October 2015 Red Gate Residents
Oct 06,2015
Rabea Edel, Germany, Writer & Journalist
I'm a writer, novelist and conceptual journalist from Berlin. PEN member since 2014. As a writer I published several novels. As a journalist I organize the »Urban Journalism Salon« as an interactive new offline event to connect journalists and their readers, to get them involved into discussions about nowadays topics in a more direct and personal way. In Beijing I'll work on my third novel, that questions in an abstract and dystopian way among a poetical shoreline the current situation of Europe. And I would like to get in touch with everyone - other artists, journalist, writers, the people in my neighborhood, the city and country itself. I would like to get lost in a new surrounding to find myself back within a new environment and with a lot of new questions and maybe stories to tell.
Bertram Haude, Germany, Public Art/Objects/Video/Photography
Art is, in my understanding, to expand, to trick and to skip my privat - and perhaps the general - concept of reality and the common mode of perception. I am not fixed to a particular medium in my art practice. I am interested in researching two things in beijing/china: the way of how we serve the good of money and who is now appearing in full size and shape and creates the total indebtedness.
and, secondly, how, according to chinese tradition of fine art, to look at things, situations, landscapes from different viewpoints like the concept of indirect action is suggesting.
Evelyn O' Connor, UK, Sculpture
My studio practice is grounded in processes and materials and The Red Mansion Prize would be used to further examine these core areas of my practice. I want to use The Red Mansion Prize to open up the possibility of research and investigation into a new environment in order to propel a new series of work. The new environment would be the starting point for the creation of these works as I always use my own environment to directly influence my work. I use materials that are greatly influenced by my immediate environment, materials such as sugar, tomato ketchup, compost and cotton wool. This also extends to using objects that are sourced from my immediate environment and that end up as a part of the overall artwork or indirectly influence it. I am used to working with materials I am familiar with, so I believe it would be beneficial to go to a Beijing and have no preconceived idea about how a material or object might turn out.
Alexander Silva, USA, Photography, Mixed Media
http://www.alexanderksilva.com
Over the past seven years, photography moved from being a hobby, to a passion, to a feeling, to my entire existence. Even before I set up my camera, the colors and details captivate and fill my mind and spirit. People who've seen me work can attest to this transplantation into an alternate time and space, where my primal thoughts become the imaginative dreams of my viewers. Always searching for a catalyst for social discussion, my work often captures both sincere and severe feelings amongst viewers, combining artistic elements kitsch, porn, and commercial art without judgement or explanation. The work being conducted while living in Beijing will focus on questioning issues of identity, object, pleasure, and erasure.
Erica Sklenars, New Zealand, Video/performance
Erica Sklenars works predominantly in the mediums of performance and video, creating both solo performative video art, and collaborative audio-visual performance installation.
Her solo work is an ongoing series of personal performative videos that reconfigure contemporary understandings of objectivity, gender and contemporary feminisms with the subversive tactics of marginalist comedy. Many of these themes also overlap into her collaborative projects involving live video performance, where the artist uses sampled and re-contextulized footage combined with original content. Here the artist works with various musicians and sound artists to create immersive performance installations under the name Lady Lazer Light.
Gabriela Steiner, Switzerland, visual art/Photography/Video
As a visual artist I work with photography and video in the context of human identity, social transformation and urban environment. My work is an artistic contemplation on the urban environment and on relationships between public and private space. The projects often reflect longterm collaborations with people outside the mainstream population. I like to research visually through photography the shifting perspectives on public and private realms to pose questions about the transformation of the urban environment and its context in Bejijng.
Johanna Tinzl, Austria, Visual artist, Research based/Public Art/Performative Interventions/Installations/Video/Sound/Objects/Text
Johanna Tinzl was born in Innsbruck (Austria) in 1976. The artworks Johanna Tinzl develops are based on a conceptual approach especially analyzing the relationship between social and political structures that evolve from the notions of power in everyday life. Her ideas progress following site-specific researches which she later integrates into performative or installative formats. Her works include a wide range of media such as video, sound, object and text.
Johanna Tinzl is particularly interested in finding information from archives, virtual sources and recordings. Interviews of people directly concerned with her subject are also an important part of her investigation. These materials are assembled creating multifaceted and polyphonic narratives. Thus, her works can be of fictional or documentary nature.
Nicole Vinokur, South Africa, Sculpture
I am a South African artist living in London, recently graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Sculpture. My practice is largely project based and I am interested in conflating research and process as a way of folding of time in conversation with history.
I would like to use my time in Beijing to undertake research into the Chinese relationship with geology and contemplation by looking at dream stones and scholars stones through the lens of authenticity and myth. I would like to work with museums and cultural collections, historians/archives and visit historical sites of significance. I would also like to do workshops or reading groups and spend some time volunteering.
