ARTISTIC RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Description of the artistic institution
The Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art (BGSW) is a cultural institution of the Pomeranian Provincial Government, whose mission is to promote contemporary art. BGSW has three showrooms: the Witches’ Tower, the Small Gallery located in Słupsk and the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka.
Baltic Art Gallery in Ustka was established in 1987 and located in the historic grain store. In 2013, it changed its name to the Centre for Creative Activities. The change of the name and image was the result of the implementation of a project called the Comprehensive Development Programme for the Baltic Gallery of Modern Art – the Establishment of the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka. The Centre for Creative Activities is the result of a complete modernization of the facility where until recently only a part of the area was occupied by the Baltic Contemporary Art Gallery. Currently, the entire granary went in the possession of the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art. It is the first centre of its kind in Poland and one of the few abroad. After rebuilding the Centre for Creative Activities has gained some well-equipped studios of sculpture and ceramics and computer graphics and film. The Centre for Creative Activities also has an auditorium and an exhibition hall. Modern fitted hotel with cafe facilities is prepared to accommodate the artist-in-residence stays. From the artistic stays mainly benefit artists from abroad. The Centre for Creative Activities is a place of interdisciplinary activities for a broad range of visual arts. Here are realized film projects, music, theatre and performances. The Gallery invites the outstanding artists from Poland and abroad.
Another task of the Baltic Contemporary Art Gallery (BGSW) is educational activities aimed at broadening the audience of contemporary art in all age, and the preparation of active recipients of contemporary art through a direct participation in it. We offer many attractive forms of education, among other things: lessons about art, lectures, workshops, panel discussions, film screenings and more.
An important part of the educational activities are lessons and lectures organized for children, high school students, college students and adults. Within this framework are also held workshops conducted by artists whose aim is to familiarize the viewer with various technologies and media used by contemporary artists.
Description of the residency program:
Residences are international; artists are invited from Poland and abroad.
The preferred projects of artistic residencies relate to art in public space, a socially engaged art. We invite above all artists who work in the public space, involving the local community. During their residencies the artists should refer to the place where they are, that is to a small seasonal village, making (if possible) the local community to commit in their work. The final result should be the joint work of the artist and local inhabitants.
The program is cyclical. Duration of residence from 2 months. Each artistic stay ends with a summary and a public presentation of the work’s effect in the form of an author’s meeting, self-presentation or exhibition.
Disciplines:
Art in public space, socially involved art, sculpture and ceramics, photography, film, drawing, performance.
Duration:
2 months / or 3 months in justified cases (continuous recruitment)
Liabilities of the organizer:
BGSW provides accommodation in the Centre for Creative Activities and the use of the laboratory of photography, film, sculpture and ceramics workshop and the lecture hall (including the possibility of the presentation of creative work). The organizer offers single and double rooms with access to kitchen, dining room and laundry. At the request of a resident, he or she will receive support during any installation work.
Resident obligations:
the cost of work materials, food, insurance
Tips for application:
Applications, sent to the contact address: [email protected]
1. Full name;
2. Artistic biography;
3. Projects made so far by the artist in the form of photographic documentation or a link to a page where they are presented;
4. A project proposed to be implemented during their stay;
5. References (min 1) – the artists who have never participated in a residence before, may provide a reference from a university or other cultural institution.
* BGSW does not apply any restrictions due to the age or origin. A candidate should use spoken and written English on communicative level.
Deadline for submission:
continuous recruitment
Contact details:
Centre for Creative Activities
ul. Gen. Zaruskiego 1a
76-270 Ustka
Poland
phone:
+48 515 089 698
e-mail:
[email protected]
website:
www.bgsw.pl
www.facebook.com/baltic.gallery.art
Agreement to download after accepting the application
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Artistic Residency Program
2023
Wojciech Gilewicz
Discipline: sculpture, installation
Period of residency: March – April 2023
Project title: “Ustka 2023”
Painting projects, exhibitions and the Instagram account @walewska8studio become a way for me to address themes related to waste and methods of enhancing its value. The negative connotations associated with them impose themselves already at the level of terminology, and the search for and acceptance of that which is discarded may serve as a universal practice that transcends ecological themes. During my residency, I am going to perversely juxtapose “waste” with “luxury”. The economy of luxury (consumption, excess and fashion) driven by society is on the one hand responsible for the huge overproduction (the packaging of the products we buy alone accounts for 10-25% of the rubbish we produce), on the other hand, according to its logic, waste has the potential to become a luxury and collector’s item. The recent revival of ceramics from Mirostowice, furniture design from the 1950s-70s and other items salvaged from containers and dumpsters is a well-known phenomenon. During my residency, I am going to be a regular visitor to the ceramics studio. While learning about this medium in practice, I would like to find a common denominator between the noble and demanding technology of ceramics and the experimentation and fascination of waste. (Wojciech Gilewicz)
Wojciech Gilewicz is a painter, photographer and video maker. His latest film Walks on Garbage made in New York, is a kind of walk through the city with rubbish in the background, where themes such as trash diving, no-waste culture, circular economy and freeganism are explored in a rather free narrative. In his projects, Gilewicz very often appears on both sides of the camera adhering to the principles of self-reliant economics. From 2017 to 2021, the artist ran Beach64retreat by the Ocean in Rockaway, a grassroots, independent and free initiative for creative individuals from various disciplines as his response to the increasing precarization in the sectors of arts and culture. The artist is a co-founder of the artist collective Other Society, operating in Warsaw since 2022.
“Artistic residency – Ustka 2023”
The project partner is the PZU Foundation
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Zuzanna Litawińska
Aleksandra Szczodry
Discipline: installation, drawing, photography, ceramics
Period of residency: May – June 2023
Project title: “Ointment”
“Ointment” is an undertaking carried out by a pair women testing different ways of understanding reality and seeing which ones will absorb and soothe the body and spirit. The word ‘ointment’ can evoke various associations, from an apothecary meticulously measuring out ingredients in a sterile interior, to an old hag grinding herbs in an ancient mortar. It can refer to the healing ointment we apply to our bodies when something ails us, or to a magical substance, like the one that made Margarita from Bulgakov’s novel fly to the ball. Finally, ‘ointment’ can also refer to the colour of skin or fur, stimulating reflection on belonging to a species, race or social group. “Ointment” explores and combines these associations. It provides a record of the search for one’s place in the world, looking at one’s own difference, discovering one’s own femininity, recognising one’s own conditions and bonds of belonging. It is a place of putting on and taking off masks, of rational analysis and magical combining of elements.
Zuzanna Litawińska – born in 1989. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 2018. Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture for 2019, as part of the scholarship she recorded tales and stories of women from different parts of Poland, which she then incorporated into a multimedia exhibition. She works in a variety of media. Her work is inspired by nature, anthropology, primal beliefs and symbols. She often uses plants, or parts of plants, in her works.
Aleksandra Szczodry – born in 1983. Multidisciplinary artist, PhD in art (2019). Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2019). Her painting work explores the spiritual condition of women in the contemporary world. As an advocate of methods of deep transformation, she explores the essence of focusing on the inner development of the individual and learning about oneself through spiritual practices, working with myths and elemental energies. Her works have been presented at A.I.R. Gallery in New York (USA), the Art Armoury in Gdańsk, Saint-Luc Gallery in Liège (Belgium), the Mazovian Centre for Contemporary Art “Elektrownia” in Radom, Salon Akademia Gallery in Warsaw, Płock Art Gallery, the Centre for Artistic Activities (ODA) in Piotrków Trybunalski, Wozownia Art Gallery in Toruń, O’Flaherty Gallery in New York, and more.
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Grażyna Rigall
Katarzyna Swinarska
Discipline: film, photography, installation
Period of residency: September / October 2023
Project title: “The whole truth about the Mermaid of Ustka”
The aim of the project is to create a story about a girl – the daughter of a fisherman from Ustka, who refused to give in to the prevailing stereotype of femininity which led to her punishment by the community. This is a story of a musically talented girl, who was not allowed by her relatives to become an artist. It wasn’t until the girl’s death that her singing inspired admiration and longing. The artists will tell her story through short forms of video (so-called mockumentaries), photographs and artefacts such as everyday objects and newspapers from the “era”. It will be credible enough to connect with the history of Ustka. It will act as a “viral” and the residents of the town will join in the creation of the project. The message that a woman does not need to fulfil the functions that are traditionally assigned to her and that she can become an artist is of an emancipating nature.
Grażyna Rigall – degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk at the Faculty of Painting in the studio of Professor Kiejstut Bereźnicki. She is a painter, graphic artist, author of excellent illustrations for children. She has been cooperating with the best Polish publishing houses for years. One of the books she illustrated, “Burdock Field”, became the book of the year 2019, and it has already received more than a dozen editions abroad. Since 1997, she has been designing and making unique puppets which she uses in her installations. For the past few years, she has been passionate about making stop-motion animation films. Together with Katarzyna Swinarska, she has created multimedia projects: “Witch’s Greenery” and “Tenderness”.
Katarzyna Swinarska – visual artist, works in painting and video, and creates multimedia installations. Most of her works deal with women’s identity and corporeality. She defended her doctoral thesis in 2014. She teaches Painting and Colour Theory at the Sopot Academy of Applied Sciences. Major video works: “Digressive Identity” 2016 in the collection of NOMUS/New Art Museum in Gdansk; “Innocent Colonies” 2019 shown at Gdańsk City Gallery, Lokal_30 Gallery in Warsaw and at the Museum of Warsaw and the video diptych “Predatory Hearts” 2021/ 2022 presented at the exhibition at EL Gallery in Elbląg and at the Gdańsk Art Biennale 2023. Winner of the Grand Prix of the International Experimental Film Competition “In Out Festival” for her video work “Digressive Identity” (2016). Together with Grażyna Rigall, she created the multimedia project “Witches’ Herbarium” for the Narrations Festival 2013 in Gdańsk.
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Artistic residency for artist-mothers
With the experience of organising residencies for Ukrainian female refugee artists and their immediate families, we decided to initiate an artist-in-residence programme available to female artists-mothers. This is our pilot project to support artists-mothers and enable them to work on developing their artistic practice in a new environment together with their children. The first participant in the programme is Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora. Applications for projects are welcome; we are planning the next call in 2024.
Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora
Discipline: Photography
Period of stay: July – August 2023
Project title: “Oxygen” Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora
The project “Oxygen” will focus on photography in urban spaces, and will be a continuation of the production “Adapted Towns” and its first installments “Urban Landscape – Nowa Huta”, “Urban Landscape – Kraków”.
Having lived in many cities in Poland, I collect and illustrate my memories of places that are important, sentimental, but also condemned to oblivion. I will address the image of Ustka and its context as a spa town, the good found, the longing for ecological living conditions, and I will show the contrast between the cities of Ustka and Kraków. The result of the residency will be a series of photographs presenting my subjective view of the cities I have been or am associated with, Ustka and Kraków. I am also planning to carry out activities – an action under the common title “Oxygen” and photographic workshops dedicated to the local community. I will use analogue photography, digital photography and the photomontage method. (Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora)
Katarzyna Laskus-Stwora (born in 1980) – degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She works with autobiographical and conceptual photography. She conducts educational activities in the field of traditional and digital photographic images. She has participated in exhibitions at home and abroad. She is the winner of many photographic competitions. She is the author of the Portfolio blog as an archive realised within the framework of the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. In 2016, she was accepted as a member of the Association of Polish Artists Photographers. Participant of the meetings of the Author’s Laboratory of Photography in Wrocław.
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Artistic residency for artists from Słupsk and Ustka
The artistic residency programme aimed at artists living in the Słupsk and Ustka area was initiated in 2022 as a support for artistic activity by providing opportunities for artists living and working in Słupsk and Ustka to use the analogue photography studio, ceramics studio and the newly established screen printing studio.
Weronika Jędrzejczak
Country of origin: Poland
Dyscipline: Photography
Duration of stay: November 2022 / January 2023
Project title: “Stories from the Sea”
The sea is a variable. An element that cannot be contained. I place my story between an impression of solitude and tranquillity. Somewhere in between, somewhere where it is all fluid, unstable and impressionable. A metaphor for loss and search. What or who is actually the protagonist here?
It is an attempt to sketch and name emotions, to listen to the whispers of premonitions. Waiting to see what the next wave will bring, waiting in the wind….
I am pursuing a project on the various ways of experiencing loneliness. After the pandemic that affected us all, some people were able to reflect on the essence of loneliness for the first time in their lives. Some were left alone with themselves, deprived of space. The aim of the planned project will be to reflect on the meaning of loneliness for me and the people I met at the seaside. It will also be an attempt to visualise my own inner experiences and those of the project’s protagonists.
Weronika Jędrzejczak – degree in photography from the Film School in Łódź. She has also studied history of art at the Jagiellonian University and completed a course in pedagogy at the University of Arts in Poznań. Currently she teaches art photography at the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Słupsk. She has participated in various exhibitions including Poznań Photo Diploma Awards, Terra Incognita, 6×7 Leica Gallery, ØKSNEHALLE, Assemblage, Copenhagen. For the artist, photography is a way and manner of expressing herself, emotions, thoughts, experiences and feelings. She looks for tensions, a touch of surrealism, the interplay between nature and man, forms for all experiences and emotions. After all, “what we find words for has ceased to matter to us”.
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Małgorzata Zelek
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: screen printing, textile
Period of residency: January – February 2023
Project title: “Memory”.
The artist will begin work on a residency project combining the technique of screen printing with artistic textiles, expanding its definition and emphasising the experimental creative process.
Inspiration will come from handicrafts made by people close to the artist and everyday objects stored in the family archive. The preserved objects created at different stages of their lives, with utilitarian or decorative purposes, point to a specific time and evoke personal memories and feelings of nostalgia. The collected materials and their images preserved only in photographs will become a starting point for an exploration of memory and its permanence.
Małgorzata Zelek (born in1989 in Słupsk) – (born in1989 in Słupsk) – visual artist, stage designer; graduate of Stage Design at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań and of artistic fabric at the W. Hasior Secondary School of Fine Arts in Koszalin, where she has run an artistic fabric studio since 2020. She has led costume workshops in the projects: “The Mouth of Słupsk”, “The Birdshed at Lazarus”, “Dancing with the Waves”. She works on co-creating set and costume designs for films and plays.
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Artistic residency for the Grand Prix Winner
of the The 10th Biennale of Young Art “RYBIE OKO”
Nadia Markiewicz / June 2022
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Artistic residency on-line
Sina Boroumandi
Country of origin: Iran
Discipline: photography
Duration: March – April 2023
Project title: “Overlap”
This work consists of two opposite qualities in photo making. One quality is derived from long exposure time shots with a blurry texture, while the other is shot in a fraction of a second and in sharp focus. The emphasis is on the combination of these two qualities and experimenting with the visual expressive power that can be developed in this project. Each of these totally opposing qualities stands for each end of wide range of experiences in social life, from the most satisfying in one end to the most distressful in the other. Overlapping of these narratives leads to visual strangeness and complications of circumstances happen in everyday life in a specific geographical border, Iran, and in a specific time, Today. /Sina Boroumandi/
Sina Boroumandi – born in 1980, BA in visual arts, lives and works in Iran. His main media to work with is photography and the fact that it owes its existence to reality (objects in front of the camera) was the strongest reason to be chosen to seek the very essence of reality or the hidden truth which was my main obsession in art. I found out that the fact that photography is capable of copying and representing the world as it is, and it is also believed by public, does not work well in revealing the hidden aspects of it, helped me in experiencing and exploring new ways of seeing photographically and making pictures with the aid of optical effects. Mean that I decided not to manipulate the essential functions of the camera and darkroom, but to work on the various ways to manipulate and modify the light rays which carry the picture through the camera, and exposures as well.
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Artistic Residency Program
2022
Ania Pabiś
Country of origin: Poland
Dyscipline: performance, video-art, site specific
Duration of stay: January / February 2022
Project title: “Grain stockhouse, its time”
Did the fact that the building of the Centre for Creative Activities originally housed a granary inpired me to create the butoh performance “Tunnel of Time” during my stay at the 2018 artistic residency? In order to answer this question, I would like to familiarize myself with the old and new history of the building. Using post-war and contemporary photographs, as well as the history of the granary from the period of the German Stolpmünde recreated by Michael Förch (whom I invited to cooperate), I would like to bring out the image that best characterizes the present place of many artistic activities.
Ania Pabiś is a Polish-born artist who lives and works in Leipzig. In her work, she deals with such themes as autobiographical memory, intergenerational trauma and the perception of time and place. Her working methods include artistic research, creative experimentation and social participation. The artist’s works consist of photographs, video art, spatial installations and performance. They were shown at Galeria Milano in Warsaw, Museum Kindl in Berlin, HfBK Galerie in Dresden, City Art Gallery in Łódź and at the Ibug festival in Reichenbach.
Michael Foerch studied Monument Protection in Halle (Germany). His scientific work was based on the study of the history of industrial buildings in an urban context. He lectured on this subject upon invitation. Foerch was a co-curator of the exhibition on the History and Culture of Industry in Saxony (2016/2020). Having received his second degree in museum studies, he is currently working at the Art Museum in Altenburg on the digitization of the museum’s collection.
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Iwona Rozbiewska
Country of origin: Poland
Dyscipline: sculpture
Duration of stay: May / June 2022
Project title: “Hedrokonstrukt”
The “Hedrokonstrukt”, which I will be working on, is a combination of the fragments of two words that aptly describe my works. Both polyhedron and construct are things that are well-recognized in my works, and the element that connects all the works of art that seem so different is the thread of the spiral.
More than that, given my current focus on the theme of the idyll, and the timeliness of this theme, I will explore the topic of utopia, the artificiality, and the inaccessibility of this state. In this work, I want not only to develop the “utopian” object “Hedrokonstrukt” but, first and foremost, to show the revealing absurd and irony. In the times of continuous development, new technologies, omnipresent artificial intelligence, and efforts to achieve vertex of fulfillment, something we strive for and which seems the goal of the contemporary society is, as a matter of fact, a quintessence of artificiality.
The result of the research will be the objects and an art installation, which I will show to the local community at the residency exhibition. /Iwona Rozbiewska/
Iwona Rozbiewska – Polish-born contemporary artist. She graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Munich. Recently she earned a doctorate in Fine Arts at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Iwona is a laureate of the Gilbert Bayes Award 2022 with The Royal Society of Sculptors in London. She has obtained several artistic scholarships, grants, and residencies among others in Finland, Argentina, and the Netherlands, as well as from Akademie der Künste in Berlin (2021); Erwin und Gisela von Steiner-Stiftung, Munich (2019/20); SEA Foundation in Tilburg and Mondriaan Fund (2018); Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw; and Erasmus Scholarship at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich (2011/12); Art Scholarship of The Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw, Industrial Design Faculty (2009/10). Her artworks have been exhibited in individual and group shows, domestically and abroad. Currently, she lives and works near Warsaw, and close to Munich.
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Artistic residencies organised as part of the Polish-Ukrainian
co-operation scheme for Ukrainian refugee female artists and their families
After 24 February, we decided to launch a ‘crisis residency’ scheme, and to turn the Centre for Creative Activity in Ustka into a safe haven for Ukrainian artists fleeing the war. We didn’t launch an open recruitment process or require any proposals for artistic projects; and there was no official selection of entries. We accepted 7 female artists and 1 female curator with their families. We didn’t expect them to deliver projects or perform any other artistic activities. Over time, however, the artists began working on their own projects, for which they used the ceramics, photography and film studios. The creative process became a sort of art therapy in dealing with the current reality and traumas of war. Not surprisingly, the works created by the artists referred directly to the situation in Ukraine, offering commentary on current events. Each of the artists was given the opportunity to show their project in Galeria Mała (Small Gallery) at the Centre for Creative Activity in Ustka. We are currently hosting 6 artists with their families.
We have started the “Ukrainian Multimedia Plein-Air Project in Ustka”
which is to be implemented between 1 July and 31 August
We have received a subsidy for the delivery of the project from the National Centre for Culture, “Culture – Interventions. Edition 2022”. In addition to working on their projects, the artists will run a series of workshops aimed at the local community and tourists. They will also perform various artistic actions in the urban spaces of Ustka and Słupsk.
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Tereza Barabash
Country of origin: Ukraine
Dyscipline: textiles, installation, audiovisual art, and land art
Duration of stay: March – May 2022
And the white world – no color, no sound, no form, no value, no taste (Wasyl Stus)
According to official data, more than 205 children have died since the beginning of the russian invasion of Ukraine. 205 flowers made of children’s albums and school notebooks. 24 February saw the outbreak of a full-scale war between russia and Ukraine (which has actually been dragging on for 8 years). The following day I took our son out of Lviv. I thought that in a few hours I would have nowhere and no one to return to, because the occupiers would physically destroy my country. I was unable to take all the essentials I needed for the journey, there was too little time. I took my sunglasses to cover my tearful eyes. Today is April 20, my country continues to exist and our soldiers defend our lives and our freedom. I’m still wearing sunglasses, but I don’t cry anymore; the human mind has a capacity to adapt to the new situation and accept it as fact. Mass killings of civilians, including children… I look at my son, who is safe and I think, is it really possible to accept it and agree with it? Can the parents survive this? Currently, official data indicate the murder of over 205 children. Every day this “number” grows… (Tereza Barabash)
Tereza Barabash was born in 1984 in Lviv, Ukraine. She works with textiles, installation, audiovisual art, and land art. She studied at the Faculty of Artistic Tapestry of Lviv National Academy of Art. She is a two-time grantee of the Gaude Polonia programme of the Minister of Culture (2010, 2016). Since 2010, she has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. She has participated in a number of international exhibitions, festivals, plein-air events, art projects in Ukraine and abroad. For her work “Rain in UA” she received many awards, including the Gold Medal and the Akapi Foundation Award for the best debut at the 15th International Triennale of Tapestry in Łódź (2016).
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Marina Talutto
Country of origin: Ukraine
Dyscipline: drawing, video – art
Duration of stay: March – May 2022
My project tells a personal story that affected me, my family and my fellow countrymen.
It’s a story of a forced flight from Ukraine because of the devastating military actions of the russian army in my country.
Smoke is a consequence of attacks by enemy forces with rockers and missiles.
Smoke is a war.
Smoke is a fear.
Smoke is unknown.
Smoke is pain, suffering, and death.
Large planes with the image of smoke seem to freeze in motion. Behind the smoke is the uncertainty of despair and pain. The black-and-whiteness of planes appeals to the uncertainty of the future—to the uncertainty of one’s own existence. Forced move to another country for the sake of a child is the other side of the smoke. On the opposite side on it, when the smoke dissipates, one can see the total destruction of their own land and home. And this is a great fear. Smoke testifies of a committed crime. The impression of escaping from Ukraine will forever be remembered. When I was creating the works, my 5-year-old daughter joined me, and also created her own drawing of her escape impression. A large installation of fireclay reflects my vision of my homeland, through the prism of mine and my daughter’s vision of fear. Cracked planes with military hedgehogs appeal to be devastating feeling of fear and pain for my family and for my homeland. (Marina Talutto)
Marina Talutto was born in Kiev in 1982. She graduated from Taras Shevchenko State Art Secondary School and the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kiev (Ukraine). In 2010 she received the Gaude Polonia scholarship of the Minister of Culture. She took part in the project “Premonion: Ukrainian Art Now” at the Saatchi Gallery (London). She has participated in many exhibitions and art projects in Ukraine and abroad.
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Olena Naumenko
Country of origin: Ukraine
Dyscipline: drawing, video – art, ceramics
Duration of stay: March – May 2022
“And each of us dies inside every day.Again and again.Even while safe.Even continuing to live.”
(quote from Facebook)
“Unbearable emotional pain every day.A terrible dream from which it is impossible to wake up.Anger, tearing the heart apart.Rethinking lifeRethinking death.Rethink the power of hman capabilities.Rethink the meaning of faith.
Hope.
The desire for freedom above all.All-embracing love is like a force that overcomes any obstacle.This is a war for me now. ”
Olena Naumenko
Olena Naumenko was born in 1981 in Kiev. She has a degree in painting from the Kiev State Academy of Arts and Architecture (2005). She is a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (since 2008) and the artistic group “Yod”. “Using classical and modern techniques I work in the genre of contemporary art with the following materials: magnet, metal, ceramics, painting, crayons. I explore themes of redefining classical painting. Following the birth of my daughter, I deal with the theme of motherhood and the role of the mother-artist in contemporary society. I make video works in order to discover the world around me and try to understand my feelings.” – Olena Naumenko.
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Hanna Oborska
Country of origin: Ukraine
Dyscipline: Photography, Ceramics and Prison Education with Special Children
Duration of stay: March – May 2022
The photographic project, carried out during an artist residency, calls for drawing parallels between life after the war which began on 24 February in Ukraine, and a peaceful life before the war with russia. I am portraying women refugees, forced to leave their country, Ukraine, with their children, and go to European countries such as Poland, Germany, France and Switzerland. Photocollages are photos of portraits of women and children in a juxtaposition of damaged houses in Kiev, Bucha, Borodyanca, Kharkov made by Ukrainian photographers: Pavel Bagmut, Svetlana Savelieva, Jeka Kotenko. I intend to use my work to demonstrate the way in which the war has reached my country and changed our lives forever. The second project was made in a ceramics studio. I was making casts in square clay tiles of objects that women and children took with them at the last minute before fleeing, things like keys, passports and jewellery. Each cast has its own color, the color of objects which lost its saturation during the journey and escaping from war. The integration part of the project is hand casts of people who helped pull us out of the chaos of war, hands helping all our women and children in Poland. (Hanna Oborska)
Hanna Oborska was born in 1980. She has a degree in Photography, Ceramics and Prison Education with Special Children. For a long time she participated in the artistic program with the Arsenal of Art as part of the international support for children with autism and Down syndrome. She is involved in curatorial activities for the annual White Nights Festival which gathers around 30 painters, sculptors, digital artists and installation artists.
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Anastasiia Ryabczuk
Country of origin: Ukraine
Dyscipline: drawing, ceramics
Duration of stay: March – May 2022
The “Values” project was inspired by my personal experiences related to current situation in Ukraine. I would like to draw attention to the problems of our common world througt the humanitarian crisis, looking for the intangible value of human life. Observing the way in which lands with great cultural heritage are devastated and children lose their childhood, I tell a story about the power of the value of life, the perfection of each individual existence, individuality and the richness of the human soul. From the enemy’s point of view, they are only mass, something useless and worthless. What the present generations are going through, their war traumas will turn potential joy and love into “stones” in the future.
Anastasiia Ryabczuk was born in Kiev. She holds a degree from the Kiev National University of Construction and Architecture (Master of Applied Decorative Arts). She works with different materials and techniques: enamel, ceramics, painting, graphics. Her works can be found in the Kecskemé Museum (Hungary), the Ukrainian Painting Museum in Dnipro and the National Museum of Applied Decorative Arts in Kiev.
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Artistic Residency Program
2021 / partially online
Kamila Czosnyk
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Drawing, video, installation, performance
Period of stay: January / February 2021
Project title: “Simulative contestations”
What exactly is human memory? How can we define individual and collective memory? I believe human memory is a set of beliefs and reflections of a certain simulation that we all experience throughout our lives. I intend to peer into the mists of that simulation and use my observations to create a narrative based on the lives of the oldest citizens of Ustka. My story will focus on fading memories and the point when human life becomes a testament to itself. During my residency, I am going to collect stories of individuals who live, or once lived, in Ustka; stories about their lives in the context of a changing town, what it looked like when they arrived here and how their lives have panned out. I invite all heirs of memories who wish to share their own or their family stories. I will use these accounts to create a series of paintings and an installation which will be placed in various public spaces of the town.
Kamila Czosnyk – born in 1988; intermedia artist, performer, educator; currently, a PhD student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk in the studio of Professor Wojciech Zamiara. She cooperates with Galeria Labirynt, Galeria Biała, MOCAK, the Cultural Centre in Lublin, BWA Awangarda in Wrocław, and the Asia and Pacific Museum; holder of the Scholarship of the City of Lublin (2018) and of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2018). Her works have been presented at the “NO Budget Show”, International Festival of Ephemeral Art, the 22nd International Festival of Theatrical Confrontations, Survival Art Review in Wrocław, Videonews, Performance Platform Lublin, Kiyv Art Week. She is a highly sensitive artist, her creative work combines performance, video and installation. In her artistic work, the external aspect, i.e. events, people and stories, is permeated by individual subjectivity. The artist strives to describe certain observations about the world around her and about human existence.
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Alicja Biała
Country of origin: Poland
Dyscipline: ceramics
Duration of stay: March / April 2021
Project title: “Spiders”
Alicja Biała is a Polish artist working across media and scales. Biała initially gained attention with her large scale public paintings, followed by her politically charged Polish Cut- Out series. She has since worked across scales, ranging from architectural sculptures, large interior sculptural lighting, etchings, paintings, and more. Her work incorporates a mixture of pagan themes that bring the political and personal spheres of contemporary life into close proximity. She has received widespread press, multiple awards, and is in numerous private and national collections. Currently studying at Royal College of Art and Royal Drawing School in London.
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Grupa Frakcja
Country of origin: Poland
Artistic discipline: actions in public spaces, performance, video
Period of stay: June 2021
Project title: „WOMEN’S BEACH” – Frakcja on a Trip
Monika Czarska, Roksana Kularska-Król, Alicja Kujawska, Anka Leśniak, Aurelia Mandziuk, Beata Marcinkowska, Marta Ostajewska
The participants of the residency intend to work on the strategies of female artists in times of crisis. They wish to address the growing separatist tendencies and the longing for “tradition”, which in fact involves the revival of nationalist attitudes, patriarchal order and limitation of creative freedom. The artists intend to carry out artistic activities based on archives, biographies and site-specific works.
Frakcja – an intergenerational group of female artists and art theorists founded in 2016 in Łódź. The group operates within the framework of the Art and Documentation Association. Frakcja brings together artists who work individually in areas combining installation, performance, video-art, painting, sculpture, or research as art. The aim of the group is to popularize art created by women through joint exhibitions of group members, as well as meetings and discussions on the presence of women in the field of visual arts. The group operates on democratic principles, it has no leader and all the decisions are made jointly through debates and votes. The topics of interest to the group members include feminist issues and activities in dialogue with a specific space.
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July / August 2021
Artistic residency “Research on the Past” with a fee for the artist selected in an open call
The artist selected out of 15 applicants is Konrad Juściński
The program partner is the PZU Foundation
Konrad Juściński
Country of origin: Poland
Artistic discipline: actions in public spaces, performance, video, objects
Length of stay: July / August 2021
Project title: “Safe Place – Utopia of Passing”
The aim of my project is an analysis of the concept of “safe place” in the context of utopia. My activities revolve around sculpture / installation combined with performance and video. One of the highlights of my residence will be workshops with the audience and an opportunity to carry out joint experiments on working with objects, the human body and all the potential benefits that may be derived from a particular place. In my creative work, I concentrate on the concept of pre-space being a substance that already existed before humans. This space may be understood and revealed gradually by inhabiting and “trampling” the ground we are currently on. I associate the process of searching and experimenting in art with an activity called “noticed incident”. For me, an incident and any attempts to provoke it are important aspects of creative work that appears from the outside and gives the activity the necessary dimension. In art, I am interested in what I do not know, i.e. in the exchange of mutual illusions, or if you like, in a direct contact with the world and its varying individual representations. In my artistic activities I seek a certain kind of simultaneity between a complement and a missing element – the two aspects which give the observed phenomenon a contemplative character.
Konrad Juściński is an artist dealing with art various activities related to space, object and performance. In 2014, he defended his PhD at the Faculty of Sculpture and Spatial Activities at the University of Arts in Poznań, where he studied, and earlier, in 2002, he obtained a degree at the Faculty of Interior Architecture and Design. He is currently employed as an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences in Poznań. He also heads the Department of Sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts of the University of Zielona Góra.
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September / October 2021
Artistic residency “Ecological practices in the area of artistic activities”
with a fee for an artist selected through an open call
Joanna Dudek
Country of origin: Poland
Artistic discipline: sculpture, actions in public spaces
Period of stay: September / October 2021
Project title: Slovincian Herbariums
The project aims to investigate the herbal medicine practices of the ethnic inhabitants of Pomerania – the Slovincian people. As part of the residence, I would like to focus on the idea of “social sculpture” and “living sculpture”, thus commemorating not just a single individual, but an ethnic group with the help of herbs that are grown in home gardens. The creative process will involve talks with local residents and consultations with the Museum of the Slovincian Countryside in Kluki and the Museum of Pomeranian Folk Culture in Swołów. I believe that the project will commemorate the former inhabitants of the region, as well as showing that the land that used to be divided and fought for can now connect. The land in question requires care and attention beyond divisions.
Joanna Dudek is a visual artist working in the areas of spatial installation, painting and design. In her work, she deals with corporeality, as well as exploring the relationship between Psyche and Soma, and the one between man and nature. This variety of pursuits makes the artist particularly meticulous in her selection of materials and their properties. She perceives holism as the unity of body, Psyche, spirit and nature. Currently, she is an assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Interior Design, a member of the “Climate Plateau” which is an initiative co-organized by Galeria Propaganda in Warsaw, in 2020 she was awarded the “Web Culture” Scholarship by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage; in 2019 she participated in the Summer School at Bauhaus Universitat.
The program partner is Society of Authors ZAiKS
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January / February 2021 – Artistic residency online “Miejsce – Wewnątrz / Place – Inside”
The online artist-in-residence program “Miejsce – Wewnątrz / Place – Inside” was a response to the continuation of the artist-residency program during the Covid-19 pandemic and the related travelling restrictions, as well as an attempt to transfer artist-residencies to virtual space by reversing their main assumptions. So far, our institution has been favouring projects related to urban histories and current sociological and cultural events. The artists were expected to establish dialogue with the local community and engage the people in the creation of the project by organizing meetings and workshops. This time, we encouraged artists to submit proposals for projects created in the current place of residence, apartment or studio, which addressed the problem of isolation as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions. The projects focused on artists, male and female, and their inner life related in online. Rather than expecting ready-made works, we wished to focus on the process of developing the project and documenting its subsequent stages in order to create a platform for the exchange of ideas and experiences.
There were 34 entries submitted to the competition from artists from all over the world and at various stages of their artistic career. The winners selected in an open competition represented different creative attitudes, different media and different approaches to the proposed theme.
1. Ermina Apostolaki „DollHouse?” (Greece)
2. Maksim Finogeev „Other Characteristics” (Ukraine)
3. Dorota Ścisła „Brainstorm” (Poland)
4. Dominik Więcek „Darkness” (Poland)
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March / April 2021 – Artistic residencies online “Podróż w miejscu / Trip in Place” / cooperation – 8 Drawing Studio of the Magdalena Abakamowicz University of Arts in Poznań
The online artist-in-residence program was aimed at students of the Faculty of Painting and Drawing at the University of Arts in Poznań. We encouraged candidates to submit their proposals for projects created in the current place of residence, flat or studio space and oscillating between the theme of the journey as a yearning and impossible dream to discover something new. The main idea
behind the project was for the artists to invent a story about a potential journey from the current location to the seaside. The projects focused on artists, male and female, and their inner life related in online. Rather than expecting ready-made works, we wished to focus on the process of developing the project and documenting its subsequent stages in order to create a platform for the exchange of ideas and experiences.
The only selection criteria were to create a series of works with the use of media enabling presentation in the virtual gallery space and the willingness to participate in the online conference summarizing the program.
Cooperation / dr hab. Katarzyna Kujawska-Murphy, prof. UAP
Artists: Daria Antkiewicz, Agnieszka Berest, Julia Białas, Oliwia Dubielak, Aleksandra Komsta, Kamila Lukaszczyk, Daniel Malinowski, Katarzyna Strzykalska, Julia Ślusarczyk, Mikołaj Wąsowicz, Natalia Czarcińska – adiunktka w V Pracowni Malarstwa UAP
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Artistic Residency Program
2020
Weronika Teplicka
Country of origin Poland
Discipline: Drawing, painting, photography, installation, performance
Period of stay: January / February 2020
Project title: “Stories of Everyday Life. Between Summer and Summer”
“The project Stories of Everyday Life. Between Summer and Summer continues my long-established artistic practice of collecting records of my life and artistic pursuits in the countryside with limited access to cultural life. Here in the back of beyond, I cannot participate in the latest artistic developments, I can only focus on my personal experiences and inner thoughts and place myself in the role of the main character of my artistic search. My trip to the residency in CAT was a long-planned venture, even though the destination lies only 89 km from home. I wanted to find the right space where I could fully devote myself to creative work, and leave any existential dilemmas behind. And when I finally arrived there, I realized how fruitless my search had been. In fact, this residency, which can easily be compared to a “stay in a sanatorium”, makes me focus on all the mundane aspects and objects which are necessary for every-day existence. Moreover, the use of virtual activities has become a tool for my relentless quest to remain in touch with the real world. Thus, I decided to create a narrative based on collected experiences and repetitive events, while noting down any minor changes and disturbances in my routine activities. I focus on how I start to settle in a new place and become accustomed to the “unknown”. I also make efforts to meet the local inhabitants and establish some rapport with them. From the position of an observer, I start to look for analogies between my life as an artist living in the periphery and the lives of the citizens of Ustka outside the tourist season.
What directly inspired me to track my everyday life was the essay The Rift of Existence by Jolanta Brach-Czaina and the work and the of Georges Perec. My project consists of a collection of notes describing my daily routines and small events, as well as a series collages combining snaphots of my everyday life and stills from the lives of the inhabitants of Ustka. I also create experimental videos that are largely based on my experience in painting. I try to “paint without painting,” the final result being my creative process. I invited ladies from the Senior Club to similar activities. During the workshops I will encourage them to interfere in my painting or create new images from fragments of my own works”.
Weronika Teplicka was born in 1981. She graduated from the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań – currently, the University of Arts (degree in the studio of Professor Piotr C. Kowalski), she also studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples. Her artistic pursuits include painting, installation, objects created from her “failed” paintings, waste, family souvenirs, etc. Currently, she creates films about her life in the province. Her works can be found in the Collection of Galeria Bielska BWA. She lives and works in the Polish seaside region of Pomerania.
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Pamela Leończyk
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Video, installation, performance
Period of stay: August / September 2020
Project title: “White Noise”
“White Noise” continues the series of artistic projects addressing the current ecological crisis, climate change and human impact on the environment. It is an attempt to give centre stage to nature. During the residency, I will focus on the theme of water. Today, Poland and the whole world face the threat of a dramatic climate change resulting from global warming and the progressive drying of groundwater, lakes and rivers. I will create a performative installation composed of digitally processed sounds and images of water. The viewer will be surrounded by the sounds of waves and seabirds, as well as images of water, sky, light and shadows. The narrative which I intend to create will be largely based on light impression. This aural-visual space will also encompass a number of recordings of interviews with the citizens of Ustka. I plan to create a discussion platform for tackling the growing crisis of water management in Poland. Water may soon become a luxury product. Can we imagine the future of Poland with a limited access to water whose price would exceed that of petrol?
Pamela Leończyk is a film director, performer, creator of performative installations. She currently studies theatre directing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Warsaw. She holds a degree in Theatre Studies and Performatics at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She has won a scholarship of the Laboratory of Nowy Teatr organized by Teatr Nowy Proxima in Kraków, the Creative Scholarship of the City of Kraków 2020, and the international competition for the artistic installation ANIMATUS. She has participated in the residency program “Sense perception” which was organized by the Centre for Contemporary Art “Łaźnia”. Her works have been shown at the FIST festival in Belgrade. Her performance “The Body Process” was awarded the Grand Prix at the National Festival of Independent Theaters OFTeN. The show “Mironlandia” with the participation of Warsaw Insurgents, which she directed in tandem with Aleksandra Skorupa, was selected for the Best Off Festival in the category of the best non-institutional performance. She has participated in international projects organized by the Platform European Theater Academy in Cesis (Latvia), where she made a site-specific performance “Free the Monument”. She prepared the play “Poor Rich Europe” in cooperation with a group of European directors in Salzburg. She is also the winner of the artistic scholarship of the Mayor of Suwałki.
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Joanna Łałowska
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: video, installation, architecture, design
Period of stay: October / November 2020
Project title: “MARE VANITAS. The Evanescence of the Baltic Sea”
Covering 71% of the planet’s surface, the oceans and seas play a key part in the life on Earth. They produce most of our oxygen and are home to thousands of species of marine animals. Our ecological, social and economic well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of the seas and oceans. As a spatial designer, I intend to explore the idea of creating a sacred place for the grieving Baltic Sea. Join my spiritual and therapeutic tour of a unique space where I explore the sea as a reflection of my mental self. I will achieve this by creating a closed space for visitors, whilst examining the power of sounds connecting individual places on the coast near Ustka and the tangible need to use technology in order to transmit our “identity” in relation to the Baltic Sea. During my residency, I will try to address the following questions: Is change possible without any loss? How can a loss in the natural environment be understood as a mechanism unevenly distributed among socio-economic divisions? Does loss activate the community? How can we experience mourning as a group? What is the relationship between environmental change, memory, loss, and regret? Regret is the natural response to loss, whether it is a person, time, need, or hope. I explore this concept in the way we interpret and analyze the relationship with water as the source of life.
Joanna Łałowska – the artist’s work often explores the idea of space through a three-dimensional language; bold colours, emotional narrative and work with ecology and spirituality. Originally from Warsaw, she grew up in Africa and lived in several countries around the world, which opened her up to multinational cultural influences and a unique approach to art and design. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 2012, Joanna Łałowska’s projects were exhibited at international exhibitions and she participated in several artist-in-residence programs. She is currently a researcher at the Royal College of Art in London, Faculty of Architecture, with a specialization in Sustainable Urban Development and Urban Rituals. As an artist with a comprehensive approach to the design process, she has worked in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Her extensive experience ranges from comprehensive space design (architecture, set design, site-specific installations) to designing brands and developing branding strategies. Over the past ten years, she has worked around the world on projects involving socially responsible, conscious festivals, environmental and permaculture movements + commercial spatial and branding concepts from leading global brands. In May 2020, she launched a research platform for Eastern Europe (to be expanded internationally) for design innovation and community and sustainable development oriented projects.
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Artistic Residency Program
2019
Margot Sokołowska
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Darwing, painting, photography, installation, performance
Term of residency: 2 – 31.01. 2019
http://margotsokolowska.com/
Margot Sokolowska – lives and works in Bordeaux in France (since 2006). A graduate of the Władysław Strzeminski Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Degree with distinction in painting under Professor Juliusz Narzynski, and in Photography under Professor I. Pierzgalski. Her artistic pursuits include painting, installation and performance. Participant of artistic residencies in France and Germany.
In 2013, I undertook figurative painting and started focusing on the presentation of my own existential reflections. During my residency at the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, I intend to create a cycle of drawings depicting my personal confrontation with the surrounding landscape. The cycle will address various questions about identity and presence. The photographic and video records, which I need for the cycle of paintings, may also become a separate project.
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Emmanuel Penouty
Country of origin: France
Discipline: Performance, installation of photography, object art
Term of residency: 2 – 31.01.2019
http://www.emmanuelpenouty.com/
Originally from Angouleme, Emmanuel has lived and worked in Bordeaux since he graduated from the École de Beaux-Arts (1999). He also attended a tailoring school the Limoges. Emmanuel creates his own objects or uses existing ones to redefine their meanings and thus “give them the right to speak for themselves.” To this end, he has been utilizing jigsaw puzzles for the last five years.
I am planning to create an installation, performance and video – all focusing on a single object in public space: a flag. Often the size of a grown man, flags blend in with the surrounding landscape. A flag and its interpretations, its changing meanings … Flag and disappearance. Flag and absence.
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Marzena Gruszczyńska
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Sculpture and Ceramics, artistic fabric, design
Term of residency: 1 – 28.02.2019
https://www.facebook.com/rakudesign89/
Marzena Anna Gruszczyńska – born in 1989 in Szczawnica. She graduated from the Secondary School of Art in Nowy Wiśnicz (applied ceramics). Degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (Art and Design of Ceramics), and the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Kraków (Cultural Studies). Currently, she is a PhD student at the Department of Ceramics of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. She works mainly in the media of ceramics and sculpture, as well as industrial design for the textile industry.
My creative activity and academic research are aimed at emphasizing the role and importance of artistic solutions in the art of ceramics, which significantly affects other branchs of design. In addition to ceramics, my interests also include natural materials and different methods of weaving and colouring fabrics. During my residency at the Centre for Creative Activity in Ustka, I intend to create a series of works combining the use of manual skills, such as clay moulding and ceramic making, with new technologies in graphic design. The residency will be finalized with an exhibition.
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Sofiya Ahadova
Country of origin: Azerbaijan
Discipline: Installation, video
Term of residency: 5.03 – 5.04.2019
Sofiya Ahadova was born in Neftchala, Azerbaijan 1993. She showed an interest in art since her childhood. In 2009 she starts to study in ADRN-Fine art college Baku (Azerbaijan), which study system is based on traditional Academic Fine Arts. Her curiosity of searching demonstrated itself in her study too, she changed the study type and choose contemporary art study for the bachelor. She started her bachelor degree in Arts in 2013 Sakarya University, in Turkey. During which she earned Erasmus program for a year and continued her study in Accademia di Belle Arti die Brera Milan (Italy) in 2015. This period was a very important point in her life. She totally figured out that what is conceptual art and decided to continue developing on. She was a participant of different competitions since her early years in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Human Rights – 2nd Place, Neftchala City Youth and Tourism Office – 3 Place. Sofiya`s works have been exhibited in both nationally and internationally venues such as Sakarya University Congress and Culture Center (Group exhibition), “15” Ekim Gecidi Arka Plan /Art Gallery (Group exhibition), Newspaper Blackout Arka Plan /Art Gallery, “17” Ekim Gecidi. Mekan Çizgi /Art Gallery (Group exhibition). Her first personal exhibition held in 2016 “PnP” Arka Plan Art Gallery. Currently, she is teaching art to the children within program Aieseg in Egypt. She is also a participant of ARTIM LAB Art Project within which take part in group exhibitions “Appearances” ARTIM Exhibition Space (Group exhibition), “Mapping the Intangible” ARTIM Exhibition Space (Group exhibition). She has an upcoming project for next year Light-Shadow Art Project in Public Room Macedonia/ Skopje.
What does connect us? When do we feel a difference? What is the human in a very beginning? The main source of my works these questions. They are investigated in issues of psychology, culture, and citizenship. Such kind of factors like race, religion, culture, and etc. are making us feel different but, a human has to realize his own existence. These factors make us realize Other. Among this factors, we start to sense Self/Other. By the quest of differences and sameness, the vision can be changed. My goal to find the thing that connects human in a very beginning. But in my works, I’m not trying to show just only factors and influences. It is a call to journey into your soul to feel the sameness that we trying to reverse into the difference.
In this project, I will try to give a feeling of different places in one place. Which differences we feel when we move to another place? (architecture, streets, taste, wear, voices, etc.). But is that difference? Are those arguments make us different from each other? When we are somewhere it is not possible to imagine how life going on in different places. It is physically hard to imagine that what going on because even if we think about somewhere we use images from our memory, not the current time what flew there. We accustomed to sensing the place where we located. It is like our soul, our soul located in our body and doesn’t try to understand others. Self and other. In my work, I’m going to collect different place in one room. To show how other people live at the same time as you literally. And make people fell, the think about others culture, life etc.
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Olga Babak
Country of origin: Ukraine
Discipline: Graphic
Term of residency: 1 – 31.04.2019
https://www.flickr.com/people/olya-babak/
Olga Babak is a visual artist from Ukraine, who graduated from Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. She had solo exhibitions in Ukraine and Poland, and participated in group exhibitions, art residences and festivals in Ukraine, Poland and Turkey, she also received a scholarship from Ministry of Culture of Poland “Gaude Polonia”. Studies of how personal identity depends on and evolves in different places and surroundings form her major interest.
The aim of the proposed project for BGSW residency is to interpret the context of urban environment and personal identification of a modern resident of Ustka. The execution of the project is to be done through the search for cultural codes and trends that have a qualitative impact on the nature of the area and its citizens. The results of this research will be presented in a form of an art-book.
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Alex Urso
Country of origin: Italy
Discipline: Installation, collage
Term of residency: 2 – 31.05.2019
https://alexurso.com/works/
Alex Urso (b. 1987) is a multidisciplinary artist from Italy, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan. He works predominantly in the medium of collage, assemblage and spacial installation. His works have been exhibited in public and private art spaces such as Estorick Collection (London), Casa Testori (Milan), Circoloquadro (Milan), Zacheta Project Room (Warsaw), BWA Katowice, BWA Tarnów, Monopol Gallery (Warsaw), Institute of Italian Culture of Krakow, Entropia Gallery (Wroclaw), among others. Together with his practice as visual artist, Urso is as well engaged in curatorial projects and critical writing. As curator, his activity is preeminently focused on the relation between the Italian and the Polish art. In 2017 he has been co-curator of the Biennale de La Biche. From 2015, is a contributor for the Italian magazine Artribune.
In the recent years Europe has been assisting to an alarming rise of far-right movements; nationalist and conservative parties have made significant electoral gains in many countries. Alex Urso’s project wants to encourage a reflection on this topic. During the residency period, Urso will be realizing a series of flags: each of them will be a graphic combination between the Refugee Nation flag (the flag which has represented the refugee athletes at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016) and the flags of the European countries which, in the recent years, have been showing hostility towards Europe and its values of solidarity and tolerance – such as Norway, Austria, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary, among others. The series of flags will be integrated with a series collages on the same subject.
Alex Urso’s residency project is kindly supported by the Paolina Brugnatelli Foundation (www.fondazionepaolinabrugnatelli.org).
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Tamara Stoffers
Country of origin: Netherlands
Discipline: Painting, collage, sculpture
Term of residency: 3 – 28.06.2019
https://www.tamarastoffers.com/
Tamara Stoffers’ research is focussed on socialist aesthetics and atmosphere, captured in collages and assemblage.
The artist was born in 1996 in Zwolle, The Netherlands, obtained a degree in fine arts at Academie Minerva in Groningen in 2017 and has been working indepently ever since. Her works have been exhibited in Stockholm, Brussels, Rotterdam and Moscow.
The functionalist architecture common during the socialist era features by monumental and firm appearance without any ornament, only showing the purely necessary construction of the building. It was left to the residents to transform their uniform housing units into personal homes, while the exterior did not immediately contribute to the illusion of homeliness.
I am interested in the transformations of buildings built in a style typical of socialism, carried out to adjust to the needs of people in a capitalist society. In particular I am fascinated by the coloring of buildings of which it would be contradictory to the original architectural style.
In my project I want to focus on the apartment blocks at Dabrowszczaków street. The residents are encouraged to contribute by sharing pictures of their house before the fall of the Polish People’s Republic. Thus I hope to learn more about the phenomenon of painting buildings. Is it based on a collective decision to not be confronted with the past, or is it done only out of aesthetic considerations?
The collected pictures I would enlarge in black and white, and manually add color by painting them over. By doing this, I’d like to insprire the citizens of Ustka to look at the functionalist architecture and question tradition of coloring these houses.
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Kaushik Gupta
Country of origin: India
Discipline: Digital Art, Photography & Experimental Drawing
Term of residency: 1 – 31.07.2019
https://kaushikgupta.wixsite.com/mysite
Kaushik Gupta, tries to capture through his works, the essence of life, the spiritual value and instinctive driving need amidst our modern hectic lives. Born in 1979, Kolkata India, Gupta studied B.F.A (Painting) from College of Visual Art, Kolkata under (Indira Kala Sangeet University) from 2002 to 2006. Gupta has been exhibiting is his works regularly since 2006. He was Invited and participated in an Artists Residency Program at AIR Frosterus, in Karasamaki, Finland in the month of June-July, 2016. He has participated in the 17th Asian Art Biennale held in Dhaka, Bangladesh at Shilpakala Akademi ). He has also participated in ‘Dafen Oil Painting Biennale, Shenzhen 2018’ China. His works have been shown in Seven Solo Exhibitions in various cities of India and one in London (UK) at the galleries of ‘The Nehru Centre’ in June, 2013 titled ‘Remembrance of Things Past’. Gupta was invited by the ‘Cultural Wing of The High Commission of India’ in London. The Artist lives and works in Kolkata.
During my stay in Ustka, I would like to realise Project where the basic and foremost point of my thought is to search and find answers of some simple‘Questions’ relating to our ‘Life’ as Social Being. The conclusion of the residency will be a presentation in the form of an Exhibition of ‘Photographs & Video, Digital Art & Experimental Drawings. The objective of the Exhibition is to present works of ‘Art of Excellence’ both in terms of material application and aesthetic appeal.
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Sina Boroumandi
Country of origin: Iran
Discipline: Photography
Term of residency: 1 – 30.08.2019
http://ogallery.net/artists/boroumandi/
Sina Boroumandi, born in 1980, self-taught photographer (I quit Art Academy), who lives and works in Tehran, Iran.
My main media to work with is photography and the fact that it owes its existence to reality (objects in front of the camera) was the strongest reason to be chosen to seek the very essence of reality or the hidden truth which was my main obsession in art. I found out that the fact that photography is capable of copying and representing the world as it is, and it is also believed by public, does not work well in revealing the hidden aspects of it, helped me in experiencing and exploring new ways of seeing photographically and making pictures with the aid of optical effects. Mean that I decided not to manipulate the essential functions of the camera and darkroom, but to work on the various ways to manipulate and modify the light rays which carry the picture through the camera, and exposures as well.
Simulacrum in merriam webster dictionary is an insubstantial form or semblance of something, according to wikipaedia, in 16th century English used to describe a representation such as a statue or a painting specially of a god. By the late 19th century it has found a secondary association of inferiority, an image without a substance or qualities of original. According to plato’s extramission theory a smooth gentle fire or light, emits from the eyes and fuses with the ambient light to form a sentient body of vision. As we all know in modern world, light passes through the camera lens and hits the light sensitive material to form the hidden image on film, simultaneously the light which emits from the photographer, holding his or her image, also travels from within the camera and is projected on the subject being photographed, there is a hidden surface on which these two lights hits each other and form a sentient body of image which may not be the actual representation of photographer and not the actual representation of the object in front of the lens.
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Laurenz Gemmer
Country of origin: Germany
Discipline: Music
Term of residency: 1.08 – 30.09.2019
http://dasendederliebe.de/
Laurenz Gemmer’s artistic focus lies on piano improvisation, in which he has cultivated a unique, intuitive style of playing that is characterized by a crossing of stylistic borders while constantly striving for authentic musical quality. His thorough musical foundation in the areas of New Music, Jazz and “classical music” creates tensions among which Gemmer’s particular artistic expression evolves. He performs in various band formations, all of which are striving for unique musical expression through innovative sound timbres, custom-made compositions and improvisational spaces on the cross roads between musical genres. Gemmer teaches at the music colleges in Freiburg and Cologne.
The effect of the residence at the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka will be the completion of his soloalbum with the working title Hybris. The unusual set-up of Hybris consists of the combination of the semi-electronic grand piano Yamaha CP70, Hammond Melodion 44 HP and the software Ableton Live. The sound of CP70 and prepared CP70, which is already very special, is further processed, developed or alienated by the software in various ways.
The desired sound result is made up of four different fields of tension or priorities:
– contemporary and experimental aspects are related to pop(ular) and jazz-influences.
– acoustic and pianistic aspects meet with idioms of electronic music (including electronic dance music).
– complex and mathematical aspects of music meet intuitive and emotional moments.
– the continuum and composition of improvisation.
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Marianna Serocka
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Drawing
Term of residency: 1 – 30.10.2019
https://culture.pl/pl/tag/marianna-serocka
Marianna Serocka – born in 1988, degree in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In 2016, I released a debut comic entitled Disco Cry.
Residency plan:
1) research about Uroczysko and the Witches’ Tower: interviews with residents, study of municipal archives (films, photographs, town plans, etc.), records of possible locations confronted with the memories of inhabitants
2) development of the existing script, division into individual scenes, confronting the script with inhabitants, consultation with inhabitants, which is an indispensible part of script creation.
3) completion of the residency – presentation of the material to an audience.
http://www.mariannaserocka.com/
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ARTISTIC RESIDENCY PROGRAM
2018
Anton Karyuk
Country of origin: Ukraine
Discipline: sculpture, photography, installations, video
Term of residency: 01.02 – 31.03.2018
https://www.facebook.com/antonkaryukart/
Anton Karyuk: ukrainian artist, based in Kyiv and Vilnius. Studied art and architecture at the Prydniprovs’ka Academy of Architecture (UA). He is the founder of the art group Step’ (social projects, performance and different media). The artist works in the field of abstract painting, performance, social initiatives and installations. Also takes part in Eastern Europe and Turkish residences. He collaborates with Korean, British and Ukrainian artists in the genre of performance. The world of modern media gives evidences of availability of public information for every user. But over time, private sites and dating applications of the virtual world started to input a paid option to view questionnaires, blurring the main photo into an abstract color spot that visually resembles a person’s aura. So what is the power of modern virtual space in, if not in accessibility? The project is a installations inspired from local resources for dating and questionnaires of local residents.
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Olena Siyatovska
Country of origin: Ukraine
Discipline: sculpture, photography, installations, video
Term of residency: 01.02 – 31.03.2018
Lena Siyatovska works with graphics, texts, installation and performance. Graduated from National University of Oles Honchar (Ukraine), Faculty of Philology and Art History. The artist’s interest is in the types of social relationships, consumption culture and processes of post-Soviet transformation. She is a co-founder and member of the Step’ group. Consumption is one of the major categories of the modern people. I want to explore the differences between the Polish and Ukrainian realities in spaces around the market, to find new forms, materials, stories. The market is a mirror that honestly shows to everyone how valuable their line of work is to others. What can the person who buys and the person who sells have in common in addition to this? Why are we interested in goods and services, and not in the people who are behind them? The effect of the residence will be an installation in public space and gallery exhibition of photographs/video from Poland and Ukraine.
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Marek Straszak
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline : Photography, video
Term of residency: 02 – 09.02.2018
www.marekstraszak.com
Marek Straszak studied art and media at the University of Arts (UdK) in Berlin (DE), and photograph and multimedia at the Academy of Fine Arts. He is a freelancer, new media artist, working in the field of motion graphics, interactive audiovisual installations and kinetic sculptures. He collaborates with theaters, media houses, museums and cultural institutions.
Porost_edit2 is indoor version of an outdoor audiovisual instalaltion (made for Lumo Bjalistoko Festival of Light 2017). Hosting by CAT Ustka and Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki, the lichen will grow once more time and settle within 1squere meter in the gallery space. The Installation deals with optic illusioin, synesthesia, audiovisuality, symbiotics and poetry.
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Jeawon Kim
Country of origin: Republic of Korea
Discipline : Installation, drawing
Term of residency: 01.04 – 15.05.2018
www.jeawonkim.com
Jeawon Kim: Jeawon Kim is a visual artist from South Korea. She received her BFA and MFA at School of Visual Arts in New York City and currently lives and works in Seoul. Her work has been exhibited in South Korea, Japan and the United States, and she has participated in projects, which were held in spaces that had been abandoned for historical and political reasons for a long time but still contain their own meaning and story. These projects include Mukojima Project, Tokyo, Japan in 2016, The Third Space Projects, Utica, USA in 2015, The Battery Project, Tallinn, Estonia in 2014 and Art Factory Project, Janghang, South Korea in 2012.
I am interested in the fact that architecture cannot be existed itself, and its shape and structure are affected by particular periods, histories and politics. I plan to research Polish architecture in Ustka and observe them with my own perspective as a foreigner who grew up in a country where is geographically far but has very similar aspects with Poland in the history. Through this research, I would like to choose one specific place, where has a unique spatiality and placeness, and reinterpret the immanence of the architecture, which social and historical flows have been indwelled, into my visual language. At the end of the residency program, I anticipate to present a site-specific installation and all collected archives and documents including drawings and writings.
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Serena Vittorini
Country of origin: Italy
Discipline: photography
Term of residency: 01.04 – 31.05.2018
www.serenavittorini.com
Serena Vittorini was born in L’Aquila where she lives. She has loved photography since she was a child but only after graduating in Psychology she decided to devote herself to the study of photography, at ISFCI (Institute of Photography and Integrated Communication). In addition to her studies she started working as a freelance photographer focusing mostly on commissions related to portraiture and still life. Besides her professional career she also dedicates herself to the artistic career. After exploring some techniques such as light painting, she could produce personal projects which have been included in group and solo shows. Keen observer of everyday life, she lives photography as a tool for telling her thoughts in a personal way describing faces of people crossing her path. In her work individuals who are sometimes isolated from their social context emerge, guiding the attention to their typical features, sometimes overwhelmed by the grotesque surroundings.
I would like to realize a project based on existing realities at the borders of great cities. Witness how the choice of living outside a metropolis is due to socio-economic problematics and how – on the contrary – this is due to the necessity to reconcile with nature and a less chaotic lifestyle. My aim is to focus on details that are normally misread as today’s fast world does not let people see them far what they are and for their symbolic power. I think it’s important to do this kind of research as some stories at city boundaries preserve a defining folklore but they are also a symbol of a changing society where integration becomes a keyword for all of us. The result of my work will be an exhibition and, i hope, a fanzine.
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Humberto Duque
Country of origin: Mexico
Discipline: Socially involved art, art in public space, performance
Term of residency: 15.05 – 15.07.2018
www.humbertoduque.com
Project: POLORAMA
Humberto Duque’s art education includes: ENPEG La Esmeralda in Mexico City, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe in Germany, and CCA Kitakyushu Research Program in Japan. He has been a resident artist at the ISCP-NYC, Bemis Art Center, Tokyo Wonder Site, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, and several other programs. He has been commissioned public art projects by the Denver International Airport, and the Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder in Norway. His work has been shown museums, art galleries, and independent art spaces around the world.
POLORAMA is a project that aims to create a crossover between Mexican and Polish pop-music. Through a series of participatory events open to people in the community, we will establish connections between local “Disco Polo” music and the stories depicted in popular Mexican “Tambora” songs –a genre whose roots actually come from Central Europe. We will translate and adapt lyrics from the Spanish into Polish in order to create mashups that will culminate in Karaoke-style performances. These exercises intend to bridge the gap between two countries that mostly know about each other through stereotypes, and question the elements that mold a local identity.
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Denton Fredrickson
Country of origin: Canada
Discipline: sculpture, installation
Term of residency: 01.06 – 31.07.2018
www.dentonfredrickson.ca
Denton Fredrickson was born in Drayton Valley, Alberta in 1977. His earliest memories are of the Prairie Grasslands stretching through to the Foothills and Rocky Mountains of Canada. Before completing a multidisciplinary BFA in 2001, Denton worked as a welder for Kananaskis Provincial Park, received his Trade Certificate of Lutherie (traditional acoustic instrument design and construction) from the province of Saskatchewan (Timeless Instruments), and completed his Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy/Religious Studies/Anthropology) from the University of Lethbridge, Canada and University of Pune, India. Fredrickson received his Masters of Fine Arts (Sculpture and Media Art) from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2003. His work has been exhibited across North America, Europe, and Asia. He currently works out of Lethbridge, Alberta where he is an Associate Professor (Sculpture and Media Art) in the Art Department of the University of Lethbridge.
Project:
Denton Fredrickson’s work invites experiential and contemplative interactions with sound, objects, and architectural space. The seductive lure of both old and new wonders, fantastic inventions, and absurd theories are familiar territories for Fredrickson. He investigates their histories and representations in popular culture through research, collaboration, humour, and the practice of making. For the BGSW Residency, Denton will respond to his new experiences of the local region and community by producing a kinetic sound installation combining collage and hand-drawn animation with home-made electronics, motors, and digitally-mapped video projection.
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Grzegorz Stefański
Country of origin: Poland
Art discipline: film, photography, performance
Period of residency: 15.08 – 15.09. 2018
www.grzegorzstefanski.com
Grzegorz Stefański, born in 1983, lives and works in London and Warsaw. A graduate of The Slade School of Fine Arts in London, and the Department of Spatial Activities run by Mirosław Bałka at the Department of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, degree in philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 2017, he won the Ivan Juritz Prize in London and the Grand Prix at the Biennale of Young Art “Fish Eye 9” in Ustka. He made his debut in 2010 with a solo exhibition at the Goldex-Poldex Cooperative during the Photographic Month in Kraków. Since then, he has presented his work at many famous venues, including the Whitechapel Gallery in London (2018), the Manifesta 11 in Zurich (2016), the Pastificio Cerere Foundation in Rome (2014) and the NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 in New York (2010). He cooperates with the Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, the Królikarnia / National Museum in Warsaw and the Bunkier Sztuki in Kraków.
The aim of the residency is to create a film which will premiere during a solo exhibition at CAT in October 2018. The work will deal with the difference between film fiction and reality, or rather it will focus on a vaguely defined boundary between the two. The film will be shot on the beach, which in itself forms a stage for various social behaviours, and marks the
boundary between culture and nature. The film will also feature local extras willing to participate in the making of the picture.
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Paweł Althamer & Artur Żmijewski
Discipline: sculpture, video
Country of origin: Poland
Period of residency: 26.09 – 10.10. 2018
Meeting with artists: 3 October, 2018 / 6 p.m.
Venue: Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka
Project: Kolaże / Collages
Project curator: Adam Mazur
“We sit at the table to paint, draw and glue things. We start at around 11 and finish after midnight. We show our work immediately, then hang it to dry. Same thing for 10 days. We draw inspiration from illustrations found in books and albums, we cut them out, and include them in our composition. That’s why we call it Collages,”say the artists describing the suggested activity and exhibition. The project run by Paweł Althamer and Artur Żmijewski in the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka has become a tradition. It involves joint trips and joint work. During their residence in Japan, the artists started using delicate graphic papers, mascara and stamps. At some point, they all began to read poems by dead poets including Bukowski, Miłosz, Kawafis, Staff, Celan, Grochowiak and Wojaczek. After years of struggle for the freedom of critical expression, the artists continue to surprise critics and audiences alike. The works are small in size, and require concentration, sensitivity and the ability to penetrate the context. Politics gives way to poetry, teaching makes room for contemplation, at least for the duration of the exhibition.
Paweł Althamer and Artur Żmijewski are a couple of leading contemporary artists. Born in the 1960s, they both debuted in the ’90s. Both sculptors by training, they don’t shy away from video art, photography, drawing, painting and, of course, spatial art. In spite of different temperaments and styles, Althamer and Żmijewski have stuck to each other since their university years when they studied under Grzegorz Kowalski. And when they work together on a joint project, which happens from time to time, they never give up on their individuality. Few people know it, but this is an important experience for both of them.
Adam Mazur – art historian, curator, lecturer at the University of Arts in Poznań
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Anna Maria Pabiś
Country of origin: Poland Discipline: art, dance, film
Term of residency: 02.11 – 02.12.2018
www.aniapabis.com
Anna Maria Pabiś – focuses on examining creativity, exhibits her work (photography, video, installation, dance) in Germany and Poland. A former member of artistic groups: TA Collective, Trans: Motion and Art, and Neuroscience Ecke in Berlin. The artist was born in 1984 in Poland, she studied ethnolinguistics at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and after that obtained a degree in photography at the Film School in Łódź. Her other activities involve research and production.
The artist is currently working on a book and an artistic film “Feniks”, whose action is taking place among others in Ustka. “Feniks” tells the process of developing human consciousness from the birth to the age of 36 in the language of magical realism, that is, documentary elements mix with fantasy and fairytale (inspired by “100 years of solitude” by Marquez, prose by Haruki Murakami and filmography by David Lynch). The film begins with Orwellian 1984 and ends in 2020, referring in the meantime to the Middle Ages and prehistory.
As part of the residence, Ania Pabiś will conduct a film research about Ustka in 1995: interview Ustka residents, review the municipal archives (films, photographs, city plans, etc.), document possible locations, write down memories as film scenes. The collected material will serve the artist as a base for writing the book and for preparing the final performance of Butoh- dance theater (like http://www.aniapabis.com/der-kleine-papa/). Additionally, the resident will conduct a weekly workshop of the BUTOH INTENSIVE- dance theater for interested residents of Ustka. Eager participants will also be able to take part in the final Butoh Performance that will be filmed and published.
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Gabriella Zeno
Country of origin: Italy
Discipline: performing arts, performance
Term of residency: 02.11 – 02.12.2018
www.lotusinproject.com
Gabriella Zeno is an author, director and performer whose activity is focused on performing arts and is positioned at the intersection of social, political and visual art. After she had achieved a degree in Italian Literature at the Federico II University of Naples, she graduated in Corporeal Mime at the I.C.R.A Project – International Centre for the Research of the Actor (Italy). Later she studied Physical Theatre with the Odin Theatret ensemble, and Butoh Dance with the japanese masters Akira Kasai and Masaki Iwana. She took part in several festivals such as, the Magfest Italia (2010-2011) Tourin, Italy, the Odin Week Festival 2015 in Holstebro, Denmark, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016, in Scotland.
My research currently focuses on the study of limits and paradoxes of our patriarchal system and on the consequences that this system causes in terms of social, political and environmental issues. During my residency at the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka, I plan to work on a project on femine identity focused on motherhood, memory and genealogy wich involves the realization of an installation and the creation of an interactive performance with the audience and with all the participants in the physical theatre workshop I’ll led in Słupsk .The goal of this new work is to investigate the links between personal individuality and historic subjectivity as women in our society, and to broaden awareness about the objectification of female body of women and of farmed animals in our patriarchal and capitalist system.
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ARTISTIC RESIDENCY PROGRAM
2017
Mirosław Bałka
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Sculpture, drawing, video
Term of residency: 01.10.2016 – 30.09.2017
http://miroslaw-balka.com/
Mirosław Bałka was born in 1958 in Warsaw, Poland. Sculptor also active on the field of experimental video and drawing. In 1985 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he runs Studio of Spatial Activities at Department of Media since 2011. Received the Mies van der Rohe Stipend in Krefeld. The member of Akademie Der Kunste, Berlin. His works were exhibited at numerous international shows such as: Documenta, Kassel (1992), Venice Biennale (1990, 1993, 2003, 2005, 2013),The Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1995), Sao Paulo Biennale (1998), Liverpool Biennial (1999), Sydney Biennale (1992, 2006), Santa Fe Biennial (2006). In 2009 he presented special project “How It Is” at Unilever Series, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London. Author of the memorial to the victims of the Estonia Ferry disaster in Stockholm (1997). His works are owned by museums worldwide including: Tate Modern / London, Van Abbemuseum / Eindhoven, MOCA / Los Angeles, SFOMA / San Francisco, MOMA / New York, Hirshhorn Museum / Washington DC, Art Institute / Chicago, The Carnegie Museum of Art / Pittsburgh, Museu Serralves / Porto, Moderna Museet / Stockholm, Kiasma / Helsinki, Kroller Muller / Otterlo, The National Museum of Art / Athens, The National Museum of Art / Osaka, The Israel Museum / Jerusalem. In Poland: Museum of Art / Lodz, Centre of Contemporary Art / Warsaw, Zacheta National Gallery of Art / Warsaw, Museum of Modern Art / Warsaw, The National Museum / Wroclaw, MOCAK / Cracow
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Agata Elsner i Marek Straszak
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline : Photography, video
Term of residency: 02 – 23.01.2017
www.marekstraszak.com
Agata Elsner: an actress, performer, nutritionist, and the founder of a number of projects in the field of art and the culinary world. For 12 years she has been strongly associated with Poznań alternative theatres (Teatr Ósmego Dnia [Eighth Day Theatre], Teatr Biuro Podróży [Travel Agency Theatre]). Currently, she co-creates the Circus Ferus group. Many a time she received scholarships from the Ministry of Culture.
Marek Straszak studied art and media at the University of Arts (UdK) in Berlin (DE), and photograph and multimedia at the Academy of Fine Arts. He is a freelancer, new media artist, working in the field of motion graphics, interactive audiovisual installations and kinetic sculptures. He collaborates with theaters, media houses, museums and cultural institutions.
There are many reasons and secrets that make people live for long time. For some, it is a healthy lifestyle or genetic predispositions, while for others their work and the mission connected with it. Our protagonists are the longest living inhabitants of Ustka and our task is to make a detailed analysis of their daily life and perhaps even find a universal philosophy of life. The effect of the residence will be an exhibition of photographs/video with descriptions, and some culinary recipes as well. With this project we would like to understand better the processes responsible for aging. Perhaps we can capture the humorous aspect of aging and discover an elixir of longevity, for which not only Gilgamesh dreamed.
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Alina Belyagina
Country of origin: Russia
Discipline: Performance, choreography, photography, new media
Term of residency: 10.01 – 23.03.2017
http://alinabelyagina.wixsite.com/urbandance
Alina Belyagina is a choreographer and performer, living in Munich since a few years. She was brought up in Russian culture, but her strong connections with choreography and dancing resulted from her associations with Poland. She graduated from the University of Arts and Culture in Moscow, and studied ancient Greek and Latin at the University of Silesia. She works in the borderland of visual arts, linking dance and choreography with philosophy and literature.
During her artistic residence at the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka she is to present a project that includes a dance workshop for dancers and inhabitants of Słupsk and Ustka, where dance plays the role of a tool of communication. The major theme of the workshop will be an attempt to answer the question of “whether the city might look and act the same way as the body.” The project’s choreography will be strongly linked with the urban character of Słupsk and Ustka and the work of the Spanish painter Pablo Palazuelo. The resulting image will include the human body in the trans-geometrical context of the city. A series of performances in the public space will be a dialogue between the author and the audience. A series of workshops for local inhabitants will be run as well. The final result will include a photographic exhibition Biogeometry in the public space of Słupsk and Ustka, as well as a performance.
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Bogusław Bachorczyk
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: painting, sculpture and photography
Term of residency: 02 – 11.02.2017 / 01.07 – 31.08.2017
http://bachorczyk.com/
Bogusław Bachorczyk (born in 1969) is a painter, sculptor, draughtsman, multimedia creator, and a curator of exhibitions, an assistant professor in the department of drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He is a graduate of the class of sculpture in the Kenar High School in Zakopane and the faculty of painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He was a grant holder of the City of Nuremberg, and winner of the Józef Czapski scholarship (a study visit in France). His works have been presented at more than 50 individual and collective exhibitions, including those at the Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery in Kraków, the National Museum in Krakow, the Museum of Photography in Krakow, Zderzak Gallery in Kraków, Atak Gallery in Warsaw, ABC Gallery in Poznań, Gallery of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin, the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Słupsk, and the Tatra Museum in Zakopane. He has been an originator and performer of a few long-term creative projects, including keeping a journal/scrapbook (since 1986) and the project Atelier Czysta 17 (since 2003). In his art, often presented in the form of installations that include elements of performance art, he combines different media. He works with actors, dancers, poets (as an illustrator), and is also a creator of art books. He addresses the legacy of some great artists (Iwaszkiewicz, Siebald, Has, Rodchenko, Nijinsky, Hasior). He is interested in issues of history and time, identity, individual discovering of one’s private past, as well as bricolage and craft techniques combined with modern media.
The project which Bogusław Bachorczyk is to conduct at the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka is based on differences in the relationship of humans with gardens and plants, perceived by the French botanist, anthropologist and linguist, André-Georges Haudricourt (1911-1996). We will try to look at the garden as an evidence of human relations with the world and at the same time an image of relationships resulting from the accepted moral and philosophical doctrines. Here the garden will become an element that levels the boundaries between culture and nature. Man has domesticated plants, and the plants and the garden created home for him. They are present in art, science and religion. Dishes, lamps, flowers, still lives and landscapes. Food, magical herbs, medicinal herbs. Silage, jams and tinctures. Perfumeries, greenhouses, vegetable gardens. Rituals, symbols, plant morphology and philosophical doctrines.
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Aleksandra Wałaszek
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: installation, performance, sculpture and video
Term of residency: 15.02 -31.03.2017
http://www.aleksandrawalaszek.com/
For her artistic activities, Wałaszek uses such media as installation, performance, sculpture and video. The nature of the artist’s work is often dictated by her own experience of being in a particular place, using a particular language, and absorbing a particular culture. The artist often creates conceptual designs based on processuality and participatoriness. The living relationship with the viewer is for Wałaszek the basis for dialogue, which powers most of her projects.
MadMaps Ustka is a follow-up to a project which aims at relating the history of a given town from the perspective of its inhabitants (the original project was created in 2015 in Japan). This is a proposal to explore one’s own space through the prism of legends and memories, a cultural guerrilla war, whose main objective is to create a metaphorical bridge between history and a nostalgic memory. A story is not only an item of prose, but also an event, a state of memory embedded in a tangible structure. It is a sense of direction drawing on Foucault’s heterotropia or a utopian representation created from invisible layers and relationships. With the help of residents of Ustka, I would like to contribute to the creation of an urban symphony, which will become a universal memory of the place and the people who live there.
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Jana Gombikova
Country of origin: Slovakia
Discipline: photography, video
Term of residency: 15.03 – 30.04.2017
http://cargocollective.com/janagombikova
Jana Gombiková was born in Trenčín, Slovakia. She graduated from the Academy of Music and Performing arts, Film and TV department, Bratislava, Slovakia, now she continues her studies at Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian university in Opava, Czech republic. In her work she focuses mostly on documentary photography, often combined with text and video.
Winter blues is the more poetic name of seassonal affective disorder, caused by lack of sunlight. It’s strongly connected to the cycles of nature – winter is a time of hibernation. During the period of winter depression, people tend to hide inside themsleves, digging deep inside of feelings ussually hidden under the surface of their daily lives. It’s the period of dealing with darkness, both outside and inside. Sleep is sometimes compared to death, but it
also means regeneration, a time to gather one’s strenght. From this perspective, winter blues seems kind of natural – it shows that we are a part of nature, the deep internal connection all living beings share together.
I would like to create a photoseries and video installation in cooperation with local people suffering from this disease. The series should be based on my own experience with winter blues.
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Samuel Forrest Stevens
Country of origin: United States
Discipline: sculpture, design.
Term of residency: 01.04 – 30.05.2017
www: cargocollective.com/samstevens
Sam Stevens is an educator, artist and craftsperson. Born in Kansas City Missouri, he studied Fine Art, and Cultural Theory in Kansas City and Berlin. His practice spans the everyday practices of a working educator and including artistic achievements, curatorial projects and discourse. Working as a fulltime cabinetmaker and educator, his work investigates the cultural specificity of art making, material, and the environment. His work has been exhibited in Kansas City at, the H&R Block Artspace, Plug Projects, the Blue Djinn Gallery, as well as photographic work published continuously in The Hand Magazine. He has taken part as an educational collaborator in programs with the University of Missouri
Kansas City, Kansas City Art Institute, Youth Ambassadors Inc. and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.
Objectifying Nature, “Creation”, Representation
FORMS AND ORIGINS
The aim of this project is to produce a book of “paintings” (reproductions) and mapped location in which they were found. The objective of the book is through a combination of architectural research, interviews, and observational drawing and photography, to create an interpretation of the forms of a specific locality. By giving context to forms and by making the implications of forms legible, their framework will be established, and the moments that they expand from that framework will be examined. Any object, manmade or natural,
was created for a purpose or as a reaction to outside forces. Once created, any object then exerts New physical, visual, or social forces on the world around it. It is when these cascades of causes and effects stem from social or cultural purposes but hinge on visual forms that interest me most.
The Book itself will be developed in two iterations. The First version will be an indeterminate and nonreproducible collection of observations, exhibitions, interviews, and information which is Explorer through the lens of composition and storytelling. The Second book will translate the first into a reproducible outlet for this investigation.
The projected timeframe for this project is 46 weeks. The dates planned for this residence is a time of seasonal change, the spring months of March and April, working in the sculpture
studio. The plan is also for a process of collaboration and innovation which comes from a group of motivated and talented people working together. And ultimately strives for a contribution to the creative commons, to foster a creative culture rather than produce marketable objects.
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Elvira Akzigitova
Country of origin: Republic of Estonia
Discipline: photography
Term of residency: 01.05 – 30.06.2017
www: chelovekvsobake.tumblr.com
Elvira Akzigitova (1988) is an analogue visual artist from the ex-Soviet cement suburbia in Estonia.
Photography is her way of dealing with a shifting and fragmented environment. Her work uncovers the bond between form and content, as well as the ambivalence between intension and chance.
After many years of working with digital formats, she came back to the cracks and crunches of film and non-traditional darkroom processes. She chooses in-depth and pure methods of visualisation, as opposed to cold digital detachment. Elvira is a graduate of Arts and Humanities(CCCU, UK), currently working in Berlin.
Elvira’s current field of interest lies in analogue electro-photography, a technique named THE KIRLIAN EFFECT, which allows the portrayal of glowing ENERGY FIELDS. These are bursts of light that suggest an affinity towards capturing the ephemeral and passing nature.
BODY ELECTRIC and FLOWERS OF EVIL are the evolving electro-photography series that Elvira is visually recording and researching. She believes that every “living” thing radiates, and is able to cast spells with its magnetism – personal objects, flora and fauna, and most powerfully, people.
Influenced by the visionary, yet debatable Psychic Researches Behind the Iron Curtain, the artist’s work refers to the suggestive imaginary science. Behind it lies her distrust of an image that is too explicit about its own logic or explains its own metaphor. The main practice of the artist is to catch the alchemy of things within a specific environment and treat them with a sacred allure.
During her residency, Elvira will be collecting, recording and manipulating plant and human ELECTRIC reactions on photo and X-ray film.
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Kristina Inčiūraitė
Country of origin: Lithuania
Discipline: Film, photography, installations, performance
Term of residency: 15.06 – 15.07.2017
www.inciuraite.lt
Kristina Inčiūraitė, lives and works in Vilnius, a contemporary artist. She makes mainly videos, video installations, experimental films, performances, photographs, and sound projects. Her works have been presented at art institutions such as the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kiev, the Oi Futuro Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, the Kalmar konstmuseum in Sweden, the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, the ar/ge kunst Galerie Museum in Bolzano, the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, the Műcsarnok in Budapest, the NGBK in Berlin, the Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain in Luxembourg, the Pori Art Museum in Finland, and elsewhere. She has attended artists’ residencies in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Romania, Sweden and China.
Kristina Inčiūraitė will implement the intimate musical performance ‘The Fragment as a Proverb’ in collaboration with singers from Ustka. This project was implemented recently with two famous Lithuanian choirs at several art institutions in Lithuania. Agnès Jaoui, the screenwriter of Alain Resnais’ film ‘On Connait les Chansons’ (1997), once said that by gathering popular songs for the film, she used fragments of songs like proverbs. According to her, the commonplaces we find in the words of popular songs summarise our feelings, but at the same time they impoverish them. This project tries to reverse the situation in the market-driven modern world, where audio-visual technologies offer us various ‘algorithms’ of pleasure and satisfaction (such as pop songs).
In the performance, various pieces of music are performed by singers individually: the participants select listeners randomly, and hum a selected popular tune into their ear, while the rest of the audience awaits an intimate experience. Humming, a reduced form of song, which represents the ‘impoverished’ experience, in this case probably becomes the ‘enriched’ experience: the tune becomes personally desirable.
The melody, as a part of our memory, raises questions about our social behaviour. What do we, singers and listeners, have in common? Do we share similar emotions and experiences?
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Odette Graskie
Country of origin: South Africa
Discipline: sculpture, artistic fabric, painting
Term of residency: 01.08 – 30.09.2017
www.odettegraskie.weebly.com
www.thegrinart.wordpress.com
Odette Graskie is a young artist living in Johannesburg, South Africa and is a studio artist at End Street Studios, an extension of August House. Graskie finished her BA in Fine Arts at the University of Pretoria in 2015 and has since taken part in many education opportunities such as the Professional Practice Seminar hosted by Lizamore and Associates and ArtSource, as well as the most recent Peer Mentorship Program at Assemblage. Recently, Graskie has exhibited at Assemblage in the group show Shift and in Future Forecast at Galerie Noko, and was a finalist in the Longstreet Art Lovers Art Competition 2016, Thami Mnyele Art Awards 2014 & 2016, TAXI Art Award 2015 and the Absa L’Atelier 2015.
Graskie works with storytelling in a variety of mediums, including woodcarving, textile art, painting and works on paper. Her most recent works have been preoccupied by unused words, as language prescribes how we can process our daily lives. This will be explored under the larger topic of Human Noise and creatures that describe our existence as humans. Human Noise refers to the famous quote by Raymond Carver, “I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.” and describes her most recent fascination with the fiction of those around her.
The town of Ustka has its own connection with fiction and storytelling, and Graskie will be exploiting its rich fantasy world in connection with the topic of Human Noise. She hopes to interact with the people of the city, and create a work or a body of works that will interact with the city and the people inside its borders, based on a word that is discovered in these interactions. The word will lend itself to a medium and become an artwork described by the town itself – whether a sculpture, soft sculpture or any sort of work on paper, bringing the fictitious and fantastic with the city of Ustka.
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Filipe Afonso
Country of origin: Portugal
Discipline: Film, sculpture.
Term of residency: 16.10 – 30.11.2017
www.filipeafonso.net
Filipe Afonso’s work explores different modes of mediation (technology, media, art, tourism, religion, politics and economy) between humans and what they see, hear, think and feel. Influenced by the way human beings interact with technology and how our access to images is being transformed, his work, even if it sometimes can be focused on an individual, speaks of global and universal meanings for contemporary anxieties produced in these forms of mediation. Currently based in Paris, he studied Cinema in Lisbon and Prague. He has shown his work, curated or collaborated – among others – with the Harvard Film Archive, Anthology Film Archives, Microscope Gallery, Kassel Dokfest, the Portuguese and Tel Aviv Cinematheques, Indielisboa, Artists Television Access, Platoon Kunsthalle, Collectif Jeune Cinema, Cinema du Reel, Centre Pompidou, Gaite Lyrique, Pleasure Dome and MIX NYC.
The current project investigates how history and national identity are informed and controlled through material and cultural production, and how they call our attention to the economic and cultural dichotomies between west-east, north-south through the growing market of traffic of artefacts (between rich archaeological countries and the western economically rich countries) in recent years and the political agenda of national (and traditionally western) museums aimed to offer universal goods and services. This work questions our relation to historical and contemporary cultural artefacts, the routes they take and who owns or may own them from an historical, cultural or legal point of view and explores our emotional relation with these. From a global perspective to a local scale.
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Luisa Spina
Country of origin: Italy
Discipline: sculpture, philosophy
Term of residency: 01.10 – 30.11.2017
http://luisaspina.tumblr.com/
Born in Italy and based in London for the past decade, Luisa Spina carries on her practice as artist, social sculpture practitioner and educator/facilitator as a result of a professional development that started 15 years ago with her career in acting. Graduated in Fine Art in 2011 from Central Saint Martins, she specialised In sculpture, maintaining a strong interest in socio-political issues. In 2013 she undertook a Master degree In Social Sculpture as well as various courses in Philosophy for Children and Art Therapy. In 2016, she became a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts, for her cooking project ‘Small Gatherings for Big Thoughts’ , a participatory dialogue process that looks at food as a catalyst to discuss cultural differences. For the past 4 years she has been focusing on devising transformative participatory processes that look at different strategies of public engagement to stimulate dialogue, exchange and reflection.
Living in a world were individualism and predetermined dysfunctional systems are sustained, we strive for self- expression and freedom. I believe that we, fluid, imaginative and changeable beings have the capacity to see and connect to the social organism we live in. By reacting to whatever is given to us, we discover our real freedom, which lays in the very ability and sensitivity to respond.’ For this residency Luisa Spina is looking to connect to the community by taking in consideration social, economical and multicultural questions emerging from the local territory in the wider context of globalisation. In her research process, she will be offering sessions designed to stimulate exchange and connectivity. This shared collective form of enquiry will eventual ly act as the sparkler for new forms to emerge. All mediums will be considered included sculpture, installation, audio recordings, collage making, writing and live acts.
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Artistic Residency Program
2016
Group of artists from Egypt
Discipline: Photography, video, drawing, painting
Term of residency: January 2016 – February 2016
‘We first met in February 2015 through a project organized by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and involving over 100 Egyptian artists in a month-long trip along the Nile to realize new artworks. This project, titled “North and South”, brought us together as a group of 12 artists despite our differences in age, experience and background. It triggered aspects of self and mutual discovery; throughout the month, the field visits, screenings, discussions and brainstorming sessions we had allowed for examining borders within and between ourselves as separate entities. Hence, the idea of “Shifting Borders” came up as a common theme of interest among us: how we as individual artists and as a group work in flux, constructing and deconstructing something in between. The twelve of us have stayed in touch since; we want to examine this situation again and present different points of view through visual narration and different mediums.
We believe a second gathering is needed to develop and realize our projects; and Poland would be an ideal place for such a gathering to discover the concept of borders that change and expand according to human mobility, examine how geographic and political boundaries affect the concept of our existence, how values define identities, how difficult it is to negotiate values when in conflict and explore the imaginative possibilities of shifting borders, the middle zone (the unstable space that exists in between) where influences merge and different cultural traditions co-exist in ways that seem to cancel their disparity.
During our visit, each one of us will consider his personal definition of the term “shifts” and his perception of “borders” as a subject for his artistic approach, as well as a distinct way to reflect his mental ideology.
Are we ready for a change? That is the question we would like to answer with 12 experimental group of work entitled “Shifting Borders”.’
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Natalie Rosin
Country of origin: Australia
Discipline: Ceramics, Sculpture
Term of residency: May 2016 – June 2016
www.natalie-rosin.com
Natalie Rosin was born in Sydney, Australia. She works as a ceramicist and full-time architect, having completed a Masters in Architecture from the University of New South Wales in 2014. Her practice involves the intersection of these disciplines through architectural ceramic sculpture among other inquires. During her tertiary education in Australia and USA, she formally studied ceramics, sculpture and installation art. She has been included in exhibitions in Sydney at Chinaclay, BrandX, District01, Daminen Minton Gallery, Dickerson Gallery, The Incinerator Gallery, M.Contemporary, Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre and Federation Square in Melbourne.
Recently Natalie was published in the arts and culture publication Sydney Broadsheet, viewed here. For more information about Natalie’s practice and other media coverage, visit her website at www.natalie-rosin.com
Projects
Attached in this document are a limited selection of artistic projects created. For an extensive list of sculptures and projects visit www.natalie-rosin.com
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Zhang Xing
Country of origin: Chiny
Discipline: fotografia, video, nowe media
Term of residency: August 2016 – September 2016
Zhang Xing is a photographer from China. During her stay at The Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka will realize a project “Let the Dust Settle”. For this project, she wants to focus on dust as the subject matter. Dust particles, although present all around us, are material that largely goes unnoticed. Our instinct is to remove it from sight and from our environment. By creating images of dust, she aims to discard the negative connotations such as “dirty“ or that “the time has passed” and examine the indefinite qualities of dust. She will use a 21st century machine, called “Scan Cube” This contemporary process draws on the themes of consumer society. She plans to use this machine and take picture of dust (the element without value).
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Molly Lloyd
Country of origin: Stany Zjednoczone
Discipline: grafika komputerowa
Term of residency: October 2016 – December 2016
Molly Lloyd is a Printmaker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. Growing up with an architect as a father has molded how she views green and man made landscapes. His outlook has been a major part of how she views structures and has ingrained the way she looks at buildings, but essentially all forms. Printmaking allows an approach to creating and layering designs. Through the possibility of multiples, layers of color shifts, and size and material exploration each component naturally leads and adds to textural 2D imagery.
She has an open and adaptable project proposal that would be directly influenced by the space and people she would meet in Ustka. Molly Lloyd wants to reflect the visual language of signs, gardens, architecture, nature, restaurant design that she sees as a newcomer into a new town.
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Mirosław Bałka
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Sculpture, drawing, video
Term of residency: from September 2016
http://miroslaw-balka.com/
Mirosław Bałka was born in 1958 in Warsaw, Poland. Sculptor also active on the field of experimental video and drawing. In 1985 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he runs Studio of Spatial Activities at Department of Media since 2011. Received the Mies van der Rohe Stipend in Krefeld. The member of Akademie Der Kunste, Berlin. His works were exhibited at numerous international shows such as: Documenta, Kassel (1992), Venice Biennale (1990, 1993, 2003, 2005, 2013),The Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1995), Sao Paulo Biennale (1998), Liverpool Biennial (1999), Sydney Biennale (1992, 2006), Santa Fe Biennial (2006). In 2009 he presented special project “How It Is” at Unilever Series, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London. Author of the memorial to the victims of the Estonia Ferry disaster in Stockholm (1997). His works are owned by museums worldwide including: Tate Modern / London, Van Abbemuseum / Eindhoven, MOCA / Los Angeles, SFOMA / San Francisco, MOMA / New York, Hirshhorn Museum / Washington DC, Art Institute / Chicago, The Carnegie Museum of Art / Pittsburgh, Museu Serralves / Porto, Moderna Museet / Stockholm, Kiasma / Helsinki, Kroller Muller / Otterlo, The National Museum of Art / Athens, The National Museum of Art / Osaka, The Israel Museum / Jerusalem. In Poland: Museum of Art / Lodz, Centre of Contemporary Art / Warsaw, Zacheta National Gallery of Art / Warsaw, Museum of Modern Art / Warsaw, The National Museum / Wroclaw, MOCAK / Cracow.
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Artistic Residency Program 2015
Iza Moczarna-Pasiek
Country of origin: Poland
Discipline: Photography
Term of residency: August 2014 – June 2015
http://www.moczarna-pasiek.com.pl/
The project is an attempt at communicating with old women’s environment, aiming at creative activation of the milieu. Three subjects collaborate in the project, including the author, the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka (the multimedia studio) and the local society of the city of Słupsk and its surroundings.
In her projects Iza Moczarna-Pasiek considers a contemporary definition of femininity. She questions some stereotypic perceiving of femininity, considering the spheres of taboo built by the culture and religion of the Polish society. In her project Mermaids’ Singing she exceeds the taboo of women’s old age.
Women’s old age is still a taboo theme. The same is with the femininity of women in their post-production age. Such femininity exists neither in the public space nor the social discourse. After the age of 60 women become transparent, being only a target group for medicine and the anti-aging industry which question the very process of aging. It’s difficult to deny that the public space looks as if it is falling victim to the dictatorship of young faces, wanting to be identified only with such faces. In connection with this many women experience a very sad feeling of loosing their attractiveness with age. This occurs at various levels of life, i.e. the physical, sexual, social and professional level. Old women also feel pressure to withdraw from public life and from their previous position, and to age with dignity; with dignity means secretly. The only role ‘officially’ accepted and proposed to old women is the role of grandmother who helps parents in taking care of their children. This role automatically reduces the femininity of old women to only one dimension – a caretaker. This dimension, however, frequently happens because of the physical accessibility of an old woman and not because of her experience and knowledge.
The project Mermaids’ Singing invites senior women to reflect on their femininity, look at its various aspects and find the border between what’s personal and what’s imposed by culture and society. Another aim of the project is the creative activation of old women, inviting them to express creatively their femininity, play with the notion and definition of femininity, and contest it. The author together with the women members of the multimedia studio at the Centre for Creative Activities in Ustka invite women to creative actions with new technologies, thus breaking with the stereotype of an old woman as someone benighted and inept in the world of modern media.
The venue is not accidental. The closeness of the sea/water automatically imposes associations with the process of passing-by. And this process, even though quite natural and inevitable, is the area of activity of as difficult emotions as fear, trepidation, sadness and regret. A young girl becomes a woman at the moment of her first menstruation. The last menstruation is the analogous point of passage. Mass culture favours the image of woman, who, losing their reproduction function, loses their femininity. The project Mermaids’ Singing shows that it’s not true.
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Maryam Mohamed Hassan
Country of origin: Egypt
Discipline: Photography
Term of residency: January – February 2015
https://www.facebook.com/MaryamHassanPhotography
“I use photography to express my interpretation of the world around me, to explore fragments of life as an abstract form, to pass into a totally different dimension of reality, and expand my intuition to understand the hidden meanings of being and of life. I am inspired by the moments we lose of memory, so I consider my camera like a magician stick, that preserve a moment in moving time, record it to be remembered.
For me, I believe that communication between different cultures, and access to new experiences, would enrich the artist experience. Photography helps to interact with people I would otherwise not be able to engage with. I also think that places have special spirit; this spirit can delineate the features of the inhabitants of these places. And the camera is a gate to revel this soul.
My work is mainly photography. Each image is composed of many photographs, combined to create a mood. My photograph depends on creating layers of imagery, calligraphy, and story, each image has its own imagination, memory, thought, soul and depth finally I get completed work follows the elusive mysteries.
I use experimental techniques to arouse the mood of observer, sometimes I use (chemical processing), to get photos are similar to darkroom processes. Other photos are illuminated by backlight, and then painted after shooting. I have become more obsessed with found objects such as paper, cotton metals, and organic materials combining them to create rich textures by mixing ash, sand, and colours, with photography. I also use modern techniques (digital art) to achieve my concept.
The result is an image with photorealistic qualities and the feelings of a painting. I wish my art to lead the viewer to an extraordinary and unexpected journey of discovery the different human feelings. My work is meant to come to be alive in the viewer’s mind by merging with his experience and interaction with many different narratives in the viewer’s imagination.”
Maryam Hassan
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Giuseppe Santagata
Country of origin: Spain
Discipline: Photography
Term of residency: March – April 2015
Giuseppe Santagata received a B.A and a M.A in Law before focusing on photography. He studied Photography at the Antiono Failde School of Art and Design (AESD) in Ourense (Spain) and obtained an International Master’s in Conceptual and Artistic Photography at the School of Photography and Centre for Imaging (EFTI) in Madrid.
His work has been shown in exhibitions in New York, Madrid, Rome, Daegu and Valladolid and has been featured in publications such as Lens Culture, Le Journal de la Photographie and Revista Exc. Giuseppe is currently completing the Gachang Art Studio Residency in Korea.
“I would like to continue my newest project, ‘A leap into the shadow'” in Ustka.
This photography project, which was started in Italy and was continued in New York, Korea and Spain, seeks to step into and focus on two apparently different and contradictory realities: the end and the beginning of adult life. By comparing the elderly and adolescents, the project attempts to underline the anguish and uncertainty that these two groups face, in diverse parts of the world and in different socio-economic situations, with regards to their respective destinies. On the one hand, the elderly scrutinize the subtle confines between life and death, both accepting the end of a cycle and battling the idea that they might lack the time to start fresh. On the other hand, young people grapple with their desire to succeed in a reality predominated by insecurity, finding themselves powerless in the face of a foggy future.”
Giuseppe Santagata
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Matthew Bamber
Country of origin: Great Britain
Disciplines: Installation, video art, sculpture
Term of residency: April – June 2015
Matthew Bamber’s practice involves the collection of data from various spaces and incorporates installation, video, sculpture and text. Making the everyday day strange through his practice, his interest lies in the positioning of real or imagined bodies in virtual or physical spaces.
Since 2012 Bamber has been developing an historical art project which involves windows. He records windows from the inside of buildings and creates video installations around those films. The windows he chooses are hidden and overlooked and have some significance to the artist or his work; for instance, he recently filmed the interior views from windows in an artists’ studio and Bolton Museum objects store. Other windows he has chosen are known more publicly for their historical relevance and the events that happened their, for example, the room where Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her famous novel ‘North and South’. Bamber works with the idea that windows are a portal between one space and time and another. Each window tells a different story.
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Yukari Uto
Country of origin: Japan
Discipline: Performance
Term of residency: August – September 2015
http://yukariuto.6.ql.bz/eWorks.html
She has mainly created multimedia art works in which sound, video and body movement are combined.
Visual expression has features in common with music in structure. By extracting and recomposing them, she creates the situation where visual expression can be appreciated as if it were music listened by eyes.
While reading a score is one way to listen to sounds through eyes, her interest is focused on spontaneous and unavoidable feeling like visible things resonating directly in the mind. Seeing suddenly something flying to you and rebounding in an empty screen, you would hear a sharp sound through sight. There are tension, shock and exaltation. In front of her work, you could get a rich musical experience even in silence.
She would like to make a multi-video installation (it could be with performance sometimes.). Motif is sound and rhythm of pronunciation. Japanese and Polish have their own sound and rhythm. Extracted and compared pronunciation will be composed like music by her. She will appear in the video as Japanese and will ask some Polish to appear together. Her purpose is to make a new relationship between the two countries in the point of not politic or friendship but just sound and rhythm of their essential properties.
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Nicole Banowetz
Country of origin: United States
Discipline: sculpture
Term of residency: July – August 2015
http://nicolebanowetz.wordpress.com/
www.nicolebanowetz.com
Nicole Banowetz is a Denver sculptor who makes sewn inflatable sculptures and delicate assembled forms. Her artwork addresses vulnerability and struggle. She empowers objects through embellishment, building up protective layers, which with time become destructive. Her forms move freely between growth and decay blurring the distinction between decoration and disease.
Nicole Banowetz works professionally as an artist in sculpture, design, installation, and education. She graduated from Colorado State University in 2004 with a BFA in sculpture. She has also lived and worked internationally creating mosaic work in India and working and showing in Italy, Ireland, and England. Nicole is currently a member of Pirate Gallery in Denver and has shown in the Biennial of the Americas, The Museum of Outdoor Arts, the Arvada Center, and Ironton Gallery.
Nicole is currently living in Berlin, Germany and taking part in an artist in residency program with the Institut für Alles Mögliche.
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Kamila Wolszczak
Country of origin: Poland
Disciplines: performance, installation, drawing
Term of residency: September 2015
Kamila Wolszczak is a graduate of painting from the plastic arts institute of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and from the faculty of art mediation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. As an artist she expresses herself in such media as performance, installation and drawing. Since 2012 she has dealt with organising the independent out-of-institutional exhibitions. Her author project is called the self-portable universal exhibitions. Her diploma thesis concerned the transformation of artistic education into art mediation and out-of-institutional curatorship. The artistic part of her diploma work was the work Layers which included video documentation of some performances; this project was realised at Tomasz Opania public space actions studio.
The project Recording Track is an attempt at recording the time and space with analogue adhesive tape treated as a medium for reading and recording. The project is the continuation of the work Layers begun in 2012 during her scholarship stay in Valencia. Later in Poland the idea evolved, resulting in the work Piling Up presented at the exhibition entitled The Description, the exhibition of works by artists born in Poland after 1989 at the WRO art centre, Wroclaw.
The Recording Track will start in Świnoujście and end in Ustka. It will be a ten-day trek from the west to the east along the shore of the Baltic Sea. The track will be around 200 km long and made on foot during the first week of February 2015. Each day of the trek will be recorded on one reel of the self-adhesive tape 75mm wide and 25m long. The way of recording will consist in moving the tape with the author’s feet from the left to the right, winding the pure tape, processing the tape on the ground and, in the end, winding the tape back on an empty reel. In ten days 10 reels/objects documenting the trek will appear.
This work is an installation-in-the-process. Its idea refers to the forms of recording and digitalisation with contemporary technologies. The recorded material will include the elements of the ground and micro specks hovering in the air. It is a specific tribute to nature and to the classical work Panoramic Sea Happening by Tadeusz Kantor. The author will become a recording machine, directed towards the waves and with her back to the possible audience (if the audience appears, in the shape of tourists or encountered situations). This is also an analogy to Edward Krasiński, both in using lines and the accepted recording position.
The final effect will include the documentation in the shape of recorded reels and the video relation from the trek. The project doesn’t assume rigid results; the weather conditions and encountered situations will affect the final form of the work.