On collectivity and collaboration in art
- a symposium

21 - 24 November 2013

With: aiPotu, Mala Kline, Myriam Van Imschoot, Mette Edvardsen, Katla, Lewis & Taggart, Kristien Van den Brande, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens.

Program:
Opening Thursday 21 November 2013 at 20:00
Landmark/Bergen Kunsthall
Katla “Surfacing for Air” and aiPotu


Friday 22. November at 10:30 - 16:00
House of Litterature in Bergen
Myriam Van Imschoot “To Wave” at 11:00
Roundtable sessions with aiPotu, Mala Kline, Lewis & Taggart, Kristien Van der Brande, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens.

22. - 24. November
Cabin in Kvamskogen

BIO:

aiPotu is a collaboration between the artists Anders Kjellesvik and Andreas Siqueland. They met at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen in 2004 and have since worked together on travel-related projects. aiPotu began their collaboration with the purchase of an old mobile home. The vehicle served as the artists’ home, means of transport and exhibition space on a series of expeditions from 2004–2007. The first journey was Tour of Europe in which the figure of a number eight drawn on the European map served as their itinerary. Underway aiPotu made interventions in the public space, often in collaboration with local institutions. This was followed up with Nordic Tour. The work done was often social and sculptural nature. An example is Hotel in which the camper van was converted into a functioning hotel outside Bergen Kunsthall. Many of these early works were closely tied to the concept of an island: a closed, isolated and independent environment. In 2007 aiPotu decided to visit and connect different island communities by going on an Island Tour. The project began with a tour of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Some of aiPotu´s recent exhibitions and projects include Five Thousand Generations of Birds, Fitjar, Norway, Museo d’Arte Orientale, Torino, Italy, Boomerang Boat Museum, South Shields, England; Hordaland kunstsenter, Bergen, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; 16th Biennale of Sydney – Revolutions Forms That Turn; Tentshow, Kunsthallen Nikolaj in Copenhagen, Bergen Kunsthall; Volt, Bergen and Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo.
aipotu.org

Kristien Van den Brande is a writer, performer, dramaturge and editor in the field of performing arts. Many of the projects she is involved in explore the relation between speech and writing, transcribing and (re)embodying spoken or written word. Since 2008 she has been a member of Sarma, a Brussels-based artistic-discursive laboratory where she collaborates with Myriam Van Imschoot on notions and practices of embodied knowledge, oral transmission, interview archives and expanded publishing. She was a dramaturge for Christine De Smedt’s solo Untitled 4 (2011), a series of performative portraits of affiliated choreographers, based on re-incorporated interviews. This year she worked with Sarah Vanhee on Lecture For Every One, and in 2012 on Untitled (Leuven) and Untitled (Gent), a project that takes place in the houses of people who in their own language speak about the art objects they hold and how they relate to art outside the domestic environment. As a performer she takes part in Mette Edvardsen’s ongoing Time Has Fallen Asleep in the Afternoon Sunshine, learning books by heart and reading them from memory. In 2005 she was a researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, working on a collective research project initiated by Wim Cuyvers, about public space in Kinshasa-Brazzaville. It resulted in the book Brakin. Visualizing the Visible. Kristien Van den Brande has a MA in Pedagogical Philosophy and Theater Studies.

Mette Edvardsen
The work of Mette Edvardsen is situated within the performing arts field, but also explores other media and formats such as video and books. She has worked for several years as a dancer and performer for Les Ballets C. de la B. with Hans Van den Broeck (1996–2000) and Christine de Smedt (2000–2005), and danced in pieces by Thomas Hauert/ ZOO, Bock/ Vincenzi, Mårten Spångberg, Lynda Gaudreau, deepblue, and others. She created and produced two pieces in collaboration with Lilia Mestre, and made the project Sauna in Exile in collaboration with Heine R. Avdal, Liv Hanne Haugen and Lawrence Malstaf in 2002/2004. She choreographed and performed a version of Thomas Lehmen’s Schreibstück together with Christine de Smedt and Mårten Spångberg in 2004. Her own work includes the pieces Private collection (2002), Time will show (detail) (2004), Opening (2005/ 2006), The way/ you move (installation, 2006), or else nobody will know (2007), every now and then (2009), Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (2010), Black (2011), and the video works Stills (2002), coffee (2006), cigarette (2008) and Faits divers (2008). She presents her works internationally and continues to develop projects with other artists as both a collaborator and as a performer.
metteedvardsen.be

Myriam Van Imschoot is a Brussels-based writer and performance artist who works with sound and interview archives with an interest in the performative nature of documents and the construction of alternative historiographies. Fascinated by phenomena of long distance communication, she embarked on a cycle of works that deal with yodeling, crying and waving. Dealing with the question of proximity and distance, absence and resonance, she pursues her interest in the way humans attempt to bridge the gaps. Her work crosses disciplines such as sound installation, performance and video. It has been supported and presented by Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum Buda, Vooruit, Jan van Eyck Academie, Recyclart, MUU Galerie, Binaural Nodar Sound Arts Centre, Campo, Kran Film Collective, Suburban Video Lounge, Sculpture International Rotterdam and Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.
myriamvanimschoot.wordpress.com

Katla is the collaborative venture of Mathijs van Geest, Jonas Ib F. H. Jensen and Ånond Versto. Established in 2010, Katla has evolved into an eclectic institution lavished with nomadic, bureaucratic and corporate tendencies. Under the flag of the organization, the crew explores oceans and terrains. Voyages are set to investigate and formulate new myth and systems of ideas. Recent exhibitions and events took place at Kristiansand Kunsthall, Sound of Mu, Tag Team Studio in Bergen and and on the ocean with the boat Calypso.
talkapokalyps.com

Mala Kline is a performer, choreographer, researcher and writer. She has a BA in philosophy and comparative literature (UL, Ljubljana) and MA in theatre (DasArts, Amsterdam). Her own writing is embedded in the technology of dreaming – a creative and performative practice based on the affective and transformative performance of image. She founded EMANAT – Institute for the Affirmation and Development of Dance and Contemporary Art in Slovenia, SOI Slovenia for the dissemination of dream and imagery work throughout the EU, and recently DREAMLAB – a mobile laboratory for research and development of imagery and dream work in relation to performing art practices. She currently studies at the School of Images (NYC) and is writing a PhD on ethics in performing arts at the Department of Philosophy (UL, Ljubljana) and within the framework of a.pass (a post-master’s programme for performing arts in Brussels). She has received major awards in the field of contemporary dance in Slovenia: the Golden Bird Award (Zlata ptica), the Triton Award (Povodni Moz) and most recently the Award of Ksenja Hribar for choreography.
malakline.com

Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens
In their collaborative practice, Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens heighten the allusive and deconstructive features of language in order to interrogate knowledge formations, institutional contexts, and social and political entanglements. Their work is characterized by a minimalist approach to the form and construction of the art object and a use of materials as a way to make ideas visible.
From 2008 to 2010 they developed an umbrella project entitled Horse and Sparrowthat is concerned with the production of visual and semantic devices that articulate a reticence towards the models, systems, and narratives put forth by economists. Other works, such as Supply and Demand for Immortality, a double-wall mural produced for the 10th Sharjah Biennial in 2011 examine how desire and belief influence economic discourse and practices but also carry the potential to incite new forms of economy. Their more recent projects examine the question of labour subjugated to the politics of growth and possible forms of resistance to this subjugation. Their works have been exhibited at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Glasgow; Sharjah Biennial 10, UAE; Ausland, Berlin; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver; Owens Art Gallery, Sackville; Western Front, Vancouver; Trafó, House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest, and the European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück. Recent solo exhibitions include I’d gladly surrender myself to you, body and soul, G Gallery, Toronto (2012); Real failure needs no excuse, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2012) and The Space of Observation, 221A, Vancouver (2011). Their artistic projects and writings have been published in Le Merle, C-magazine, New Social Inquiry, and Pyramid Power.
ibghylemmens.com

Andrew Taggart and Chloe Lewis are a Canadian artist duo based in Norway, where they received a joint MFA in 2010 from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design. Focusing primarily on the relationship between place and form, their work typically manifests as sculptural collections, artist books, and site-based interventions. They have most recently exhibited at Small Projects, Tromsø; NoPlace, Oslo; and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. In parallel to their studio practice, Lewis & Taggart operate the Museum of Longing and Failure, a small museum with an emphasis on sculptural practices.
lewisandtaggart.com

The symposium is supported by Fritt Ord and Arts Council Norway.
v-o-l-t.no