Artists in Residence

Aziz Hazara (*1992, Afghanistan) is an artist working across various media such as video installation, photography, sound, and sculpture. His work addresses the relationship between various dichotomies such as proximity and distance, migration and memory, life and death, reality and fiction, war and peace amongst many others. He intends to address the sensibility of what it is to live in a war zone where the body and the landscape are besieged and yet inherently at an outbreak.

Hazara has shown his works at various exhibitions nationally and internationally such as “New songs for old cities” at Netwerk Aalst, in Belgium, NIRIN 22nd Biennale of Sydney in Sydney Australia, 2020; “The upper hand”, IKOB at the Museum of Contemporary Art Eupen in Belgium, 2020; “Kharmohra”, at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM), Marseille, in France, 2019; amongst others. He has also participated in various residential programmes such as “Colombo scope” in Colombo Sri Lanka 2021, at the Embassy of Foreign Artists (EoFA), Geneva Switzerland, 2020; at the Camargo Foundation, Cassis France, 2019 and at KHOJ international artists’ association, New Delhi India, 2017.

In Daniel Lie's artistic practice, time is the central factor: personal memories and family stories, cultural objects and products of nature that last long periods of time in the world and carry memories within them form the core of the artistic exploration. In relation to the duration of a lifetime, Daniel Lie's work is inspired by development processes and the transitions from one state to another. In installations, sculptures and by linking different media, the reference objects refer to their performative properties - time, transience and presence. To address these three aspects, Lie creates installations in which organic elements, such as ageing matter, growing plants or mushrooms, become the main characters and perform their own temporality. In doing so, Lie deals with the tensions between binary thought structures such as science and religion, origin and present, rot and freshness, life and death, and attempts to break them up.

Daniel Lie is a gender-neutral Indonesian-Brazilian artist. Lie was born in Sao Paulo and currently lives in Berlin.

Exhibition:

Scales of Decay

“The division of biology and geology or nonlife and life is not merely a division that is artificial. It is a division that is dangerous.” – Elizabeth Povinelli, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism, 2016

Exhibition:
Künstlerhaus Bethanien
Kottbusser Straße 10 
10999 Berlin / Germany
11.06. – 11.07.2021
Tue - Sun: 2 - 7pm
Admission free and by appointment only

In recent months, Daniel Lie has used the studio at Künstlerhaus Bethanien as a research base for exploring the processes of decaying matter. Scales of Decay is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Berlin, and expands the boundaries between what is judged as living and dead matter. With Scales of Decay, Daniel Lie is showing a spatial installation consisting of large-scale drawings made with charcoal, watercolours, turmeric, pencil and linseed gel. The expressively drawn works on paper hang in groupings from the exhibition ceiling. Inspired by a composition of rotting fruits and vegetables draped on a plate in the artist’s studio over several months, it evolves into an entity of its own and, in contrast to the traditional, painterly model of a still-life, becomes the artists collaborator – a symbiotic agent that influences and informs Lie’s work on many levels.

The colours of the drawings fluoresce in the space. The exhibition walls are also included and have been hand-painted with turmeric and linseed gel. Comparable to the dramaturgy of a musical composition, the space is divided into different scenes. Textile works hand-dyed with turmeric accompany the drawings. Their colours yellow (flowers, fruits, bodily fluids) and black (death, earth, depth) form contrasts. The motifs are reminis-cent of microscopic images from laboratories, micro-organisms and enlarged particles, and merge with suggestions of insects, food, sea creatures and natural elements. As in many of Lie’s compositions, Scales of Decay builds bridges to concepts of performance art, a medium based on time, transience and presence.

Transgender artist Daniel Lie (Brazil/Indonesia, born in São Paulo) is researching life, death, ancestry and decay, and uses organic living matter as a laboratory of ideas. In Daniel Lie’s work, time is central: from the most ancient memories to the beginning of the world, the span of a human life, and the geological time of the elements. To highlight such timeframes, elements that have time contained in them are used for installations and performances, including decomposing matter and the growth of plants, fungi and the body. In interdisciplinary exchange with mycologists, archaeologists or environmental specialists, Lie develops posthumanist perspectives, aiming to break binary thought structures between science and religion, origin and presence, life and death.

Within the upcoming months the artist’s research on decay is going to be publicised in a variety of exhibitions, lectures and broadcasts, for example on the digital platform “Rotten TV” supported by the British Council Digital Collaboration Fund, at the outdoor exhibition “Park Platz”, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, and at the “Atonal Festival”, Berlin. His essay “Rotten Energy: Spaces with Consciousness” will be published by Valiz in the book “Slow Spatial Reader” edited by Carolyn F.Strauss. Together with KfW Stiftung, a monographic catalogue will be published.

To visit the exhibition, please make an appointment on the Künstlerhaus Bethanien website.

Catalogue:

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue (english).

Hamlet Lavastida (*1983 in Havana/Cuba, lives and works in Havanna) works with posters, prints, collages, photos and videos.
He sees his work as a compiling archive of different iconographic and linguistic identities from the period in which the institutionalization of socialism took place in Cuba, especially the decades from the 1960s to the 1980s. For the artist, this form of representational archaeology arose out of the need to create an objective criterion for certain hidden areas of the implementation, administration and operation of state political practices in Cuba. Lavastida’s artistic practice focuses on the reappropriation of texts, images and symbols, as well as political speeches and ideological terminologies, which he critically examines in the context of his work. Relevant here is their reinterpretation using the same or a similar format in which they were originally created.

Video: Courtesy of the artist

Exhibition:

Cultura Profiláctica – with this title Hamlet Lavastida opens his solo exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, making use of a term from the health sector, which he believes has revealed numerous structures of a prophylactic culture during the pandemic, not only in his country of origin, Cuba, but worldwide.

Exhibition
Künstlerhaus Bethanien
Kottbusser Straße 10 
10999 Berlin / Germany
16.04. – 16.05.2021
Tue - Sun: 2 - 7pm  
Admission free and by appointment only

Lavastida is showing two immersive installations made of paper cuts on opposite walls. On one side, the transcription of Javier Caso’s interrogation (from 2020), which went viral, is linked to a letter by the poet Heberto Padilla written to the revolutionary government in 1971. On the opposite wall, the artist displays a compiled archive of various iconographic and linguistic testimonies from the period in which the institutionalisation of socialism took place in Cuba, especially between the 1960s and 80s. Through his personal confrontation with the cultural archives, which are not recognised as such within Cuban society, Lavastida creates a register and demands a critical examination of Cuban history. In doing so, he criticises the lack of education and memory work in the social system of today’s Cuba.

Catalogue:

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in english including a text by Coco Fusco and Iván de la Nuez.

Gladys Kalichini’s work explores representations of women in relation to dominant, national colonial histories. Her ongoing project focuses on notions relating to the (in)visibility of narratives of six women in relation to the official independence narratives of Zambia and Zimbabwe (formerly known as Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia). 

In her previous project ChaMoneka: UnCasting Shadows / FyaMoneka: Exploring the Erasure of Women Within Zambian history, she explores the erasure of women from the Zambian history and collective memory. As a point of entry into the broader conversation of women marginalised from certain historicised events, she analyses the narratives of Julia Chikamoneka (1910 - 1986) and Alice Lenshina (1920 - 1978) in relation to the official narration of the independence struggle of Zambia as recorded in the National Archives of Zambia and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) Archives. She conceptualises erasure as a complex notion that encompasses (mis)representations, (mis)positioning, removals, absences and blind ways of seeing. 

Exhibition:

Exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin: 19th June - 12th July 2020.

“.... elo taba labikwa... bala moneka... kutila fye bamoneke.
... there seems to be an insistence to make some people, things and events unseen, to render them invisible... essentially to archive a peculiar kind of erasure. But they are here, their presence... traces of their memories linger in spaces ... in these gestures... yes, their residuals are protesting to disappear.” (Gladys Kalichini, 2020)

“Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images, and objects... memory can also be selective; insofar as it is affective and magical, it sometimes accommodates only those facts that suit it.”
(Pierre Nora: From Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire, 1989)

In the exhibition ... these gestures of memory Gladys Kalichini focusses on the duality of memory and history, and considers ideas about mourning, remembering and forgetting in relation to the commemoration of stories about specific women within the larger picture of the narration of resistances against the colonial rule in Zambia and Zimbabwe (then Northern and Southern Rhodesia) in the 1960s and 1980s. The starting point of this exhibition project is the artist’s critical engagement with the erasure, absence and invisibility of particular female freedom fighters within the collective memory of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The exhibition challenges the singularity of dominant liberation narratives, complicates and expands freedom struggle histories by piecing together different memories about women, and provides a multi-layered and complex picture of national independence.

The three multi-media installations in this exhibition draw largely from research material and archival photographs of women in the independence struggles acquired from the National Archives of Zambia and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) Archives in Lusaka, and the National Archives of Zimbabwe and the (ZANU – PF) Archives in Harare. Some of the women included are Julia Chikamoneka, Elizabeth Mulenje (Senior Chieftainess Nkomeshya Mukamambo II), Bessie Chibesakunda Kankasa, Alice Lenshina, Amai Misozi, Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana and Joice ‘Teurai Ropa’ Mujuru. The intricately designed installations are created with video, fabrics, paper, text and paint to present spaces and gestures of memory. The installations can be viewed on one hand as a place to honour female freedom fighters and on the other as counter-monuments that present the complexity, fluidity and at times fragility of memory.

Gladys Kalichini is a contemporary visual artist and scholar from Lusaka, Zambia. Her work centres around notions of erasure, memory, and representations and visibilities of women in colonial resistance histories. She is currently a PhD candidate at Rhodes University in South Africa and a member of the Arts of Africa and Global Souths research programme, supported by the Andrew. W. Mellon foundation and NRF. She participated in the Àsìkò International Art Programme (Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Lagos) in Maputo, Mozambique in 2015, the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, USA in 2017 and the second iteration of the “Women On Aeroplanes” project in Lagos, Nigeria in 2018 themed “Search Research: Looking for Collete Omogbai”.

Catalogue:

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (english):

Leykam, Daniela/ Tannert, Christoph (Pub.): Gladys Kalichini. ...these gestures of memory, with texts by Anett Busch und Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler 2020.

Artist Talk:

ARTIST TALK between Gladys Kalichini, Martha Kazungu and Igor Vidor, Friday July 17, 6 pm online.

Link to ZOOM-Meeting:

https://zoom.us/j/92477717812?pwd=Q0NwMkM4aklVWDNvblc0YWtGc0ZnUT09

Meeting-ID: 924 7771 7812

Password: 500590

Talya Lubinsky’s research based practice employs elemental materials to function as open signifiers for poetic meaning, that give form to specific contexts and histories. In her exhibition, If we burn, there is ash, Johannesburg, 2016, ash and cement are used as materials to investigate the potential aftermaths of fire and burning in relation to colonial collections of material culture. In Floating Bodies, Bayreuth, 2017, an anecdote from a family archive mobilises the use of sandbags as a metaphor for the human imperative to create barriers against the natural power of a flood, which is imagined here as a force of history.

Her current project considers the cemetery as a site in which to explore themes of decay and decomposition, in a landscape that is dedicated to memorialisation and memory.

Talya is an artist from Johannesburg. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, based at the Centre for Humanities Research.

Exhibition:

Exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin: 17.1. - 9.2.2020, Opening: 16.1.2020.

Marble Dust is both solid and ephemeral, as are our bones: Lubinsky's work contemplates the material relationship between permanence and disintegration embodied in memorial sites and the landscapes of cemeteries. It is at these places where the ostensibly permanent comes into contact with the ephemerality of the disintegrating body. From this inherent tension the artist poses questions about loss and return, absence and presence.

Research on cemeteries in South Africa led Lubinsky to a cemetery in the Mamelodi township, North of Pretoria. This cemetery is the place of burial of black political prisoners hanged by the Apartheid state in the 1960s. They were buried as paupers, with no gravestones. From 2016 – 2019, the human remains of the murdered activists have been exhumed and returned to the families of the deceased. Almost 60 years after their burial, the bones have disintegrated to the point that they have become dust, indistinguishable particles dispersed within the earth. In some cases, it is piles of earth, dug up from the gravesites that are placed in coffins and returned to the families. In the cemetery offices, pages of old ledger books containing grave numbers, names and dates of burials are strewn across the floor and piled in boxes. The paper is disintegrating and torn.

For her exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Lubinsky has traced the contours of these decomposing pages and carved them out of marble slabs that she arranges in the exhibition space. The fragility of the paper archives is inverted when it is rendered in marble, a stone that is commonly used for headstones. Marble is also a substance made from the calcium of bones and shells of sea creatures, compacted by heat and geological time. Here, taking seriously the inherent material qualities of commemorative forms becomes a productive tool for contemplating their meaning.

For Lubinsky, the process of digging up and returning something that has almost fully disintegrated is a powerful symbol for that which has been lost: the impossibilities of reconstitution and restitution on the one hand, and the profundity of the gesture of return as recognition of injustice on the other.

Talya Lubinsky, born in 1988, is an artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. While on residency in Berlin, which she has been since April 2019, Lubinsky encountered a heap of broken gravestones at the St. Jacobi Cemetery in Neukölln. They had recently been dug up in order to create a community garden. This became an instructive site in the development of her upcoming exhibition.

Lubinsky received an MFA with distinction from Wits University, Johannesburg and is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, based at the Centre for Humanities Research. Solo exhibitions include Floating Bodies, Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth, Germany (2017), If we burn, there is ash, Wits Anthropology Museum, Johannesburg, and Between Mess and Order, The Point of Order, Johannesburg (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Nesting Narratives, GoetheonMain, Johannesburg (2014) and Out of Thin Air, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town (2012). She is currently a KfW Stiftung grant holder in the International Studio Programme at Künstlerhaus Bethanien.  www.talyalubinsky.com

Other KfW Stiftung grant holders taking part in the International Studio Programme for the period 2020/ 2021 include Gladys Kalichini (Zambia), Hamlet Lavastida (Cuba) and Daniel Lie (Brazil).

Video by Courtesy of the artist

Catalogue:

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue (english).

In his artistic practice, Andrés Pereira Paz (born in La Paz, Bolivia in 1986) explores how regional identities are constructed and changed from a global perspective. He is particularly concerned with the influence of Western power structures on the development of a collective identity of the inhabitants of the cultural area of the Andes from the 20th century to the present day. In his installations, collages and drawings, the artist questions postcolonial ways of thinking and perception that determine the identity construction of the Andean inhabitants from a Western perspective. In many of his artistic works he repeatedly uses traditional textiles from the Andes region, such as hand-embroidered Paracas fabrics from Peru, or tapestries and scarves from Bolivia, into whose structures the diverse cultures of the Andes region seem to be woven. By artistically reworking the textiles and attaching objects of daily use, the artist alienates the material from its traditional context of use and breaks with our viewing habits. In his analogue and digital collages, he also applies this method of decontextualizing and juxtaposition of various materials as well as the appropriation of various culturally connotated forms and patterns.

Andrés Pereira Paz lives and works between Lima and La Paz. He studied Visual Arts and Cultural Studies at the Hernando Siles Arts Academy in La Paz and at the Tres de Febrero University in Buenos Aires. His artistic work has been shown in numerous regional and international solo and group exhibitions. He was awarded diverse scholarships and participated in residence programmes in Bolivia, England, Chile, Argentina and Peru.

Exhibition:

Exhibition "Elia Nurvista and Andrés Pereira Paz"

16 July - 4 August 2019 / Villa 102 (Bockenheimer Landstraße 102, Frankfurt am Main)

Opening hours: Tuesday 12-20 h, Wednesday - Sunday 12-18 h, Monday closed (free entry)

Elia Nurvista and Andrés Pereira Paz are KfW Stiftung grant holders at Berlin’s international studio programme in Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2018–19). During their stay, the artists developed new projects within their community-based and collaborative approach focusing on perceptions of otherness from different angles. Elia Nurvista and Andrés Pereira Paz highlight the factitious nature of such notions and explore their cultural, political and societal structures and implications. In doing so, the artists add their voices to society’s current attempts to come to terms with the legacy of colonialism and to test alternative narratives on globalised world history.

Andrés Pereira Paz: "Radio Carabuco"

Exhibition: May 24 – June 16, 2019, Opening: May 23, 7 pm

Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Strasse 10, Berlin / Opening hours:Tuesday–Sunday 2–7pm  

The exhibition Project "Radio Carabuco" at Künstlerhaus Bethanien has evolved from the podcast station of the same name created by Bolivian artist Andrés Pereira Paz. The starting point is the artist's critical reflection on a vision of hell produced by the painter José López de los Ríos, created in 1664 during the colonial period in the town of Carabuco in Bolivia. This painting, commissioned by the Catholic church, can still be seen in Carabuco’s church on the shores of Lake Titicaca in La Paz. As European engravings were widely known during the colonial period, these sincretic depictions of 'Glory', 'Purgatory' and 'Hell' may correspond in part to engravings made by French artist Philippe Thomassin during the early 17th century, highlighting the interchange of images at that time.  As in many other paintings of the period, the Christian motif was reproduced by the Spanish colonial power for the purpose of 'pagan conversion' and as propaganda to hammer home Catholicism's message of salvation as intended for transfer to Latin America. Against this background, Pereira Paz will present a series of podcasts exploring the forms and effects of religious and cultural colonization and investigating various political and social perspectives, particularly with regard to his native Bolivia. The focus will be on the demonization and suppression of the 'Other'.

Thinking of the exhibition space as a setting for listening, Pereira Paz has collaborated with international artists, social scientists, performers and activists (Gabriel Acevedo Velarde, Ana Alenso, David Aruquipa Perez, Stanisław Czaplicki, Elia Nurvista, Liv Schulman) to produce specially commissioned audio pieces and podcasts on various subjects, such as the emerging European far right, LGBTQIA+ performances in Bolivian folklore, the presence of evangelical Christians in South America, and extractivism, etc.  

In this way the artist asks whether the traditional western notion of 'Hell' can function as a symbolic place of active resistance against propaganda, censorship, and discrimination that should be defended as fiercely as possible – after all, in traditional Bolivian culture the earth and the subterranean do not conjure ruin or disaster; on the contrary, 'Pachamama' means 'great Mother Earth' and 'eternal source of life'.

The audio installation at Künstlerhaus Bethanien is supplemented by a selection of images from the David Aruquipa Perez and Comunidad Diversidad archive as well as an object-based installation created by the artist.

As from May 24th, podcasts and audio pieces will be available online at www.radiocarabuco.com

Andrés Pereira Paz was born in La Paz, Bolivia, in 1986. He lives and works in Berlin. He completed his artistic training at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes Hernando Siles in La Paz as well as at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero and at the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (CIA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has also attended workshops run by renowned artists such as Roberto Valcárcel and Diana Aisenberg.

Exhibitions (selection): Salón Santa Cruz, Kiosko Galería, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia; Blue eyes, (curator Aina Pomar), The Ryder Projects, London, UK; Rayo Purita o el futuro es aquello que llevamos en la espalda, Crisis Galería, Lima, Peru (2018).

Participation in exhibitions (selection): Perfuch, UV Studios, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019); Es todo tu culpa, El Garajr, Lima, Peru (2018); I am he as you are she as you are me, (curator Kiki Mazzuchelli), House of Egorn Gallery, Berlin (2018); HAWAPI el triángulo terrestre, Centro Cultural Cerrillos, Santiago de Chile, (2018); Bienal Contextos, Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz, Bolivia (2018).

He is currently a KfW Stiftung grant holder in the international studio programme at Künstlerhaus Bethanien.

Catalogue:

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (english):

Leykam, Daniela/ Tannert, Christoph (Pub.): Andrés Pereira Paz. Radio Carabuco, with texts by Richard Davey and Alfredo Coloma, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler 2020.

Elia Nurvista (born 1983 in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, where she lives and works) works at the interface of fine arts and research-based community projects. Most of her projects revolve around the topic of food as the entry point to political, cultural, social and gender-specific issues. In her events, performances and installations she not only focuses on the physical appearance of food and its representation, but also on the act of cooking as a form of social interaction. For her work “Hunger Inc.” (2015), Nurvista set up a tent, similar to NGO tents. It was equipped with a kitchen, a dining table and a TV, which broadcasted news of riots related to the distribution of rice. The room installation was accompanied by a series of events including people, who witnessed similar situations. With this participative project Nurvista aimed to investigate the relationship between poverty and aids, respectively staple food. The problematic handling of food is also addressed in her work “Sucker Zucker” (2016). Shaped like crystals or diamonds and installed on white pedestals, the colourful sugar sculptures refer both to the attraction of the product and to its exploitative and violent acquirement since colonial times. In this manner, Nurvista raises awareness of the complex relations between biomaterials and their historic and social contexts.

Elia Nurvista graduated from Indonesia Institute of Fine-Art in Yogyakarta. She is the founder of BAKUDAPAN, a study group focusing on critical aspects of food. Her work has been exhibited in numerous international and national exhibitions. Nurvista participated in several residency programmes such as „Choreographer’s LAB“ at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt am Main in 2015 and „Politics of Food“ at Delfina Foundation in London in 2014.

Exhibition:

Exhibition "Elia Nurvista and Andrés Pereira Paz"

16 July - 4 August 2019 / Villa 102 (Bockenheimer Landstraße 102, Frankfurt am Main)

Opening hours: Tuesday 12-20 h, Wednesday - Sunday 12-18 h, Monday closed (free entry)

Elia Nurvista and Andrés Pereira Paz are KfW Stiftung grant holders at Berlin’s international studio programme in Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2018–19). During their stay, the artists developed new projects within their community-based and collaborative approach focusing on perceptions of otherness from different angles. Elia Nurvista and Andrés Pereira Paz highlight the factitious nature of such notions and explore their cultural, political and societal structures and implications. In doing so, the artists add their voices to society’s current attempts to come to terms with the legacy of colonialism and to test alternative narratives on globalised world history.

Elia Nurvista - "Früchtlinge"

18 January to 10 February 2019

Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Opening 17 January 2019, 7pm (free entry)

Elia Nurvista’s Früchtlinge exhibition project at Künstlerhaus Bethanien showcases her reflections on migrants and refugees. She visited a range of initiatives for refugees in Berlin to learn about how they see our society, which is foreign from their perspective. The works resulting from this experience address our frequently ambiguous attitude to what is foreign to us: whereas “exotic” luxury items and food such as tropical fruit are regarded as positive and precious, people who come to us as refugees from the same countries are often rejected as being “foreign”, and their “exotic” nature is sometimes even perceived as a threat. Elia Nurvista portrays this ambiguity with subtle irony, for instance by affixing contemporary official quality seals and brand labels to Old Masters still life paintings or historical pictures of the “noble savage”, thus adding a humorous and critical layer of meaning and turning them into new, independent pieces of work. In addition to the collages, Elia Nurvista’s show includes a number of small sculptures made from a rough dough of flour, water and salt and modelled on the grand archways and portals portrayed on euro banknotes that symbolise Europe’s outward-looking character and readiness to cooperate with the international community. She is also working on an animated film that reveals the uncanny effects of automated rules and selection procedures.

Image: Elia Nurvista, Untitled, 2018 (using the Caravaggio painting Still Life with Fruit, ca. 1610)

Catalogue:

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (english):Leykam, Daniela/ Tannert, Christoph (Pub.): Elia Nurvista. Feeding the scene, with texts by Anna Goetz, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Christina Sickert, Ferdiansyah Thajib, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2019

Vartan Avakian (born 1977 in Byblos, Lebanon, where he lives and works) employs video, installation, sculpture, photography and other media in order to examine practices of cultural production and commemoration. In his works he oftentimes uses natural material, modifying and recombining it to objects, which both represent the preserved and the new. The series ‘Collapsing Clouds of Gas and Dust’ consists of crystals made from residual dust, which Avakian found in historic sites. By looking at dust as a material index of activity, the project examines the relation between memory, monumentality and its materialization. In ‘A Very Short History of Tall Men’ the artist portraits leaders of failed coups d’état from archival material, presenting them as miniature statues, cast in gold and entombed in clear acrylic balls. As well as these objects seize characteristics of traditional monuments they reject their representative status, likewise embodying the failure of the historic personae. It is this ambiguity that marks Avakian’s works and proposes a broader understanding for the notion of diverse information captured and preserved in material culture.

Vartan Avakian studied 'Architecture and Urban Culture' at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and 'Communication Arts' at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. He is a founding member of the artist collective 'Atfal Ahdath' and a member of the 'Arab Image Foundation'. His work has been exhibited in Beirut and in numerous international solo and group exhibitions. Avakian was awarded with the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2013.

Exhibition:

Exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien:

Vartan Avakian - "All That Is Seen and Unseen"

25 May to 17 June 2018
Opening 24 May 2018, 7pm

In his current project All That is Seen and Unseen at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Avakian examines printed books as sculptural objects which preserve information. These symbols of history, imbued with the weight of culture and authority, are both unique and reproducible. Avakian devises a series of protocols, procedures, and rituals to extract and bring to light their many hidden layers of incidental inscriptions and markings reminiscent of a palimpsest. Not only does he reveal these layers, but in his installations he separates them from their previous form and converts them into new sculptural fossils.

Catalogue:

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue (english):

Leykam, Daniela/ Müllerschön, Nicola/ Tannert, Christoph (Hrsg.): Vartan Avakian. All that is seen and unseen, with an essay by Merve Bedir, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2019

The work of filmmaker Ahmed Ghoneimy engages with the multifarious forms of human interaction and the resultant dependencies and tension and is set against the backdrop of Egypt’s firmly established, traditional patriarchy. In his films, Ghoneimy examines the specific power structures and idiosyncratic, daily rituals which are adhered to by people when they meet — fathers and sons, friends and enemies, the so-called winners and losers of society. He often uses scenes drawn from his own memories and re-enacts them with the help of amateur actors, aggressors (Bahari, 2011) and friends (The Cave, 2013). His films take no heed of a narrative arc culminating in a dramatic climax, but rather follow associations alternating between fiction and documentary.

Ghoneimy’s presentation at Künstlerhaus Bethanien includes video loops, each projected on a screen. In quiet, haunting images, the films investigate rituals and behaviours. The artist uses several stylistic devices in order to explore different spaces; some of them are distant and seemingly neutral, while others are male-dominated. Both realms are equally encountered in everyday life. The situations which are shown shift from amusement and the feeling of security, till at moments this comfort is disrupted: in everyday life, violence, hatred and injury are just as present in human interactions as safety and happiness.

Education/Residencies:

2015/2016 Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace Programme, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut2009Jesuit Filmmaking Workshop, Jesuit High School, Alexandria2009Bachelor of Interior Design, Expressive Arts Major, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Alexandria

Selected exhibitions/festivals/screenings:

2014 Santa Barbara International Film Festival2013/2011 International Film Festival Rotterdam2013Home Works 6, Beirut2012Montreal World Film Festival2012Photo Cairo 5 2012International Film Festival (Fid) Marseille2012Hamburg International Short Film Festival.

Exhibition:

Exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien:

19 January to 11 February 2018
Opening 18 January 2018, 7pm

Kottbusser Straße 10
10999 Berlin

In ihren Arbeiten untersucht die thailändische Künstlerin Orawan Arunrak (geboren 1985 in Bangkok, Thailand, lebt und arbeitet ebenda) das Verhältnis von Objekten und Menschen zu ihren unterschiedlichen physischen, soziopolitischen wie kulturellen Kontexten. Arunraks multimediale Installationen sind das Produkt eingängiger Beobachtungen ihres Umfeldes und reflektieren den Dialog zwischen der Künstlerin und lokalen Gemeinschaften in Thailand und auf Reisen durch Südostasien. Viele der früheren Arbeiten, wie „Come In“ (2014), „My Godfather“ (2014-2015) oder „The Owner“ (2015), enthalten Gegenstände, Bilder, Zeichnungen und Texte, die den Betrachter dazu anregen, die Exponate, Geschichten und Referenzorte genauer zu studieren. In ihrem aktuellen Projekt Exit – Entrance (2017) befasst sich die Künstlerin mit Konzepten von Identität und Staatszugehörigkeit. Die multimediale Installation besteht aus akustischen und visuellen Elementen, die auf Gespräche in Thai, Deutsch, Englisch und Vietnamesisch rekurrieren. Orawan Arunrak betrachtet ihre Arbeit als ein Experiment für den Besucher – als einen Versuch des Hörens, Zuhörens und Sehens, der auf Verständnis und Verständigung angelegt ist und gleichzeitig Lücken und Missverständnisse in der Kommunikation anerkennt.

Exhibition

Orawan Arunrak – Exit–Entrance
25 May – 18 June 2017 

Catalogue 

Orawan Arunrak. Exit–Entrance, with an essay by Roger Nelson and an interview by Yvette Mutumba, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2017 (English).

Matheus Rocha Pitta (born 1980 in Tiradentes, MG, Brazil) has spent much time over the past years investigating forms and perceptions of gestures. Focusing on the intersection in everyday life and art, he disconnects gestures from their individual biographical background and portrays them as deliberate aesthetic acts with a historical dimension. Rocha Pitta uses photography, video and sculpture to identify and construct his own repertoire of gestures, which he activates in conjunction with the visitors and spectators of his works. He has created several series of works – Primeira Pedra (The First Stone, 2015), no hay pan (There Is No Bread, 2015), Assalto (Assault, 2014), Golpe de graça (Blow of Grace, 2013) – that display gestures to explore language, possession and motion in a way that has far-reaching ethical implications. 

Exhibition

Matheus Rocha Pitta – For the Winners the Potatoes
3 – 26 March 2017 

Catalogue 

Matheus Rocha Pitta. For the Winners the Potatoes, including an essay by Tobias Peper, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2017 (English).

The work of Salwa Aleryani (born 1982 in Sana’a, Yemen, where she lives and works) addresses the ever-shifting relationship between social, physical and cultural spaces and its inhabitants. The artist explores sites and structures of belonging, domestic and public infrastructures and uses both intimate and mundane objects and materials to unveil invisible and hidden territories and to refer to the gradual erosion of built environments on which we depend. 

Exhibition

Salwa Aleryani – Intending Probability
27 May – 19 June 2016

Catalogue

Salwa Aleryani. Intending Probability, with an essay by Luca Cerizza and an interview by Merve Ünsal, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2017 (Arabic/English).

The work of Vietnamese artist Ngyuen Thi Thanh Mai (born 1983 in Ha Tai/Hanoi, lives and works in Hue, Vietnam) explores cultural and sexual identity and addresses issues of origin, belonging and migration. She conducted in-depth field studies for her project ‘Day by Day’ (2014), visiting fishing villages along the border between Vietnam and Cambodia and speaking to the villagers who are regarded as stateless. The installation titled ‘ID Card’ consisting of unofficial identity papers, the edited photo series ‘Shadow’ and ‘Travels’ and a video are results of her artistic research. Nguyen’s works, particularly her many installations that make use of a variety of media, show a consistent concern with the taboo issues of sexuality and femininity and with the relationship between body, memory and violence. 

Exhibition

Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai – Another World
4 – 27 March 2016

Catalogue

Ngyen Thi Than Mai. In Silence, with an essay by Zoe Butt and an interview by Syafiatudina, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2016 (English/Vietnamese).

The artistic performances, videos and photographs of Khvay Samnang (born 1982 in Svay Rieng, lives and works in Phnom Penh/Cambodia) address concepts of change, continuity and communication. His works offer new views on historic and current events as well as on traditional cultural rituals using humorous symbolic gestures. Khvay is a founding member of the first Cambodian art collective called ‘Stiev Selapak’ (‘art rebels’) dedicated to reappraising and remembering Cambodian history and visual culture and rebuilding a contemporary art scene disrupted by the regime of the Khmer Rouge. In 2010, Stiev Selapak set up the experimental exhibition and project spaces ‘Sa Sa Art Projects’ (2010) and ‘SA SA BASSAC’ (2011) in Phnom Penh. 

Exhibition

Khvay Samnang – Footprints of Yantra Man | Künstlerhaus Bethanien
28 August – 20 September 2015
 

Catalogue

Khvay Samnang. The Land Beneath My Feet, with an essay by Brianne Cohen and an interview by Hendrik Folkerts, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2015.

In his paintings and installations, Stary Mwaba (born 1976 in Chingola, Zambia, lives and works in Lusaka, Zambia) deals with socio-political issues and develops individual narratives of history, real or imagined, of its visible and invisible traces and its effects on human beings. At Künstlerhaus Bethanien Mwaba shows two series of works which draw connections between historical events and the current situation in his home country Zambia. His most comprehensive installation ‘Space Project’ deals with a both utopian and revealing event, a Zambian space project of the 1960s, by the time of the country’s independence. Another project on display is ‘Chinese Cabbage’ which examines the effects on Zambia of Chinese economic colonization that is evident in the transformation of agriculture and the use of local natural resources such as copper, cobalt and manganese. 

Exhibition

Stary Mwaba – Life on Mars | Künstlerhaus Bethanien
6 – 29 March 2015 

Catalogue

Stary Mwaba. Life on Mars, with contributions by David Elliott and Laura Bohnenblust, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2015 (German/English).

The Indian artist Prajakta Potnis (born 1980 in Thane, lives and works in Mumbai) explores the interplay between the private and the public, the internal and the external, the invisible and the visible in her art and reveals these categories to be fragile, vulnerable, fluctuating and therefore disputable constructs. For her, skin and surface, wall and membrane are both artistic materials and metaphorical concepts. In her installations and sculptures but also in her drawings and paintings, Potnis distorts everyday items, placing them in new contexts and creating bizarre new worlds that puzzle the viewer and elude any definite interpretation. 

Exhibition

Prajakta Potnis – The Kitchen Debate | Künstlerhaus Bethanien
10 October – 2 November 2014

Catalogue

Prajakta Potnis. Store ina Cool and Dry Place, with contributions by Zasha Colah, Atreyee Gupta and Merel van Tilburg, edited by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2014. (English)

The performances of Regina José Galindo (*1974/Guatemala City) investigate the ethical dimensions of discrimination and violence resulting from unequal power relations. She subjects her body to the physical and mental strain of extreme existential situations and puts herself in harm's way to test the limits of her control over the experimental set-ups. As both the performer and the object of her art, she defies the viewer to take a stand and to decide whether to remain a spectator or voyeur or whether to act as someone who assumes power and responsibility. 

With the dictatorial regime and the genocide in Guatemala as their primary point of reference, Galindo's works also gesture beyond this specific context towards universal experiences at a collective and an individual level. Thus, she radically questions the distinction between art and life and challenges the relevance of political art. 

Exhibition

Exhibition by Regina José Galindo with a selection of video works at Künstlerhaus Bethanien
31 March to 16 April 2014

Performance – "Verstecken"
03. April 2014

The Argentinian artist Carla Zaccagnini (born 1973 in Buenos Aires, lives and works in São Paulo and Malmö) draws on a broad range of artistic media and strategies for specific projects. Her works are characterised by a systematic engagement with verbal and visual communication and a playful exploration of new contexts and meanings. Zaccagnini's exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien shows drawings from the series "Impossible but Necessary: Après-coup" that she created while visiting the Soviet war memorial in Berlin-Treptow. Her eye had been caught by the reliefs depicting war scenes and explosions – moments that destroy material form and that for Zaccagnini represent abstract breaks in the narrative structure. Using the technique of "frottage", she took a rubbing from the uneven surface with paper and charcoal, thus converting her motifs into an abstract form and completely removing them from their original context. 

Exhibition

Carla Zaccagnini – Impossible but Necessary | Künstlerhaus Bethanien
7 March – 30 March 2014

Catalogue

Carla Zaccagnini – The Madman Sees What He Sees, with contributions by Teresa Riccardi and Kiki Mazzucchelli, ed. by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Kettler, 2014. (Portuguese/Spanish/English)

The photographs of the South African artist Thabiso Sekgala (1981-2014) shift between sober documentation, casual snapshots and almost painterly composition. Growing up in South Africa during and after the apartheid era has heightened Sekgala's awareness of location and belonging. His studies at the renowned Market Photo Workshop founded by David Goldblatt in Johannesburg introduced him to social documentary photography, which has become an equally important influence on his art. His current works from Germany, Jordan, Zimbabwe and other countries are a critique of categories such as home and identity, revealing their fragility and ultimately exposing them as ideological constructs. 

Exhibition

Thabiso Sekgala – Paradise | Künstlerhaus Bethanien
24 January – 16 February 2014
 

Catalogue

Thabiso Sekgala – Paradise, with essays by Simon Njami and Post Brothers, ed. by Nicola Müllerschön and Christoph Tannert, Dortmund: Kettler, 2014.