NATURE RESIDENCY
the premise of this residency was to provoke experimentation and connection through interdisciplinary collaborative work in an online space, working through and with the limitations this brings with it. eight selected artists Nathalia Favaro (Brazil), Hendrik Klatte (Germany), Rawan Abbas (Egypt), Ochai Ogaba (Nigeria), Methas Chantawongs (Thailand), Yasmine Kazeem (Nigeria), Arezu Zargar (Iran) and Ankur Yadav (India) worked together in teams of two to create a joint project reflecting upon the concept of nature.
what is nature? what isn’t? what does it mean for you?
during their 3-week creation phase they were each accompanied by one of the artists/mentors Joao Roxo, Sara Machado, Gemuce, and Adriana Jamisse. on Saturdays all artists and mentors met together to share work-in-progress elements of their projects and new insights, strategies, ideas and questions that came out their collective process, as well as take part in everyone’s creation as a group.
Below we invite you to experience the works that came out of this residency.
grounded
Artists: Arezu Zargar & Hendrik Klatte
Project mentor: Gemuce
Modality: multimedia loop installation
We come from soil and will return to soil one day.
The relationship between man and so-called nature has undergone various changes and events in different periods. From the distant years when human kind took refuge in caves to escape the dangers of nature or an era when man traveled and experimented more and more with the tools and weapons he built. Until, nowadays, humanity has maximized – and seemingly mastered – its use of natural resources.
What is nature actually? Does it exist? Are we part of nature?
Questioning matters of scale, temporality and the anthropocentric world, “grounded” doesn’t give answers but invites to experience and rethink our position as humans. Set to mechanical soundscapes and human frequencies, timelapse footage and MRT scans morph into each other challenging different perspectives.
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Planned as a multichannel video and sound installation, “grounded” is compromised of a continuous audiovisual loop running against another, unsynchronised multimedia loop to enhance an experience of relativity. Arzezu Zargar and Hendrik Klatte channel both their scientific background, as well as their artistic vision to explore their common ground.
amazon is here
Artists: Nathalia Favaro & Ochai Ogaba
Project mentor: Adriana Jaimsse
Modality: videoart | dance | poetry
Amazon found me.
growth of green
Artists: Methas Chantawongs & Rawan Abbas
Project mentor: João Roxo
Modality: textile animation | sound
If true nature doesn’t mean only sky, sea, or tree, but things that infiltrate us spiritually, physically, and abstractly all the time then are we not constantly interacting with nature no matter where we might be?
Our surroundings are constantly changing. Structures being raised and demolished, the earth gets hotter and hotter, new roads are made and bridges built, genetic modification of living things. There doesn’t seem to be a clear distinction of where man’s intervention begins or ends.
We have found that this feature of integration – of different elements compiling together to form a diverse environment – manifests itself in how we self-organize. This project aims to reproduce and examine that dynamics by interweaving two different mediums through collaborative work. Textile and digital media come together to make this animation that is inspired by the richness of life; its small and big movements, its spaciousness, its corners, and its multi layered construction.
Nature couldn’t be without living, and living couldn’t be without nature. It is a very simple thing that manifests itself around us all the time.
we realised movements
Artists: Ankur Yadav & Yasmine Kazeem
Project mentor: Sara Machado
Modality: videoart | animation | poetry
The general idea of this work is elemental thinking, thinking with elements to get an insight on epistemological and ontological binaries such as those that separate what we perceive as living or nonliving. This fundamental altering of our perception gives room for experiencing nature anew as a precarious system and dynamic entities with distinct identities not their reduction as just commodities or resources.
We documented movements – simple and alternative stimuli responses using these to further establish the perception of elements as entities. The making of our video art is an interaction between what defines consciousness or its absence. Sometimes, there aren’t enough words for stories being told. Our work captures pages from the memoir of the wind, stone, fire and water:
Heat was felt
And we realized a movement,
No, not the movement caused by the muscles or by the motor machines,
The movement when things are fixed, and the movement when they are not,
The movement made by the breath of stones,
And of the earth breathing with fire
The seeds being swept by the wind,
Two trees slowly repeating the same words to each other
The earth witnessing the planetary marks drawn by the wind
And repeating all over again..
Wind without the sound
What do they say?
The two moving souls of the stones
When shadows are being swept by the wind,
And when one realizes these gestures of the earth
The memory of the earth enables the movements when one forgets
When there is no movement, the movement is felt.
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