; (2) when this photographic image is given importance and put in in an artistic context, it in its turn adds another layer of value to the cultural transformation by the artistic voice; (3) by engaging the spectator in the site itself + taking an image + bringing their images into an artistic context juxtaposed with the artists’ image of the same place, the value of the in-between itself then becomes a place.
Perla Krauze, Mexico, Visual Art
I am a visual artist from Mexico City. The work is multidisciplinary and it deals with themes such as time, memory and dualities. The objective during the residency is to do a time based Project which explores traces of time and memory through walks and journeys. Work that experiments with the rural and urban, the ephemeral and permanent, the natural and the artificial. My interest in Cabinets of Curiosities and the archaeological, will be traduced through installations with various media. Will collect found materials through walks, journeys along the city of Beijing as well as other rural areas in the country. These imprints, photographs, videos, drawings, traces of ‘found and made objects’ will become part of a larger cabinet of Curiosities.
Being Beijing and China such a contrasted city/country where ancestral meets technology and modern times, it becomes a perfect place to encounter continuous change within the rural and the urban in a quite vertiginous way.
Almost with an archaeological process, my work begins with journeys/walks through various sites and landscapes, with the objective of recollecting anonymous objects, materials with no trademark, fragmented elements of nature and urban traces which I extract from its place of origin, which then carefully classify, stamp, date, register, and organize them installing them in various ways: drawing, photography, video, objects, silicon or paper imprints of these traces and marks.
These elements become part of “collections or cabinets of curiosities”. Almost anything, twigs, rubble, asphalt fragment, stones, blocks, ceramics, old textiles, all enable me to trace memory and time of a specific site.
And after, they find a new “place and order” in the studio or exhibit space, having a new reading of these collected materials.
Sometimes “place” or site come to my encounter. In the middle of my path, the non-site is suddenly transformed into the ‘exhibition space’, where the rural or urban landscape invites me to have a brief encounter. I do these site specific interventions choosing any small place, which I then modify with the insertion of another precarious small object: a pavement crack and its empty hollow space where I “plant” artificial flowers, and which only a document such as photography or short video can register its short life.
Engel Leonardo, Dominican Republic, Sculpture, installation, architectonic intervention
Working with various media like sculpture, installation, site-specific interventions an ready-mades, addresses issues related to climate, nature, traditional crafts, architecture and popular culture of the Caribbean. His works has particular interest in objects, their gestures, creation and production processes, as well as its psychological and sociological discourse implicit.
Engel Leonardo works from constant processes of research and observation of their environment. From the city of Santo Domingo, where he lives and works, to the peripheral urban centers and remote rural communities of the island visited in their multiple trips, making their life experience and artistic production closely linked. He is currently working on a series of urban interventions that abstracts architectural elements of the almost lost modern tropical style houses from Santo Domingo, and on a series of pieces related to vernacular architecture and popular decorative objects and furniture.
Chihung Liao, Taiwan, Installation art
Born and raised in Taiwan, earned my Bachelor of Fine arts degree from University of Oregon where I focused on the creative making and installation. I developed my works conceptually from thinking and questioning on where we are reflected from culturally as well as geographically, and looking at our relationships with the surroundings and built environment while at the same time thinking about human presence, humanity, self-awareness, personal experiences and stories.
Isa Schmidlehner, Austria/Germany, Painting
http://meyerkainer.com/artists/Isa-Schmidlehner/Isa-Schmidlehner-works.php
Isa Schmidlehner is a painter living between Berlin and Vienna.
Bevan Shaw, New Zealand, Painting
I am a visual artist from Wellington, New Zealand and I am exploring the process of how ideas change over time, through the mediums of painting and video. I am interested in perception and the relationship between structured pattern and free forms. I like to experiment with this by using bright colour, patterns and brushstrokes.
My residency (March, April, May) will be used to research aspects of traditional Chinese painting and create a new body of paintings responding to the architectural environment in Beijing.
This will also involve taking site-specific sound recordings in Beijing, as well as documenting the studio painting process with digital photographs to reveal how the paintings change over time.
The work produced during the residency will be shown in an open studio exhibition at Red Gate towards the end of the residency. The digital photographs and sound recordings gathered will be used to create a video work to be shown alongside the residency paintings at Toi Pōneke Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand in October 2015.
Ilona van Weeren-Kieft, Netherlands, Printmaker
http://www.ilona.vanweeren.com
As a printmaker I have specialised in woodcarving and non-toxic etching. During my 2 months stay in this residency program I will explore other kinds of printmaking: monoprint, lithography and/or silkscreen. This is the 5th time I am working as an artist-in-resident in Beijing.
Hans Van Weeren, Netherlands, Visual Art/Painting
Coming to Beijing for the Red Gate Residency for the sixth time I know already what to expect. I know I have the time and opportunity to work and reflect on what I'm doing. As a painter I really love the village of Feijiacun. But this year will make a new start with all kind of printing techniques.
