09. March 2023

Spotlight: Clara Jo Performance Lecture & Artist Talk

Spotlight: Clara Jo. Performance Lecture & Artist Talk

In the second edition of Spotlight, artist and filmmaker Clara Jo (*1986) talks about the process of creating her new project. Through Clara Jo’s signature interplay of footage from her research trips, animation and artistic storytelling, the artist explores the impact of epidemiological transmission along colonial sea routes in the Afrasian Sea (Indian Ocean). For this project, she accompanied a scientific team from Stanford University on their archaeological research on Flat Island, a former quarantine island for indentured workers off the coast of Mauritius. Jo is interested in the voids created over generations and the erasure of these narratives.

What can artistic reappraisal and speculative storytelling do to counter this? Can new stories be told from the ruins? For Spotlight, Clara Jo presents the current state of her project and talks about her practice between art and science.

Clara Jo is a former fellow of KfW Stiftung's cultural programme in cooperation with Akademie Schloss Solitude and recently showed her film installation “De Anima” in the exhibition Mutations at Villa 102. From 6 April to 13 August 2023, she will debut her completed research project and film in the exhibition Indigo Waves & Other Stories at Gropius Bau Berlin.

Moderated by Daniela Leykam, Programme Manager Arts & Culture KfW Stiftung.

The recording of the performance can be viewed here.

Spotlight

Spotlight: Clara Jo is the second iteration of a new public event series held at regular intervals at Villa 102. With readings, dance performances, and other artistic interventions, the initiative showcases previous participants of KfW Stiftung’s cultural programme and encourages a discussion around current issues in contemporary art. The historic Villa 102 serves as a stage for such transcultural dialogue and invites the public to exchange and discuss perspectives with artists.

Spotlight: Khvay Samnang was presented on 30 June 2022. More information as well as the recording of the performance can be found here.

Biography

Clara Jo (*1986) is an artist based in Berlin. She is a graduate of Bard College (NY) and the Institut für Raumexperimente / Universität der Künste Berlin. Her work has been exhibited and screened at ARKO Art Center (Seoul), Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst (Oldenburg), Spike Island (Bristol), Royal Academy of Arts (London), Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), and Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin). From 2022-3 she was in residence at Art Explora Paris. From 2020-2021, she was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. In 2018, she received the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. She has presented her work on panels at the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), King’s College (London), The Barbican Centre/The Trampery (London), and the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL London).