Open Studios artists in residence AADK SPAIN
This Saturday, November 25, at 8:30 p.m., AADK opens Centro Negra to the public to show the research processes of the artists in residence.
centro negra CALLE DEL CASTILLO, 30
(c) photo: Daniel Hernรกndez about the working space of Sebastian Lingserius y Nefeli Oikonomou
Open studios This Saturday, November 25, at 8:30 p.m., AADK opens Centro Negra to the public to show the research processes of the artists in residence.
Nayeon Koh “Gona� (Seoul) detaches from her traditional background in Korean painting. She translates her academic knowledge and her classic materials (Korean ink and paper) to new means and elements, creating pieces were she explores the human morphology from a more experimental perspective. Sebastian Lingserius y Nefeli Oikonomou (Stockholm/Athens) present a working draft of a choreographic piece. In it, they reflect over the idea of multiplicity and over the conception of Queer. They display and put into action a series of movements, gestures, and materials through which they intend to dissect the polyvalence of both terms. Paula Menchen (Essex/San Pedro de Alcantara) works around the idea of deconstruction. She intends to determine how much of the initial meaning is still imprinted when something is disassembled. Her process begins exploring different materials, and choosing techniques that reinforce the idea of form and counterform: rubbing, stenciling, engraving, printing. Through them, she creates a catalogue of material samples that she later uses as constructive elements of her installation pieces.
(c) Nayeon Koh “Gona”
Nayeon Koh “Gona� (seoul) Drawing and installation. In her home-town, Gona teaches traditional Korean painting made with Hanji paper and Korean ink. Working in parallel to this, she also paints with oil on canvas. Her works study the human body and its movements, but during her residency month she decided to expand her academic knowledge and translate her practice into new means and materials. Consequently, her analysis of the body becomes increasingly abstract, shifting into a conglomerate of parts interlaced and interconnected, creating new morphologies, or multiple bodies. The unit formed of incomplete parts. Throughout her residency, Gona detaches from traditional materials. Now line is not only made by ink but can also be a piece of wire, or a delicate strand of paper that she tears and dyes. By choosing translucent surfaces and suspended pieces, Gona creates a dialogue between fragility and subtlety, and the bold swarms of rapid brushstrokes. Gona’s work carefully balances expression and restraint, reflecting in a sense two disparate yet coexistent forms within the body - entropic strength and pensive movement. Preceding the stairs to the exhibition space, the artist presents a piece made with Hanji paper dyed with korean ink, woven into a metal grid. The paper and ink are reminiscent of her background in traditional korean drawing, while the grid can also be seen as representing those made for anatomic drawing studies. For Gona, putting dried paper in the grid was like sewing. The purpose of sewing is to connect one thing with another. A connection that creates another world. This piece is a material and abstract conclusion of her studies regarding the body, and of her process during the month. The drawings presented on the upper floor continue to search for a position between abstraction and realism, and explore the expressive potential of various materials and techniques.
Bio Gona is an artist from Seoul, South Korea. Her Korean name is Nayeon Koh. After completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Korean traditional painting at Hong-ik University in Seoul, she started experimenting with canvas, acrylic and oil paınt, but has recently started using Oriental materials again including Korean paper made with bamboo, ink stick made with soot and stone for rubbing the ink stick. As technology developed, her life changed slowly. She stopped playing at the playground in childhood choosing computer and the webcam chatting system instead, since they made her feel close to others. While learning Korean traditional dance, it came across her mind that the motion and the movement of the body have more indirect feeling with more hidden meaning. “What is the meaning of ‘feeling real’ in this digital 21th century?” she asks in her works, which depict bodies and their shapes. Gona focuses on the shape and the beauty of the crowd climbing on top of others. She has a desire to contact, to reach out. However, there is also an urge to divide, to isolate. There exist divided egos of the artist in her drawings, which suddenly appear in her paintings. She is committed to affirming all of these divisive selves, and somehow harmonizing them and giving them unity in her unique composition.
(c) Nayeon Koh “Gona”
POLY Sebastian Lingserius & Nefeli Oikonomou (Stockholm/Athens) Choreographic piece. POLY is a choreography and dance piece. POLY is a fictive figure. An assemblage of qualities, ideas and logics. A third option, neither right nor left, but both in the same body. POLY is already rearranged, a body we don’t yet know. POLY is so queer that (s)he doesn’t know feminism. POLY will mingle with the audience. POLY is not a figure but a metaphor, or many! POLY, meaning ”many” or ”much”, might refer to someone practicing many loves POLY, is an attempt for re-thinking mono/poly-gamy, relationality, intimacy and the spatiality of thought. We can be close at a far distance and distant at an arm’s reach. POLY, a selfie with more than one person, but may also refer to polyphemus, a monster who imprisoned Odysseus. With Jedi-powers we’ll locate our new inner strengths, and attempt new modes of being ”two-gether” or maybe ”poly-gether”? Sebastian and Nefeli present a working draft of a choreographic piece. In it, they reflect over the idea of multiplicity and over the conception of Queer. During their month at the residency they have been researching and cataloguing resources; they explored a series of movements, gestures, and materials through which they intend to dissect the polyvalence of both terms. For this open studio, they display and put into action a collection of situations and objects - some of the elements from which they will potentially build the final piece.
(c) photo: Daniel Hernández about the working space of Sebastian Lingserius y Nefeli Oikonomou
Bio Sebastian Lingserius is a choreographer and performer based in Stockholm. Educated first at the Royal Swedish ballet school, he then studied a Master in choreography at DOCH lead by Mårten Spångberg. In 2011 Sebastian founded KASS production, through which he produces all of his work. Since 2011 Sebastian Lingserius has forged himself a reputation within the Swedish dance field, as one of the upcoming experimental and interesting choreographic signatures. He is known for his ‘do-it-yourself’ methods when building soundscapes, stage set, lights and other elements on stage, where it is not unusual that the performers and himself integrate these parts into the performance itself, alongside an aim to redistribute corporeal hierarchies. Co-producing most of his works through collaborations with the theaters of MDT, WELD and Dansens hus in Stockholm. By having danced and choreographed the past 10 years, he considers dance to be an opportunity to redefine what the human subject could possibly be.
Nefeli Oikonomou (GR/SE) is Choreographer, performer, initiator, a performing artist from Greece based and working in Sweden. Besides from working as a dancer, she has been creating her own choreographic work since 2006. Having been educated in Dance (MoC) and Design (UoA) she recently finished her Master in Choreography at DOCH and the interdisciplinar y course Organizing Discourse in Konstfack University. She curated the Practising Transitions Festival at Wip Konsthall in Årstaberg and Rhymes mini-festival in Weld, which invited many artists with performances, open discussions, exhibitions, screenings and workshops. She is a partner in the duet DANCER by Sebastian Lingserius, who premiered at MDT, and presented her own work Rhymes of Pleasure with premiere in Weld. She was awarded the LLB Wild Card Residence, ICI-CCN Montpellier, Life Long Burning, with the project ‘Celebrate it’.Through the different meetings with artists she is searching for challenging ways to exchange, research and display and dive into unexpected affections. Her curiosity in dis-orienting norms and her interest in innovative approaches of co-moving navigate her choreographic inventor y.
agaınst the graın Paula Menchen (Essex/San Pedro de Alcantara) installation. Paula works through deconstruction: she dissects the parts and reassembles them to determine how much of the initial meaning is still imprinted. Her process begins in a dialogue with the materials. She analyzes and explores the different possibilities of each surface: its translucency, its resistance, its texture. She seeks a constant interaction between opposites, between complementary parts. She explores the matter against the grain. Therefore, she chooses techniques that reinforce this idea: rubbing, stenciling, engraving, printing. Through them, she creates multiple material samples. A catalogue that is later put into play. She uses them as if they were brushstrokes of color, and each piece is derived from a process of accumulation, where numerous parts are combined to create a certain volume and palette. Between two columns of the room hangs a collage of perforated papers and fabrics. Printed on its surfaces we perceive traces of Blanca’s heritage: crochet pieces woven by the women, writings engraved on the walls of the castle, or inscriptions taken from marble plates. Through them the image of the hidden wall is projected. The projection decomposes it, producing only light and color. The image acts now as a pigment. The set is, for Paula, a painting that speaks of Blanca’s heritage and the layers of its history. Made of paper, two pieces stand in front of it: A door and a column. They function as echoes. They are the counterform of the solid and rigid elements of architecture. They face their deconstruction, becoming fragile and ethereal.
(c) Paula Menchen
Bio At an early age I knew that I was more creative than academic. In High School after a failed attempt at drama I met an incredible art teacher and mentor that changed my course in life. He managed to capture my attention and helped me focus my artistic eye. I followed my path of observation and discovery receiving my BFA degree from Otis Parsons School of Design. I majored in Fine Arts with a focus on Painting and Installation Art. After graduating I began to exhibit my Installations/Constructions in local galleries throughout Los Angeles and San Francisco. I am equally passionate for painting as I am to printmaking. These mediums are a way for me to experiment and discover. Playing with the idea of landscapes and seascapes. as inspiration I look to these vast spaces as a starting point. I am not looking for a formula to reproduce instead a constant curiosity fueled by the process of learning. Originally I began my journey using painting as additive and etching as subtractive. I have been investigating how to approach both mediums in similar ways keeping in mind the final objective being a quality to change and transform texture and surface. I use oil paint, varnish , wax and spray paint to build surfaces. Sometimes I paint translucent layers up sanding down each layer to create a fusion of colour. Other times I cut away and scratch at the pictorial surface revealing the layers that have come before and the histor y of the canvas. It is through the process of adding and subtracting paint that a colour depth is achieved. With each painting there is a balance a contrast of colour within an intricate woven space. I see paintings as structural, having sculptural elements continually exploring the pictorial space as well as the surface.
(c) Paula Menchen
AADK Spain [International platform of research and contemporary creation] Team 2017 Abraham Hurtado Artistic Director Elena Azzedín Residency Program Director Selu Herraiz AADK Lab Director Juan Conesa Head of Production Daniel Hernández Head of Communication Rubén Martínez Assistant of Production Klara Menzel Cultural Management Harry Bullen Assistant of Communication Merve Özcan Visual Design Curatorial Team: Abraham Hurtado and Elena Azzedín Curatorial Text: Giulianna Grippo
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Collaboration Sebastian Lingserius y Nefeli Oikonomou with the support of: