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Year: 2006

Fear+Desire 10.12.–21.12.2006

Carla Cruz

 

Carla Cruz lives and works in Porto (Portugal). She is the guest-artist during October – December at KulturÖsterbotten’s Artist in Residence -programme at Ateljé Stundars.

Every year thousands of people leave their home towns and countries in search of a better life, a bearable life. These people normally travel from the countryside to bigger towns, from poorer countries to richer countries, from countries at war or with totalitarian regimes to democratic and peaceful countries. These people – emigrants – are the motor of several high income developed countries that wouldn’t be able to maintain the level of production and quality of life without them.

After having been primarily countries of emigration for more than two centuries, many countries within the European Union gradually became destinations for international immigrants. One of the factors connected to migration is undoubtedly economical. Most of the first 15 members of the European Union have already faced the displacement of their major industries to countries with a cheaper labour force. The same will happen, sooner or later, to all the new members. As the quality of life rises and salaries become higher, international or even national companies move to wherever they can produce the same thing for less money.

Finally, in this millennium Europe is a continent at peace, at least within its boarders. But that hasn’t been so for the last centuries. European history is also a narrative about self-determination.

This apparent peace is kept together with a constant state of fear und urgency. But what are we most afraid of? Loosing someone dear to us or one’s life, for sure, comes first but apart from that, what are Europeans afraid of?

We are afraid of the unknown, uncertainty and insecurity. We are afraid of those who frighten us. Those who want the same as we do. Those who desire security and peace. We are afraid of those who invade our boarders to live our way, but not quite the same way, afraid of those who in their own boarders want to live in their way, not our way, but being subjected to our ways anyway.

Still, what we acknowledge as being frightening are the big cataclysms: Third World War; environmental collapse; pandemic diseases and extra-terrestrial apocalypse in the shape of a meteorite collision.

Thus we come to Wormwood – as on the one hand is the silhouette of our fears and on the other the veil that covers our real anxieties. (For if we are not political anymore we are truly politically correct. Therefore, we would never openly mention that our biggest fear is actually our non-EU neighbours.)

500 million years ago a meteorite crashed into the earth not far from where we stand, being immediately galvanized by the explosion and leaving a scar 6 km of diameter. This could had been the description of the impact: I saw a star from heaven fallen unto the earth as it were a great mountain burning with fire as a torch – it was cast into sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the sea; and the third part of the ships was destroyed. as well as a third part of the rivers, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. But in those times life wasn’t yet been blown on earth. Plus the apocalypse is still to come.

So let us sing: Ja, må du leva, Ja, må du leva, Ja, må du leva uti hundrade år.


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Maria and Natalia Petschatnikov

 

Born 1973 in St. Petersburg, Russia
Live and work in Hamburg, Germany since 1999

1992 – 1996 Rhode Island College, Providence, USA (BFA)
1996 – 1999 Hunter College of the City University of New York, USA (MFA)
1998 Ecole National Superior des Beaux Arts, Paris, France (Exchange program)

1999 – till present numerous exhibitions and residency programs

Artists’ statement

We are identical twins and we work together on each piece. Ideas for our projects evolve through discussions and shared observations. Collaborative process allows both of us to engage in experiments with materials and subject matter. Humor and irony, characteristic of our work, evolve through constant dialogues between us. The experience of traveling and working in artists’ residency programs has greatly influenced our working methods and inspired development of certain concepts and ideas.

The choice of materials and its relationship to a given place plays a very important role in all our projects. Oil paintings and sight specific installations, among other processes, form a vocabulary of our work practice. Our works often reflect the world of two very closely connected people. We are interested in private and yet universal things that somehow tell a very personal story. Perceptions of reality and its documentation, notions of ‘truth’, ‘manipulation’ and ‘fiction’ are reoccurring themes in our projects.

In an informal discussion at the Platform Gallery in Vaasa we would like to share some of the ideas developed during a two-month residency at Atelje Stundars as well as give a small overview of our previous projects.

 

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Dan Acostioaei | November 2006

Vaasa by night

 

The works of Romanian artist Dan Acostioaei usually investigate the impact of consumerism and global ideologies on the transition and the social relations in Romania.

During his two-month residency in Vaasa, Acostioaei has undertaken a project in which he has systematically recorded, by means of photography and video, various elements of the city seeking to uncover its identity and, at the same time, challenge the mediums’ ability to reveal those signs in the built environment that shape peoples’ sense of belonging. The resulting body of work provides a spectacular viewpoint over a liminal place and offers a meditative portrait of a specific
location. These nocturnal images present a subtle vision of key aspects of Vaasa’s identity in a surprising way that mirrors an integrated formal, conceptual, and documentary significance.

More about Dan Acostioaei

 

 

 

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Just moved in 19.3.-26.3.2006

Yoko Iida

 

Yoko Iida, born in Toyota (Japan), works and lives in Los Angeles (USA) and is the artist during February – March at KulturÖsterbotten’s Artist in Residency programme at Ateljé Stundars.

During her stay she will continue to develop Tea House Project, an artwork that started in 2004. Site and culturally specific, her work exists in a variety of forms.

Artist and writer Brad Spence writes:
“I would characterize her work as oscillating quite comfortably between conceptual and design concerns in a way that is quite unique. […]
Process and site-specificity are always integral to her work, but not in the usual ways I have come to associate with these words. She has an incredibly light touch with both materials and subject, but she nonetheless brings up social-political-historical issues. As an artist she is rigorous, poetic and remarkably open to possibilities.”

More info about Yoko Iida: http://www.yokoiida.com


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