Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020
Arteles Creative Center's residency artists and their projects 2023-2020
Arteles Creative Center's residency artists and their projects 2023-2020
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<strong>2023</strong>-<strong>2020</strong>
Funders<br />
ARTS PROMOTION CENTER FINLAND<br />
EUROPEAN UNION / JOUTSENTEN REITTI RY<br />
SKR - FINNISH CULTURE FOUNDATION<br />
PIRKANMAA REGIONAL FUND<br />
HÄMEENKYRÖ
About<br />
This catalogue presents residency artists and their projects.<br />
All the past residency program participants have been asked<br />
to send information about their projects done in <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
Creative Center. Those who have given the information so far are<br />
presented in this catalogue.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> catalogue was published first time in the beginning of<br />
2012 and it is updated regularly.<br />
You can find the latest version of the <strong>Arteles</strong> <strong>Catalogue</strong> from<br />
http://www.arteles.org/artists_projects.html<br />
Kiitos - Thank you<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> would like to thank all the residents, workers collaborators,<br />
funders and supporters for their work, participation<br />
and activity.<br />
This all would not be possible without you.<br />
Best Regards,<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> Team<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong><br />
Creative Center<br />
Hahmajärventie 26<br />
38490 Haukijärvi<br />
Finland<br />
info@arteles.org<br />
www.arteles.org<br />
Design: Teemu Räsänen. All rights reserved. <strong>Arteles</strong> <strong>2023</strong>
Residents <strong>2023</strong><br />
PROGRAMS: Silence Awareness Existence [SAE] JAN / FEB / MAR<br />
Back to Basics [BTB] MAY / JUN / JUL / AUG<br />
Fall into Focus [FIF] SEP / OCT / NOV<br />
Wesley<br />
Simon<br />
Catherine<br />
Dirk<br />
Karolina<br />
Polly<br />
Ryan<br />
Arielle<br />
Georgina<br />
Christina<br />
Nahelli<br />
Yu Dien<br />
Fenella<br />
Christine<br />
Alexandra<br />
Inez<br />
Marcio<br />
Blaine<br />
Elisabetta<br />
Adele<br />
Julia<br />
Andrea<br />
Maria Carmen<br />
Jennifer<br />
Gabriel<br />
Kier Adrian<br />
Hannah<br />
Alison<br />
Gillian<br />
Lou<br />
Christopher<br />
Kevin Andrew<br />
Holly<br />
Jennifer<br />
Loretta Mae<br />
Sarah<br />
Bert<br />
Laura<br />
Julia<br />
Pam<br />
Ariel<br />
Evelyne<br />
Helen<br />
June Ying-Hsien<br />
Lynn<br />
Angela<br />
Sophy<br />
Katherine<br />
Thessia<br />
Arlene<br />
Fiona<br />
Nick<br />
Silvia<br />
Zoriça<br />
Huren<br />
Giada<br />
Rachael<br />
Ilija<br />
José Andrés<br />
Fran<br />
Cassandra<br />
Janis<br />
Edane<br />
Yuiga<br />
Gab<br />
Merryweather<br />
Brian C.<br />
Rasma<br />
Candice<br />
Lisa<br />
Katy<br />
Rachel<br />
Marcel<br />
Danielle<br />
Katharine<br />
Michele<br />
Ollie<br />
Alvarado<br />
Arizpe<br />
Arseneault<br />
Bahmann<br />
Baines<br />
Bennett<br />
Bouchard<br />
Brackett<br />
Bruce<br />
Carè<br />
Chavoya<br />
Chen<br />
Clarke<br />
Clear<br />
Cool<br />
de Brauw<br />
de Moura Nogueira<br />
Deutsch<br />
Diorio<br />
Dumont<br />
Fernández Plaza<br />
Frahn<br />
Garcia Granados<br />
Gillenwater<br />
Gould<br />
Gray<br />
Guy<br />
Hafer<br />
Hagenus<br />
Harris<br />
Heath<br />
Heslop<br />
Hershman<br />
Hershman Capraru<br />
Hirsch<br />
Hoogman<br />
Jacobs<br />
James<br />
John<br />
Jue<br />
Kusby<br />
Leblanc-Roberge<br />
Lee<br />
Lee<br />
Lobo<br />
Long<br />
Louise<br />
Lyall-Watson<br />
Machado<br />
Macleod<br />
Macpherson<br />
Malone<br />
Mantellini Faieta<br />
Markovich<br />
Marsh<br />
Matteini<br />
Mead<br />
Melentijevic<br />
Mora<br />
Morton<br />
Myers<br />
Nah<br />
Ng<br />
Ohtsuki<br />
Paananen<br />
Paine<br />
Patterson<br />
Puspure<br />
Raeburn<br />
Rebert<br />
Richardson<br />
Rinker<br />
Robischon<br />
Robitaille<br />
Rogers<br />
Rolstone<br />
Rosario<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
South Africa<br />
UK<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
UK<br />
Mexico<br />
Taiwan<br />
New Zealand<br />
Ireland<br />
Belgium<br />
Netherlands<br />
Brazil<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
Spain<br />
Netherlands<br />
Mexico<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
Australia<br />
UK<br />
Canada<br />
Australia<br />
Canada<br />
Netherlands<br />
Netherlands<br />
Belgium<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Canada / USA<br />
USA<br />
Taiwan<br />
Australia<br />
Spain / Canada<br />
UK<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Italy<br />
Canada<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
Yugoslavia / Australia<br />
Canada<br />
UK<br />
Canada<br />
Australia / Singapore<br />
UK / Malaysia<br />
Japan<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Latvia<br />
Australia<br />
Netherlands<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
Germany<br />
Canada<br />
Australia<br />
South Africa<br />
USA<br />
Sculpture, Poetry, Architecture<br />
Paper Engineering, Illustration, Drawing<br />
Photography, Video, Composition<br />
Sculpture, Installation, Space<br />
Jewellery, Drawing, Painting<br />
Sculpture, Drawing, Painting<br />
Painting, Photography, Print Making<br />
Metalsmithing, Fibers, Mixed Media<br />
Fiction writing, Poetry<br />
Writing<br />
Dancing, Poetry<br />
Director, Writing, Theatrical Installation<br />
Textile design, Abstract art, Embroidery art<br />
Writing, Silence, Yoga<br />
Sculpture, Photography<br />
Painting<br />
Ceramics, Drawing, Painting<br />
Painting, Printmaking<br />
Film, Photography<br />
Writing<br />
Performance, Writing, Photography<br />
Songwriting, Singing<br />
Handmade paper, Drawing, Painting<br />
Filmmaking, Writing, Textiles, Fibers<br />
Music, Sound Design, Podcasting<br />
Writing<br />
Circus, Theatre, Music, Dance, Creative Devising<br />
Writing, Screenwriting<br />
Creative Writing<br />
Performance, Photography, Sculpture<br />
Writing<br />
Film, Writing, Curating<br />
Autofiction, Fiction & Non-fiction writing<br />
Theatre and film<br />
Drawing, Painting<br />
Installation, Sound, Art science<br />
Installation, Sculpture<br />
Music Performance, Composition, Writing<br />
Textiles, Garment, Drawing<br />
Drawing, Painting<br />
Writing<br />
Image-making, Book, Installation<br />
Performance, Filmmaking, Writing<br />
mix media book-making, Photography, Video<br />
Painting, Drawing<br />
Writing<br />
Illustration, Painting, Design<br />
Playwriting, Theatre<br />
Sound, Visual Art<br />
Writing, Painting<br />
Painting<br />
Poetry, Visual Art<br />
Relational performance, Video, Photography<br />
Media Arts, Drawing, Writing<br />
Designer/maker, curator, storyteller<br />
Dance, Research, Creative Writing<br />
Fiction, Poetry<br />
Visual, Music, Interactive Art<br />
Media Art, Installation, Writing<br />
Illustration, Comics<br />
Poetry, Visual Arts, Dance<br />
Embroidery, Illustration, Painting<br />
Classical music, Animation<br />
Photography<br />
Creature Design, Sculpture, Illustration<br />
Writing, Photography<br />
Multimedia<br />
Jewellery art, Design<br />
Science, Data visualisation, Installations<br />
Literary fiction, Personal essay, Travel writing<br />
Sound, Installation, Video<br />
Painting, Collage, Printmaking<br />
Writing<br />
Visual art, Creative writing<br />
Writing, Filmmaking, Photography<br />
Printmaking, Sculpture<br />
Music, Digital Media<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE / FIF<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB / FIF<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB / FIF<br />
SAE
PROGRAMS: Silence Awareness Existence [SAE] JAN / FEB / MAR<br />
Back to Basics [BTB] MAY / JUN / JUL / AUG<br />
Fall into Focus [FIF] SEP / OCT / NOV<br />
Frédérique<br />
France<br />
Arianna<br />
Negin<br />
Ian<br />
Ke-Ni Zoe<br />
Sheetal<br />
Alli<br />
Sònia<br />
Sara<br />
Debra<br />
Franki<br />
Karen<br />
Geerke<br />
Laura<br />
Andrea<br />
Roberto<br />
Nina<br />
Finn<br />
Eleanor<br />
John<br />
Kately<br />
Lesley<br />
Sarah<br />
Emma<br />
Sarah<br />
Julienne<br />
Jennifer<br />
Tjeerd<br />
Tessa<br />
Diane Jollique<br />
Warren<br />
Julia Rose<br />
Neil<br />
Callum<br />
Phoebe<br />
Heather<br />
Carole<br />
Kuan-Wei<br />
Anne<br />
Andalyn<br />
Sobia<br />
Roussel<br />
Rreally<br />
Santoriello<br />
Shahrezaei<br />
Shank<br />
Shao<br />
Sivaramakrishnan<br />
Smith<br />
Sola Gil<br />
Sonas<br />
Spark<br />
Sparke<br />
Stewart<br />
Sticker<br />
Stoeppelwerth<br />
Sutherland<br />
Sy<br />
Tanis<br />
Terzic<br />
Thorp<br />
Tonkin<br />
Towsley<br />
Trites<br />
Tse<br />
van Dobben<br />
van Impe<br />
van Loon<br />
Vivekanand<br />
Vrielink<br />
Waite<br />
Wang<br />
Ward<br />
Waters<br />
Watkins<br />
Williams<br />
Wong<br />
Woof<br />
Wu<br />
Wu<br />
Yoder<br />
Young<br />
Zaidi<br />
Canada<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Iran<br />
USA<br />
Taiwan<br />
India<br />
USA<br />
Spain<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Belgium<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Philippines<br />
USA<br />
Yugoslavia / Australia<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
Hong Kong<br />
Netherlands<br />
Belgium<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Netherlands<br />
UK<br />
Taiwan<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Ireland<br />
Australia<br />
China<br />
UK<br />
Taiwan<br />
Germany / Taiwan<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Pakistan<br />
Fiction Writing, Theatre, Film<br />
Video, Performance, Fabric<br />
Weaving, Fiber Art<br />
Painting, writing<br />
Writing<br />
Energy art, Healing, Writing<br />
Poetry, Installation and Photography<br />
Painting, Sculpture, Digital Media<br />
Figurative Art, Painting, Illustration<br />
Drawing, Painting, Sculpture<br />
Writing<br />
Visual artist, Printmaker, Illustrator<br />
Drawing, Painting, Energy Medicine<br />
Sculpture, Installation, Photography<br />
Painting, Multi-Media<br />
Historical Fiction Writer<br />
Music Production, Songwriting, Singing<br />
Mixed media, Site-specific, Interactive<br />
Writing, Drawing, Print<br />
Mixed media<br />
Experimental film, Media arts, Virtual reality<br />
Sculpture, Printmaking, Photography<br />
Writing<br />
Mixed media, Painting<br />
Photography, Video, Sculpture<br />
Music, Music-theatre, Community-art<br />
Writing<br />
Fiction Writer, Illustration & Design<br />
Installation, Sculpture, Visual art<br />
Drawing, Making, Moving<br />
Filmmaking & Visual art, Research, Poetry<br />
Writing, Cultural History, Essay<br />
Drawing, Painting<br />
Writing, Singing, Theatre<br />
Writing, Research, Music<br />
Writing, Archiving, Research<br />
Jewellery, Drawing<br />
Drawing, Painting<br />
Writing<br />
Writing<br />
Writing, Somatics, Photography<br />
Interdisciplinary art, performance, video, text<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
SAE / BTB<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
FIF<br />
BTB<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
FIF<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
SAE<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
BTB<br />
SAE<br />
SAE / FIF<br />
FIF
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Sheetal Sivaramakrishnan<br />
India<br />
www.sheetal-s.com<br />
About<br />
My work is rooted in my poetry which explores the evolution<br />
and intricacies of human relationships within the urban<br />
landscape. Poetry allows me to explore a metaphorical realm<br />
where materiality and textures come together to inhabit the<br />
experiential.<br />
I am interested in exploring how humans collectively respond<br />
to various socio-political, technological and emotional<br />
incidents that occur around them. These responses contain<br />
a multitude of narratives that are emotionally charged<br />
landscapes. Poetry has the ability to hold space for<br />
physicality with honesty and composure.<br />
Guided by text, that is sometimes evidenced in my artwork,<br />
I have been able to transcribe emotions with materiality that<br />
is resilient and minimal. My work seeks to create an intimate<br />
space that posits the now, and the future by first unifying<br />
the language, then ex- tending it with tangibility to reflect a<br />
shared truth.<br />
Reading, Research &<br />
conceptualising my solo show.<br />
I arrived in <strong>Arteles</strong> in the cold white November of <strong>2023</strong>. All the<br />
snow around, echoed deeply with the material (porcelain) I<br />
was learning to work with back home in India.<br />
My purpose for this residency was to find a calm balance<br />
to conceptualise my first solo show. Surrounded by the<br />
abundant whiteness, it was easier to observe the interplay<br />
of light and other objects against stark whiteness. The visual<br />
resonance of white as a colour, as a material has always been<br />
a matter of deep curiosity for me. And from experience how<br />
porcelain, from its yielding softness; it assures one's own<br />
thought into an outcome.<br />
Daily walking around in the snow was a ritual against odds<br />
with layers to collect images of specific natural arrangements<br />
that I later abstracted into drawings.<br />
These images provided me with the necessary education of<br />
shapes and forms that I will cast in brass and porcelain. Along<br />
with the title of my solo show to the number of artworks, I<br />
take home with me, the lightness of silence and a renewed<br />
belief in pursuit as an artist.<br />
The daily meditation helped me carve a spiritual connection<br />
with feelings and forms I wanted to create, appearing<br />
naturally whilst bringing a sort of kindness towards myself,<br />
which I had missed while making art in the city. I also take<br />
back learnings from the company of so many tender and<br />
creative beings who shared the space with deep respect and<br />
kindness.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Huren Marsh<br />
UK<br />
www.instagram.com/huren.marsh3<br />
About<br />
I originally studied furniture and product design and after<br />
graduating I moved towards working with architects and<br />
interior designers for several years before making a second<br />
career change (an engineer in a previous career) to full-time<br />
lecturing in interior architecture and design teaching in the<br />
UK, Vietnam and China. I am now part of a studio of artist<br />
and designers in North London and I am in the process of<br />
exploring new creative experiences that sets no boundaries.<br />
My work is primarily installations that are a synthesis<br />
of my three-dimensional/spatial design background as<br />
a practitioner, educator and maker. A strong sense of<br />
inquisitiveness and recognising typologies in the everyday<br />
has developed over the years into observational/visual<br />
storytelling through a range of media that often combines<br />
photography, moving image and lighting technology. In<br />
the creative process I not only research and curate the<br />
installations but also construct them as complete or partial<br />
exhibition environments with aspects of interactivity that<br />
engages with the audience. I am currently experimenting<br />
with and developing light-based installations.<br />
Making Memories<br />
As a retired designer and lecturer, now practicing as a<br />
multi-disciplinary artist, the residency was an opportunity<br />
to reflect on a number of creative projects spanning over<br />
thirty years with the aim of categorising and contextualising<br />
them for documentation, exhibition and possible publication.<br />
The projects varied from those completed, those totally<br />
abandoned, those that had lost their relevance over time,<br />
a few that merely required documentation as well as a<br />
core collection of current and on-going projects. What<br />
could have easily resulted in a month-long administrative<br />
exercise of taking a helicopter view then zooming in on<br />
the specific projects was transformed into an occasion for<br />
some unplanned creative engagements that drew upon the<br />
physical/environmental surroundings, weather, interaction<br />
with fellow artists and the uncluttered mental space afforded<br />
by the overall positivity of <strong>Arteles</strong>’s approach to a residency.<br />
I have entitled my residency at <strong>Arteles</strong> “Making Memories”,<br />
from a short poem I wrote as we drove to the snowy blanket<br />
of Ritäjarvi National Park. Looking back at over thirty years<br />
of creative projects had made me realise how important<br />
memories are in transporting us back to, and through, the<br />
best moments of our lives.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Lesley Trites<br />
Canada<br />
www.lesleytrites.com<br />
About<br />
Lesley Trites is a fiction writer based in Montreal, Canada.<br />
She is currently working on a novel that explores themes of<br />
artistic ambition, intimacy, grief, and desire. The author of the<br />
short story collection A Three-Tiered Pastel Dream (Véhicule<br />
Press, 2017), which appeared in French as Fulminologie<br />
(Marchand de feuilles, 2019), and the poetry collection<br />
echoic mimic (Snare Books/Invisible Publishing, 2011), she<br />
also works as a freelance editor.<br />
Fenestrations<br />
I arrived at <strong>Arteles</strong> in a state of depletion. What a gift it was<br />
to soak up the silence, solitude, and sleep as I settled in to a<br />
routine of meditation, writing, snowy forest walks, and sauna.<br />
Body unwinding, mind expanding. I wrote a satisfyingly large<br />
chunk of my novel and submitted proposals for opportunities<br />
that would help shape my next year and keep the writing<br />
momentum going.<br />
More important than word count or project goals, though,<br />
was the more spiritual shift I experienced at <strong>Arteles</strong>, and the<br />
moments of connection with fellow residents, our shared<br />
awe at this opportunity to (re)commit to seeing ourselves as<br />
artists. In this environment, I was able to regain focus and<br />
reconnect with my creative spirit.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Polly Bennett<br />
UK<br />
www.pollydbennett.co.uk<br />
About<br />
I come from Ireland, Scotland (where I live) and England and<br />
have been a sculptor since discovering this to be my home in<br />
Art college in 1989. I also draw and paint.<br />
I am an instinctual and experimental artist. The study of the<br />
natural world underpins all my work. I distil unconscious<br />
thought, blending dreams with substance. Working the seam<br />
where magic collides with the visible world, I explore the<br />
intensity and fragility of experience. This is the space where<br />
corporeality and spirit merge into something unknown but<br />
remembered. I work in the borderland between conscious<br />
and unconscious, between human and the other inhabitants<br />
of this world.<br />
As an artist I want to provide food for thought and feeling.<br />
Gathering from Darkness<br />
I used my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> for development and resource<br />
building, moving forward into more solid practice. My<br />
process of going out to draw in the local area was a way of<br />
absorbing the felt and visual experience of being at <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
in snowy November. I had made 3 sketchbooks to work in<br />
and used pen, charcoal and chalk pastel, some watercolour.<br />
Sauna and snow brought an immediacy to presence in<br />
the landscape. Meditation and quiet threw me deeply into<br />
instinctive process. I cast a small area of snow with plaster<br />
in the <strong>Arteles</strong> grounds and found myself beginning to make<br />
sculpture using resources from the studio cupboards. The<br />
experience of being with other artists and writers was one<br />
of an openness to languages of creative depth between<br />
us. With discussions of ways of working, a film discussion,<br />
a salon to bring inspirations forward and other encounters<br />
all of this helped me to reaffirm myself as artist with wide<br />
ranging knowledges and curiosities. Important links were<br />
built with other practitioners and it was so supporting to be<br />
in a space where it was understood that each of us had a<br />
practice and expertise. There are ways in which this fall into<br />
focus residency softened and healed what was unknown and<br />
brought to the surface a deep confidence about my path. I will<br />
use these resources in the coming year and further to build<br />
into my long term work of making sculptures and drawings. I<br />
am so thankful for this experience.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Laura Stoeppelwerth<br />
USA<br />
www.laurastoeppelwerth.art<br />
About<br />
Laura Stoeppelwerth is an emerging artist based in the city<br />
of Atlanta, Georgia. Laura's interest in religion, mythology,<br />
and the power of story telling through art is eminent within<br />
the colorful tableaus she creates. She intuitively paints<br />
striking and transformative compositions, utilizing vibrant<br />
colors, emotions, and symbols, blending elements together<br />
to create a sense of balance and harmony. She spends her<br />
days reading on her front porch, creating, and taking her dog<br />
on long walks through the city. Her artwork can be found on<br />
her social media and website.<br />
Snow. Focus. Revive<br />
I was transported to another dimension for a month. I felt<br />
every day was valuable and to be cherished like a falling<br />
snowflake. Once I left, everything would return to normal and<br />
all I would have were my memories. I found myself in Finland.<br />
Found an artist within myself that I feared was not actually<br />
there. To my surprise, I was able to create some of my most<br />
prosperous work. I yearn to bring the feelings and teachings<br />
of <strong>Arteles</strong> back home with me, but alas, they elude me like<br />
wisps of the Northern Lights. I will have to be patient, and<br />
allow my planted seeds to grow. Perhaps the only remedy is<br />
to visit again. I'll have to ask my doctor.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Rachael Mead<br />
Australia<br />
affirmpress.com.au/author/61973<br />
About<br />
I'm a novelist, poet and arts reviewer living on unceded<br />
Peramangk country in South Australia. I've had an eclectic<br />
life, working as an archaeologist, environmental campaigner<br />
and seller of books both old and new. Just over a decade<br />
ago, after burning out at my job as an environmental policy<br />
analyst, I discovered that all my various careers sat upon<br />
a single foundation – a love of language. Since remaking<br />
myself as a writer, I've published four collections of poetry<br />
and two novels. Like my working life, my writing is hard to<br />
pin down, ranging from nature poetry to feminist retellings<br />
of ancient myths to a novel-in-stories about paramedics.<br />
My most recent book, The Art of Breaking Ice, is a historical<br />
novel about the first Australian woman to travel to Antarctica.<br />
The Amazoniad<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was one of intense productivity and<br />
creative rejuvenation. In the weeks leading up to the<br />
residency, I’d found myself imaginatively blocked. Work on<br />
the first draft of my novel had completely stalled and I arrived<br />
stressed and fearful that the whole project teetered on the<br />
cusp of failure. In desperation, I set ludicrous objectives<br />
only to surprise myself, week after week, by meeting them.<br />
Snow came early and stayed, making walks in the forest an<br />
extraordinary experience that energised my writing practice.<br />
All sense of blockage evaporated. I not only completed<br />
the third act of my draft but fleshed out the plot for the<br />
troublesome midsection. <strong>Arteles</strong> percolated through my work<br />
– the forest and lakes, the sensory observations of snow, the<br />
conversations with residents, the sense of community. As the<br />
weeks progressed, I found the beauty of the landscape and<br />
the intellectual stimulation of the residents and staff were<br />
all acting in concert to refill my creative well. This was an<br />
incredibly valuable time, and I have no doubt the experience<br />
of this landscape and ideas generated while being here will<br />
flow through my work, now and into the future.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Diane Jollique (Ying) Wang<br />
Taiwan<br />
www.lajollyday.com<br />
About<br />
Diane Wang is a Taiwanese filmmaker, who has studied at<br />
the National Taiwan University of Arts Department of Motion<br />
Pictures. Her works examine time and memories in forms<br />
that include short films, paintings, graphics, installations,<br />
and poetry. Through research, the written form, and timebased<br />
media art she explores different narratives in visual<br />
arts, languages, and the expanded possibilities in cinema.<br />
A Weaving Prayer of the Family Tree<br />
A first draft of a short film script called Thawing was born in<br />
several snowfalls, inspired by the young winter’s coldness.<br />
My explorations in writing were also ignited by mother nature<br />
into new forms such as poetry, stirred by the trees, snow,<br />
and the perpetual scenery of the tranquil lake in the season’s<br />
attire. Although I came here for the northern peace to write,<br />
yet I rediscovered my impartible love of visual arts. Studying<br />
film and working with time-based media, time is the medium<br />
I use to create my artistic scroll:<br />
A Weaving Prayer of the Family Tree is an experimental<br />
film, which was an attempt to write but became something<br />
that could only be seen and not read. Inspired by the sauna<br />
experience, rumination of the forests, frozen ice, decors<br />
of lichen, impressions of the northern lights. It depicts a<br />
silent succession in the temporary absence of a deceased<br />
family member. Alluding to the continuity of life, a woman is<br />
weaving a descending scroll in the forest. I envision myself<br />
in the narrative as a character, as an actress and at the same<br />
time myself, I become a past and present dual. Like a still life<br />
in a chair, I am from a heritage, yet I am one’s own tree in the<br />
making. Amidst the winter’s stillness, in the act of weaving,<br />
past grief has become lineage to posterities of branches,<br />
foliage and microorganism ink in motion. During meditation<br />
here, I have peered into my own family history and memories,<br />
hence I interplay the surrealism of an imagined state with the<br />
fragments of frozen memories of my loved one. In this piece<br />
of moving images, time that has passed, and time of the<br />
future become inseparable and ongoing.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, I learned the beauty of spontaneity, immersing<br />
myself in the flow of collaboration with fellow residents,<br />
and answering nature’s calling spiritually and physically.<br />
Embracing self-reflections, artistic exchanges that expand<br />
the fathoming of one’s pursuit, and sublimated love for each<br />
other and our crafts.<br />
Every evening before the last ray of sun, I’d go out for my<br />
afternoon walk. On my last walk, I found myself spinning in<br />
the woods. The magic of <strong>Arteles</strong>, not only is it a place where<br />
we created our works, but a place that has created us.
A Weaving Prayer of the Family Tree (film still)<br />
Recrystallizing Shanshui (<strong>2023</strong>)<br />
Shanshui painting with the snow<br />
Chart of the Universe in a Speck<br />
of Grain (<strong>2023</strong>)
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Nick Maione<br />
USA<br />
www.nickmaione.com<br />
About<br />
Nick Maione writes poems and makes work in various<br />
disciplines. He is the author of the book Infinite Arrivals<br />
(Angelico Press), and a recent finalist for the National Poetry<br />
Series, Paraclete Prize, New Measure Poetry Prize and semifinalist<br />
for the Washington Prize. His writing has appeared<br />
or is forthcoming in Harvard Review, Conjunctions, Image,<br />
jubilat, Tupelo Quarterly, Cleveland Review of Books, The<br />
Common, and other journals. In 2022 he helped curate a<br />
poetry and video exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute.<br />
As a visual artist Nick has shown work internationally, and as<br />
a Byzantine iconographer he works on private commission.<br />
He is the founder/director of Orein Arts Residency, and lives<br />
and works in Brooklyn, NY.<br />
Poems, Minuet, Fox Fire<br />
I wrote/revised poems, learned a Finnish minuet on fiddle,<br />
and, in a fury of needing to be with the day-long Finnish<br />
sunset, I painted a series of color studies while looking out<br />
the window. I took notes as well for the artist residency I<br />
direct, Orein Arts (orein.org), to see what good things to take<br />
back there. Also cooked a lot and saw the light you can hear.
Fall into Focus program / NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Warren Ward<br />
Australia<br />
www.warrenkward.com<br />
About<br />
I am a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and writer of narrative<br />
nonfiction. I draw on the techniques of fiction to bring European<br />
cultural history to life. My first book, Lovers of Philosophy,<br />
explored the intimate lives of seven philosophers -- Kant,<br />
Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida -- and<br />
how their love lives shaped their ideas. Currently working on<br />
Salonnières, which explores the lives of seven women whose<br />
circles of writers and artists each shaped an important<br />
epoch in European cultural history. Three of these women<br />
-- George Sand, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf -- are quite<br />
well known. The other four -- Isabella d'Este, Catherine de<br />
Vivonne, Marie Geoffrin, and Henriette Herz -- are all but<br />
forgotten despite their massive contributions to the history<br />
of the salon. I'm also interested in reintroducing salon-like<br />
gatherings into our contemporary lives as a way to facilitate<br />
nourishing, embodied discourse and connections amongst<br />
artists, and as an antidote to the fragmented, shouty, online<br />
spaces that plague us today.<br />
Salonnières<br />
Extremely happy and recharged after my month at <strong>Arteles</strong>.<br />
Completed edit of Salonniéres, getting it down from 130k to<br />
99k words. Also found/wrote a new ending for the book.<br />
Also really helped my mental health. Found my own natural<br />
rhythms. Sleeping. Walks in Forest. Preparing food. Sauna.<br />
Beautiful new friends. Meditation. Jamming with Jukka.<br />
Reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.<br />
Saw a majestic moose. Heard a rat-a-tat woodpecker. Said<br />
hello some flitty yellow-faced birds at my window. Watched<br />
the snowscape drift dreamily from pure white to pink-blueperiwinkle.<br />
Loved my cosy afternoons in the library under a blanket on<br />
the couch reading The White Goddess.
Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Alice Hafer<br />
USA<br />
strengthfollows.wordpress.com/writing-portfolio/<br />
About<br />
Alice studied creative writing at Florida State University and<br />
has an MA in Creative Writing and Screenwriting from both<br />
Goldsmiths and City University in London. Simultaneously<br />
pursuing a career as a professional rock climber and outdoor<br />
journalist, she’s lived in more than 12 countries to write<br />
and climb. Her writing has been featured in UKClimbing,<br />
Goldfish Magazine, and Project Magazine, and her debut film<br />
STUCK won the People’s Choice Award at ShAFF in 2017.<br />
She is currently a writer for Outdoors and Moja Gear and is<br />
currently working on her first book, a memoir about mental<br />
illness, trauma, family systems, and the inapt treatment of<br />
the mentally unwell.<br />
Alice’s work aims to tell raw stories that question the<br />
framework and habits of popularized Western society,<br />
from a cultural avoidance of death to programmed hidden<br />
silent suffering, by looking to philosophy, research, and<br />
anthropology to appraise the modern world.<br />
Whispers at Midnight<br />
While I was at <strong>Arteles</strong> I wrote for countless hours drafting<br />
my memoir in between luscious dips into drawing, making<br />
collages, writing music, and exploring nature. The energy<br />
in the forest and the community of other artists brought<br />
inspiration in all forms. Writing as a form became not enough<br />
– poems wrote themselves, and images and sounds to make<br />
surfaced. I completed the first draft of my memoir, spending<br />
nights reading my father’s journals and discovering old<br />
photos. Experimenting with writing from a dream state, I<br />
found the memoir morphed into its own character and began<br />
to write back. Before the residency, I was unable to write<br />
difficult scenes and recall painful memories. <strong>Arteles</strong> brought<br />
the creative space and magic to tackle the wrenching parts.<br />
Now at the draft stage, the memoir has taken on life, a<br />
personality and I cannot wait to see where it ends.
Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Ryan Bouchard<br />
USA<br />
www.rbouch.com<br />
About<br />
Ryan Bouchard is a Chicago based interdisciplinary artist<br />
whose focus is primarily in painting and photography. His<br />
work explores themes of intimacy and voyeurism, as well as<br />
internet sensationalism and devotion.<br />
Surreal Self-reflection<br />
It is difficult to accurately describe my time (or time at all) at<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong>, the same way it’s difficult to fully describe a dream.<br />
My experience was a recalibration providing a reminder that<br />
sometimes you just need to walk in the woods. The silence,<br />
the landscape, the sauna, all served as great inspiration for<br />
my first attempts at exploring surrealism in painting. The<br />
small series of paintings I produced were made in reaction to<br />
the Finnish landscape.
Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Marcio de Moura Nogueira<br />
Brazil<br />
marciodemouranogueira.weebly.com<br />
About<br />
I am a potter and a ceramic teacher from Rio de Janeiro,<br />
Brazil. I began my ceramic studies in Edinburgh, Scotland<br />
and Stockholm, Sweden. Since then I have been fascinated<br />
by ceramics for more than 40 years. In 1984 I was awarded<br />
a scholarship in the ceramics specialization course in<br />
Florence, Italy.<br />
In definition of my reality I ask myself what is the deepest<br />
meaning of what I am experiencing trying to find answers<br />
and a new relationship with the world of imagination, to have<br />
a deeper understanding of my ancestral past and racial,<br />
national and religious heritage to my family backgrounds.<br />
Alone in the studio producing one of a kind tableware my<br />
work absorbs texture, color and shapes from my state of<br />
mind and by chance. My teaching work is directioned to<br />
social projects with groups of people of different ages. I work<br />
with the transformation of their lives and the specific needs<br />
of each community of Sao Paulo, Bahia, or Espirito Santo.<br />
I am a member of the Association of Ceramists of Espirito<br />
Santo/CERAMES.<br />
Family album<br />
A few weeks later, the story built at <strong>Arteles</strong> had very specific<br />
developments, causing transformation to continue from the<br />
inside out. Opening new perspectives and new ways of living<br />
with creativity and love. Awakening in me the confidence to<br />
follow and have a hopeful vision of living better days.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> was a laboratory of art and emotions, where my<br />
side as a painter blossomed intensively and I had creative<br />
coexistence with other artists, silence and the tasks inherent<br />
to the daily life of a community, where lunches, reflection and<br />
organization took place.<br />
I managed well to carry out my project and once again<br />
exchanges with artists, silence and conversations by bonfire<br />
prevailed, and everything got even better. I have a lot to thank<br />
the <strong>Arteles</strong> team who helped from the beginning to ensure a<br />
harmonious and friendly season. Finland is without a doubt<br />
an excellent country to be in and be inspired by in October.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> welcomed me, gave me a room, a nest and from then<br />
on everything went smoothly to start my project, which was<br />
represented through drawing and acrylic on A3 paper, of<br />
photographs of my family. The photos were damaged by the<br />
action of the weather and chosen at random, two months<br />
earlier my residence started, during a hot late afternoon in<br />
Bahia, Brazil.
Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Finn Terzic (Animal Bro)<br />
Australia / Yugoslavia<br />
www.kweerkat.com<br />
About<br />
I am a Serbian - Australian visual artist and writer working<br />
primarily with ink drawing, mixed media and digital art.<br />
Born and raised in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, I obtained an<br />
MFA in painting from the Academy of Fine Art in Belgrade.<br />
I participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions and<br />
festivals, and completed a few international residencies.<br />
My interests include graphic novels, printing, zines and<br />
independent publishing, murals and art in public spaces. I<br />
see art as a medium of communication and empowerment<br />
- by sharing our stories, we invite and give others agency to<br />
do the same.<br />
Sauna Time!<br />
While working on a scenario for a graphic novel, I let the nature<br />
and stillness of the environment affect me and my work. I<br />
made a little comic about our favourite communal activity<br />
when in <strong>Arteles</strong> - the local public sauna in Hämeenkyrö.<br />
Abundant colours of autumn gave way to darker times of<br />
early winter but we stayed cozy and safe. The time spent<br />
in residency gave me the mental, emotional and physical<br />
space and peace to work on more challenging subjects of<br />
my graphic novel. Focus achieved!
1 2<br />
3 4<br />
5
Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Ilija Melentijevic<br />
Australia / Yugoslavia<br />
www.ilkke.net/heartfolio<br />
About<br />
I started drawing from an early age and never stopped. My<br />
first solo exhibition was at age 5 in 'Honey Bee 2' kindergarten<br />
in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.<br />
Lost and Found<br />
What started with focusing on how much of my life I can bring<br />
to <strong>Arteles</strong>, culminated in focusing on how much <strong>Arteles</strong> I can<br />
bring back into my life.<br />
To me, pursuing art feels much like scientific research,<br />
discovering things that are already ""out there"" but dormant<br />
and unseen. I take special interest in creating narrative,<br />
interactive and procedural media such as comics, animations<br />
or games.
Fall into Focus program / OCTOBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Jennifer Vivekanand<br />
USA<br />
www.artbyjenn.com<br />
About<br />
When she’s not being defeated in board games by her family,<br />
Michigan-based author and illustrator Jennifer Vivekanand<br />
likes travel, photography, reading, illustrating, writing and<br />
make weird sandwiches.<br />
Jennifer has a B.F.A. from Kendall College of Art & Design<br />
in Grand Rapids. Michigan, including Certificates of summer<br />
studies at the Royal College of Art in London, England, and<br />
the Academy of Fine Arts Pietro Vannucci, in Perugia, Italy.<br />
Her debut YA thriller, Welcome To Nightjar, was published<br />
by Cloudberry Ink in November of 2022, and is available as<br />
an ebook, author-narrated audiobook, or print book at many<br />
retailers, including, but not limited to, Amazon, Apple Books<br />
and Barnes & Noble.<br />
Stuff By Jenn...<br />
While at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I completed the first draft of my second<br />
YA Mystery Thriller novel, developed the storyline and<br />
character sketches for an upcoming graphic children’s novel<br />
set in Finland, and put together a photo collage of various<br />
wood, lights, faces and shadows that I observed around the<br />
property.<br />
I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know other creatives<br />
from around the world, and picking mushrooms and berries<br />
in the forest, visiting the Free Store & Frantsila, and sampling<br />
hot blueberry juice and Glögi.<br />
Kiitos for the opportunity, <strong>Arteles</strong>, and I hope you continue<br />
inviting creative residents to your center for many years to<br />
come.<br />
Based in Michigan, Welcome To Nightjar is filled with murder,<br />
mayhem and mystery in a small town.<br />
Besides writing, Jennifer sells greeting cards and other<br />
printables on her digital art shop.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Tessa Waite<br />
UK<br />
www.instagram.com/waitetessa<br />
About<br />
I find an exciting energy in the interaction between landscape,<br />
body and object. I have been exploring emerging ideas about<br />
interconnectedness, between self and environment, self and<br />
others. In live art and performance I am discovering a new<br />
way to connect and engage with those around me, and which<br />
is most authentic to me. My physical presence and being,<br />
in conjunction with made and found objects, are tools that<br />
provide a compelling new way of sharing and communicating<br />
with others on themes that matter to me.<br />
Open Revive Connect<br />
The forest drew me in, walking barefoot through it, my<br />
awareness expanded. I noticed and felt. I drew and danced,<br />
sometimes filming this. The lakes spread before me inviting<br />
rest, soothing me. Moving in the water softened my edges.<br />
Collaborating with Emma to make a short film together, we<br />
connected through the lakes' embrace. I wrote with crisp<br />
sticks of white chalk on the indigo coloured chalkboard,<br />
moving fast and continuously across its surface, writing<br />
out my ancestors, my loved ones into a many layered lace<br />
of words. I listened and talked, as stories and insights<br />
were shared with those alongside me. Sitting side by side<br />
in the sauna the heat began to dissolve our boundary layer.<br />
Lying on the ground and gazing into the Northern Lights my<br />
perceptions shifted, the sky was rearranging and so was I.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Emma van Dobben<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.emmavandobben.com<br />
About<br />
Visual artist, mainly working with photography and video.<br />
My wish is to always take in my direct environment with<br />
full attention and curiosity. My current project is about the<br />
difficulty of truely having attention. My mind is often in the<br />
future, making plans. I hardly ever do nothing. While waiting<br />
for the bus my mobile is my loyal companion. I will make my<br />
attention span, or the lack of it, visible. During my stay in<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> I ll work further on this.<br />
Tuned space<br />
What does it mean to truly be somewhere? What does it<br />
mean to be in this place? To stop myself from always being on<br />
the go without feeling grounded, I decided to visit the same<br />
place every day. It's a spot in a Finnish forest near the remote<br />
house where I stayed for two more weeks. I would sit there<br />
alone on a small 4 by 4 meter plot surrounded by four trees. I<br />
went at different times of the day, hoping to become familiar<br />
with the essence of this place, to let the environment come<br />
to me. Those four trees, the big rock, the low bushes, and the<br />
spiderwebs. I was curious about how this place would affect<br />
me, and I wanted to capture that in photos.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Dirk Bahmann<br />
South Africa<br />
About<br />
I am an architect, artist, academic and maker studying, (Wits<br />
school of arts) and working at School of Architecture at the<br />
University of the Witwatersrand. Currently, I am embarked on<br />
a creative practice PhD that seeks methods to articulate the<br />
ineffable nature/s of Numinous architectural atmospheres<br />
and their use within an architectural pedagogy.<br />
Ruminating about atmospheres<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was spent in an inner laboratory of stillness,<br />
away from my familiar, pressured and routine world. The<br />
emptiness offered me a freedom to be engulfed and moulded<br />
by the wonder of the simple everyday atmospheres of nature.<br />
These experiences are forming a well from which I draw on<br />
in my research, in developing my own understandings of how<br />
we construct our world atmospherically.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Arlene MacLeod<br />
USA<br />
www.arlenemacleod.com<br />
About<br />
I write fiction, trying to immerse myself and readers in<br />
another world. I'm inspired by place, especially natural<br />
places that gather within themselves multiple histories and<br />
the complexity of many lives. I love novels, for the way they<br />
expand outwards into mystery, and for their ability to delve<br />
into one person's character and also wander into all sorts<br />
of digressions that resonate. My favorite novels are the epic<br />
and haunting sort, that linger with images in your mind. In<br />
painting, I'm inspired by art that emphasizes color and<br />
emotion, that begins with the truth and surprises of looking<br />
hard at a subject. I am finding the tension between looking<br />
outside myself while painting, and imagining deeply while<br />
writing to be important.<br />
I live in Maine, in the northeast US, near the ocean. I love to<br />
walk, swim, and be out in nature. I have a grown son with a<br />
son of his own, so I'm now a mother and a grandmother. I<br />
recently retired as a professor of politics, where I focused on<br />
understanding imagination and change.<br />
I've published two novels, A Necessary Garden and Far<br />
Other Worlds, and two story collections, In an Italian Garden,<br />
and Ruins. These days, I’m working on a novel set in the<br />
early 1700s in France, Sweden, and Denmark, and painting<br />
watercolor landscapes. I’m very interested in exploring the<br />
ideas and realities of North.<br />
Writing, Painting, Friends<br />
When I met the <strong>Arteles</strong> minivan, I was nervous, excited,<br />
unsure what this month might hold. Though I’m usually shy,<br />
I immediately felt the sincerity and creativity of all these new<br />
to me people and as the month went on my gratitude for their<br />
warmth and inspiration only grew.<br />
When I first encountered my room I knew it would be a<br />
hospitable space for writing. In my novels I’m very influenced<br />
by the spirit of place. My desk sat below a large window<br />
looking onto a lilac tree. In the mornings, small birds,<br />
European robins and Great Tits I learned, bustled around in<br />
the branches, searching out seeds and sometimes peering in<br />
the window at me.<br />
A month of life is a long and complicated time to encapsulate<br />
in words. A month at <strong>Arteles</strong> is much more difficult. So much<br />
compressed in the days. Even the whole season of Autumn<br />
took place entirely within September, from green leaves<br />
to falling swirls of birch to rusty ferns drooping after the<br />
night before frost. Yet one day was long, filled with hours.<br />
Untethered from everyday life, it was wonderful to walk in the<br />
silent forest each morning, talk with new friends over lunch,<br />
write all afternoon, and fit in a watercolor after dinner. And<br />
swim in an icy lake, or gape at northern lights, or watch the<br />
calling swans land on the water.<br />
I came with the intention of reinvigorating my novel. And<br />
within a day or two somehow the task which had eluded me<br />
for weeks and weeks at home simply fell together. I rewrote<br />
the beginning, restructured the whole novel, and got started<br />
on the next draft. I played around with watercolors, making<br />
quick paintings of the landscape. The green of moss, the<br />
darting birds, the big sky of piling purple clouds. It was fun,<br />
playing with something new, daring to be a beginner.<br />
I’m so grateful for this month in a magical place with generous<br />
and fascinating people. Thank you to all the <strong>Arteles</strong> people<br />
for making this encounter possible. I’m pondering how to<br />
bring the calm, the intensity, and the spacious feeling of<br />
wonder into my everyday life at home.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Arielle Brackett<br />
USA<br />
www.ariellebrackett.com<br />
About<br />
Arielle Brackett received her BFA in metals at the Oregon<br />
College of Art and Craft in 2017. She received various<br />
awards including the Juror’s Choice Award in Jewelry<br />
from CraftForms 2021. She has shown nationally and<br />
internationally. Internationally she has shown at; Craft<br />
Council of British Columbia in Vancouver BC, Canada,<br />
Arcub Gabroveni in Bucharest, Romania, National Library of<br />
Romania in Bucharest, Romania, Winzavod Contemporary<br />
Art Center in Moscow, Russia, and at the Museum of Stonecutting<br />
and Jewelry Art in Yekaterinburg, Russia. She has<br />
participated twice in Romania Jewelry Week and once in<br />
New York City Jewelry Week.<br />
Brackett received full ride scholarships to study in Le<br />
Barroux, France, Grand Junction, Colorado and at Penland<br />
School of Craft. She received scholarships to participate<br />
in a collaborative project called Frogwood in 2021 and<br />
<strong>2023</strong>. Brackett was a resident artist at Sou’wester Art in<br />
Washington and is currently a Glean Artist in residence in<br />
Oregon. Brackett has been published in numerous books,<br />
magazines and online platforms. She was published in SNAG<br />
Jams 2018, and How Art Heals, by Andra Stanton.<br />
Water Series<br />
During my art residency at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I created a body of work<br />
based on the shapes and lines of water. I created small<br />
scale sculptures, contemporary jewelry, line drawings and<br />
polaroids. The polaroid camera I used to capture images<br />
of water while exploring the Finnish countryside either on<br />
boat or by foot. The images I used as my source materials to<br />
create the series of water.<br />
Primarily, I used hand dyed indigo fabrics, gel medium,<br />
thread and steel mesh to create line, texture and volumetric<br />
forms. Once the fabric components were completed, I sewed<br />
them together and attached them to already fabricated silver<br />
components I made. In addition, I also explored layering,<br />
embroidering and sewing together felt, silk and cotton<br />
fabric. Afterwards I cut away layers of the fabric to expose<br />
the colors and textures beneath to represent the forms and<br />
shapes of water.<br />
Lastly, I created a small modular sculpture made from<br />
hydraulic pressed silver bowls that I pierced and formed. One<br />
form is embossed with an etched image of water, pierced<br />
and oxidized using boiled egg yolks. While another form is<br />
holding translucent white quartz I found alongside the road<br />
on my daily walks to the nearby lake. I am grateful for the<br />
space and time spent at <strong>Arteles</strong> developing this long awaited<br />
body of work.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Franki Sparke<br />
Australia<br />
frankisparke.com.au<br />
About<br />
I am an Australian visual artist, primarily a printmaker and<br />
illustrator. For over forty years I have exhibited and made<br />
public artworks in my home town of Canberra, Australia,<br />
while my work has been represented at international events<br />
such as the Krakow Print Triennial, the Guanlan Print Biennial<br />
and the Bologna Children's Book Fair. I have won illustration<br />
awards in Australia, UK, Italy and South Korea.<br />
I have an ongoing interest in all kinds of print, pictographic<br />
elements and picture narratives in the visual arts, books and<br />
comics - for both adults and children.<br />
New Characters<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to reboot and to lay the groundwork for<br />
one major, narrative project in particular. Of course I was<br />
pleasantly derailed - by people and events and by other visual<br />
elements and narratives. In the end, an invented geography,<br />
new plots and characters were my main take-away. Also<br />
minor characters trying to become big players, like these<br />
cockatoos here, who are now demanding (and getting) their<br />
own story . . .<br />
My current focus is on just a few significant personal projects<br />
involving graphic narratives and independent publishing.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Ariel Kusby<br />
Portland, Oregon, USA<br />
www.arielkusby.com<br />
About<br />
I write children’s books about magic and witchcraft. When<br />
engaged with the magic of the everyday world—through<br />
ritual, intention, and imaginative play—we live more deeply<br />
connected to other people, to nature, and to ourselves. I<br />
want to empower kids (and adults’ inner children) to embrace<br />
wonder and curiosity, seek enchantment, and find their<br />
unique magic within.<br />
I am interested in the power of ritual, childhood magic, time<br />
travel, fairy tales and folklore, somatics, plant medicine,<br />
trancework, exploring liminal spaces, inner child healing,<br />
poetry as spellcasting, Jungian psychology, Jewish<br />
mysticism, and meditation.<br />
My children’s grimoire, The Little Witch’s Book of Spells was<br />
published in <strong>2020</strong> by Chronicle Books, and my divination<br />
deck/book, The Little Witch’s Oracle Deck will be released<br />
in 2024.<br />
Green Magic<br />
I arrived at <strong>Arteles</strong> with a plan for what I wanted to work on,<br />
anticipating that I would immediately retreat into that work.<br />
What I didn’t expect was that I would first be pulled so deeply<br />
into the magic of the land, and into communion with the spirit<br />
of the place. The mushroom-dotted forest trails, beds of<br />
electric green moss, dramatic ice-age boulders invited me<br />
to sit and meditate with them, and in the privacy of the quiet<br />
woods, to communicate. The fiery sauna tonttu, the runelike<br />
pillars of the meditation hall, and the spirits of school<br />
children who once played and learned on the land all wanted<br />
to connect. I knew this magic of place would influence my<br />
writing, but I didn’t know how. Instead of trying to rationally<br />
understand, I allowed myself to sink into the experience and<br />
be changed by it. From this open space, I began to write<br />
in earnest, completing a large chunk of a novel and the<br />
beginnings of a nonfiction book based around the magic of<br />
plants. Additionally, I wrote many guided meditations based<br />
on the local landscape, so I could bring a little of the <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
enchantment home to share.
Fall into Focus program / SEPTEMBER <strong>2023</strong><br />
Edane Ng<br />
UK / Malaysia<br />
www.thedaringartists.com<br />
About<br />
Malaysian-born, classically trained multimedia artist Edane<br />
Ng, also known as E-da-nee NG, is a one-of-a-kind pianist.<br />
Her ability to use the most traditional musical instrument to<br />
convey messages about social issues and inequality makes<br />
her a unique voice in the classical music environment.<br />
(Curious Curators, Sound of Life)<br />
Considered by many as one of the most promising stars<br />
among the new generation of classical pianists, Edane won<br />
the Asia Music Competition and the 6th Asian Youth Music<br />
Competition in Malaysia, and many international awards<br />
in Asia and UK. Her commissioned performances and<br />
funders include Brighter Sounds,SoundUK, PINS, Factory<br />
International, Yamaha, Help Musicians UK.<br />
Imaginary Piano Car<br />
During my residency at <strong>Arteles</strong>, my primary emphasis was<br />
on mastering the core principles of drawing, with a specific<br />
focus on shapes, forms, values, and lighting. As I wandered<br />
along the unmarked pedestrian paths of Hahmajarvi, I felt<br />
life's fragility with every step, each step a poignant reminder<br />
of the suffering endured by victims of car accidents.<br />
Inspired by the unique blend of nature and artistry at this<br />
location, I made the creative decision to transform a piano<br />
into an imaginary car, drawing upon the skills and imagination<br />
inspired by nature and the artists here. I am turning this<br />
project into reality when I return to Manchester.<br />
Founder of The daring artists, E-da-nee won the RNCM<br />
Creative Innovators Award and and currently touring the<br />
debut project, Healing Our Child Within. Features include<br />
Factory Sessions, Sound of Life, and Free Malaysia Today.<br />
She was also featured in a short film titled Rebirth Of<br />
Classical Musicians In A Pandemic with BFM 89.9.<br />
As a Southeast Asian female pianist, Edane aspires to use her<br />
voice as a musician to highlight neglected societal concerns,<br />
particularly children rights, and to bring in a new audiences<br />
into the classical music scene.<br />
Profile photo by Marieke Macklon
Fall into Focus program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Sarah Damai Hoogman<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.sarahhoogman.com<br />
About<br />
My practice is inspired by my interest in natural phenomena,<br />
the human perception and what happens beyond this<br />
perception. As an interdisciplinary artist I explore what is<br />
beyond our realities by researching the interfaces between<br />
science, technology, nature and art. Fascinated by the hidden<br />
forces of nature, discovered in my artistic field research, I<br />
strive to create new bridges between the human perception<br />
and the more-than-human world. My work consists of a<br />
system in which a scientific element, an ecological change<br />
or a natural phenomenon is translated in a kinetic interactive<br />
installation.<br />
Month of Immersion<br />
A month in silence. That's how my month at <strong>Arteles</strong> residency<br />
felt. A month where the weight of expectations gently lifted,<br />
a month in which I allowed myself to be guided by the veins<br />
of fallen trees and found inspiration in the thousands of lakes<br />
and waters. I questioned whether I could truly replicate the<br />
beauty of nature and if not, how I might carry the essence of<br />
my fascination and inspiration home to share with others. The<br />
quiet beauty of Finnish nature made me curious about what<br />
might be hidden beneath and behind it. Moved by the words<br />
of Robert Macfarlane I began to research the Underland.<br />
Not using the internet or my mobile phone allowed me to be<br />
fully immersed and completely present in the precious space<br />
of <strong>Arteles</strong>. I found ample space and time to write and reflect<br />
on my role as an artist and, in general, my position in life. I<br />
was inspired by the springs of the Uhrilade, and from there,<br />
I started working on a new sand installation. I also worked<br />
on a short film and found even more peace and silence<br />
in woodwork. I explored the medium of cyanotype and<br />
discovered how, by the end of the residency, all this together<br />
had seamlessly converged into a coherent whole.<br />
Thankyou <strong>Arteles</strong> for the silence in which I accomplished so<br />
much, where the days seemed to stretch on endlessly, yet<br />
the weeks swiftly slipped through my fingers like grains of<br />
sand.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Fran Morton<br />
UK<br />
www.franmorton.com<br />
About<br />
Fran is an illustrator, comic creator and occasional<br />
animator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She completed<br />
a BA in Computer Arts at Abertay University before going<br />
on to complete a MSc in Animation and VFX at Duncan of<br />
Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. She has<br />
spent the last four and a half years working in the animation<br />
industry as an in-house illustrator for specialist whiteboard<br />
animation studio We Are Cognitive, while continuing to<br />
pursue her personal illustration and creative practice, and<br />
has previously produced a small anthology zine of short<br />
comics. Her primary interests are in narrative art and<br />
storytelling, with a focus on folkloric, mythological, Arthurian<br />
and historical subjects and themes.<br />
Comics<br />
I worked on drawing and inking a thirty page fantasy comic<br />
that I had started before arriving at <strong>Arteles</strong>, and alongside<br />
that began developing an idea for a historical graphic novel. I<br />
spent much of my time researching, sketching and scribbling<br />
ideas for characters, places and story, while enjoying the<br />
opportunity to really explore and play with ideas without<br />
external pressure. It was an incredibly beautiful and inspiring<br />
month, and I feel like my work really grew and found direction.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Lou Harris<br />
Australia<br />
About<br />
Lou Harris (b.1996) is an artist, dancer, dj and curator who<br />
currently lives, works and plays on Wurundjeri land, Naarm<br />
(Melbourne), Australia. lou’s practice is spread across<br />
sculpture, sound, writing, photography, installation and<br />
performance. Their embodied, intuitive practice seeks to<br />
accomodate the needs and disires of themselves and those<br />
that encounter their work. lou consistently attempts to open<br />
up generative engagements by exploring their emotional<br />
landscape, queerness and (dis)ability in a way that is nonprescriptive.<br />
Lou graduated as the 2021 dux of the National Art School<br />
in Australia, with a Bachelor of Art (Sculpture). They spend<br />
much of their time engaged in the arts and electronic dance<br />
music communities across the east coast of Australia, and<br />
recently started a subscription newsletter ‘good juju’ where<br />
they share insights into their life experiences, chronic pain<br />
journey and artistic practice. They have exhibited and<br />
performed in both solo and group capacities, locally and<br />
interstate, including Queer Contemporary (Mardi Gras 2022)<br />
and Soft Centre festival (2019).<br />
Movement in stillness<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> consisted of deep healing. i read a lot,<br />
wrote a lot, and cried. a lot. there were many times where i<br />
didn’t know if i was crying from pain or gratitude, likely both<br />
or really any number of feeling combinations you could think<br />
of at the same time.<br />
i deepened my practice of being still; so much time spent<br />
staring out my window, napping for hours each afternoon,<br />
introducing meditation into my loose routine. i found space in<br />
the stillness, and this space provided a way for my emotions<br />
to move freely.<br />
the meditation space in the yellow house was a significant<br />
space for me. a lot of emotional processing and physical<br />
healing of old injuries and nervous system memories took<br />
place in that space. i meditated. i conversed. i danced. i cried.<br />
i moved. i was still. on the leo new moon i facilitated a sound<br />
meditation for the residents, weaving together music from<br />
my almost 5-year collection and incorporating the singing<br />
bowls in this process. this also marked the exact halfway<br />
point of the residency.<br />
i was able to go deeper within myself than i had ever had the<br />
ability to before. no phone, no wifi, no real distractions. i am<br />
certain that as i embrace more movement in my life again,<br />
it will be different, thanks to the stillness. and thanks to the<br />
magic of <strong>Arteles</strong>.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Karolina Baines<br />
UK<br />
www.karolinabaines.com<br />
About<br />
I am a jewellery designer and maker based in Edinburgh,<br />
Scotland. My designs combine vibrant colours with a sense<br />
of movement to create sculptural jewellery with an elegant<br />
yet playful character. My collections reflect a diverse array<br />
of influences and inspiration, from the bold geometric<br />
patterns of mosaics, through the vital traditions of basketry<br />
and weaving, to the graceful movement implicit in Japanese<br />
textiles.<br />
Freedom & Berries<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> was a profound place of peace, healing and rebirth of<br />
my artistic spirit.<br />
When I arrived at the residency I was feeling exhausted from<br />
the hectic life routine back home. It took me a while to settle<br />
down. For the first two weeks I wasn’t able to do any creative<br />
work, I found my refuge in soothing nature instead.<br />
I immensely enjoyed long bike rides every day, they brought<br />
me a sense of freedom and joy. I soaked myself in magnificent<br />
Finnish nature that amazed me with its raw and astonishing<br />
beauty. Time spent there brought to me a very much needed<br />
peace, comfort and happiness, something I was longing for.<br />
After two weeks, things started to unfold and ideas to flow in<br />
abundance. I created drawings, paintings and monoprints in<br />
vast quantities. Colour palette, patterns, shapes and textures<br />
in nature became a great source of inspiration.<br />
I worked in a playful way, creating a series of water lilies<br />
monoprints, experimented with various shapes in making<br />
collages and exploring rich colour palette in larger paintings.<br />
It became a great source of happiness for me, to be able to<br />
create again without any internal or external pressure.<br />
I came back refreshed with new perspectives, tons of ideas<br />
and inspirations to be developed further in my creative<br />
practice.<br />
I am grateful for this transforming experience, freedom to<br />
create and the most wonderful and supportive group of<br />
fellow artists.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Rasma Puspure<br />
Latvia<br />
www.rasmapuspure.com<br />
About<br />
Artist & Designer. Head of the Metal Design department at<br />
Art Academy of Latvia.<br />
I generally work with the idea of a memory, or the memory<br />
of an idea or place. It is in the way it happens that I find<br />
inspiration from. For me this recollection happens within<br />
the contradiction of filling an absence that can’t be filled<br />
any other way than by recreating in new visual and tangible<br />
forms. With my work I try to keep track of memories that can<br />
no longer be kept, but in this way I can hold on to them. I don’t<br />
see memory as an accurate recollection of events; rather a<br />
selective process of preserving. Precious metals, minerals<br />
and anything that will outlast me is the most wonderful<br />
inspiration to create meaningful objects that can be kept as<br />
heirlooms.<br />
The Starting Point<br />
Observing and listening to oneself deeply led to the revelation<br />
of importance of collaboration and community.. Discovering<br />
the desire to collaborate, listen, help, understand, act and<br />
create based on hints given by other artists made the project<br />
possible.<br />
The result will be 13 pieces of jewelry each created for an<br />
artist who spent this month at ARTELES with me. Deeply<br />
personal, led by intuition and memories of our shared time<br />
in ARTELES.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Kately Towsley<br />
USA<br />
www.katelytowsley-art.com<br />
About<br />
Kately Towsley makes work about the human experience.<br />
Engaging with topics of memory, faith, and social justice,<br />
she is interested in people's stories. Towsley views art as an<br />
avenue of connection, both introspectively and communally.<br />
Her work aims to share personal contemplations while<br />
provoking the viewer’s own thoughts, experiences,<br />
knowledge, or lack thereof on a subject. She often favors<br />
methods that are detail-oriented, tedious, and involved in<br />
order to imbue the work with a greater sense of intention<br />
and presence. Working conceptually, the subject matter she<br />
chooses to explore informs the disciplines, materials and<br />
media she uses to create a work. Towsley makes in response<br />
to questions she has, musings, reflections, convictions,<br />
or the realization that she does not know enough about a<br />
critical history, or current event. At times Towsley's work is an<br />
intense investigation in order to educate and commemorate,<br />
at others an effort to produce beauty and make something<br />
tangible with her hands.<br />
Luontosuhde<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> feels like a return to some long-forgotten<br />
haven. Here, I am gifted freedom from the usual strains and<br />
worries of life, and time to simply be. Time to grow, to rest,<br />
and to create. Along with several ongoing experiments, I<br />
completed two works at <strong>Arteles</strong>. One, a diaristic book work<br />
involving the pairing of linocut prints and prose. Daily, I would<br />
choose imagery and words of significance to me in order to<br />
process my thoughts and catalogue my month-long journey.<br />
The second work, made in collaboration with the nature I<br />
was so inspired by, involves installation and performance.<br />
‘Luontosuhde’ is a Finnish word that describes our connection<br />
to the land, to the earth. When I contemplate the space of<br />
safety and development that is <strong>Arteles</strong>, I can’t help but call to<br />
mind the womb: a sacred place of protection and growth, one<br />
in which we exist in-between worlds and our sole purpose is<br />
to be and to grow. The installation includes a cyanotype that<br />
aesthetically alludes to ultrasound imagery. Projected on the<br />
walls is video from the hours-long process of composing and<br />
exposing the cyanotype outdoors before, during, and after a<br />
morning’s dawn. Encircling the cyanotype of my body, a trail<br />
of forest limbs and plants weave throughout the building, out<br />
the back door, and into our metsä: an umbilical cord to the<br />
land, the land which births and sustains us all.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Phoebe Wong<br />
Hong Kong SAR, China<br />
http://www.aicahk.org/eng/author/PhoebeWONG<br />
About<br />
With a background in design and anthropology, I am a Hong<br />
Kong-based researcher and critic with a particular interest<br />
in contemporary art, design and visual media. I am also a<br />
co-founder of the Community Museum Project, a curatorial<br />
collective dedicated to revisiting indigenous creativity and<br />
underrepresented histories and practices of the everyday.<br />
My practice spans writing (art critique and cultural<br />
criticism), archiving, and research. Topics currently under<br />
exploration: postcolonial discourse, memory and alt-history,<br />
museonomics, archiveology, data mapping, essay film, art<br />
and technology, and, most recently, trees.<br />
GREEN Forensics<br />
olive green, pea green, lime green, emerald, avocado, pistachio,<br />
bottle green, Lincoln green, jade, matcha, verdure, copper<br />
green, viridescence, viridity, chrome green, patina, verdigris<br />
. . . grass, vegetation, forest, grove, tree, shrub, vine, moss,<br />
earth skin, lichenology, algae, moss agate, frog, kale, rocket,<br />
greenhouse effect, chlorophyll, snake, leek, bean, lime,<br />
herbs, woods, bush, gooseberry, spring, mint, weed, verdant,<br />
grassy, leafy, greenish, verde, foliage, greenery, lawn, green<br />
room, vegetarianism, vegan, broccoli, cucumber, aloe vera,<br />
asparagus, celery, parsley, khaki, camouflage, bice, zucchini,<br />
squash, spinach, green tea, death cap, sickly green, vine,<br />
evergreen, pine, fern, fir, jungle, colonial pine, . . . wet behind<br />
the ears = green behind the ears, green thumb, greenwashing,<br />
to go green, green with envy, green-eyed monster, the grass<br />
is always greener in the other side, green stick fracture,<br />
green card, greennote culture, forest bath, green light,<br />
agriculture, agrilogistics, environmental, ecological, nature,<br />
conservationist, eco-, eco-friendly, dark ecology, field, green<br />
belt, Peter Pan, grassroot, deforestation, green economy,<br />
oasis, plant, plantation, horticulture, horticulturist . . . unripe,<br />
inexperienced, callow, raw, unseasoned, untried, naive,<br />
innocent, unworldly, gullible, callow, immature . . .<br />
William Gass is a lover of lists. For him, 'the list is a venerable<br />
and inventive literary mode'.<br />
Taking its cue from William Gass's On Being Blue (1976),<br />
Green Forensics is a cultural investigation into all things<br />
green. The end result will be a chapbook listing all things<br />
green, along with 50 selected entries that combine research,<br />
fact, cultural context, allusion, 'thick description', dialectic,<br />
insight, and, hopefully, poetics.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Wesley Alvarado<br />
USA<br />
www.thescrapmill.com<br />
About<br />
The Unadulterated Dreamscape<br />
A Bricoleur committed to bringing together disparate pieces<br />
to create a whole - in search of balance, temporality and<br />
imperfection. A Sculptor of Space in search of a hidden<br />
dimension - the ephemeral realm - in search of light, respite<br />
and reflection. A Storyteller engaged in creating new<br />
narratives for the internal and external world.<br />
New altars<br />
Form<br />
With indestructible beauty<br />
New trails are<br />
Carved<br />
by mischievous feet<br />
The waves hypnotize<br />
In order to empty<br />
An already too<br />
Cluttered soul<br />
The holes in<br />
The rocks speak of<br />
A different clock<br />
Etched by a time<br />
Buried in the sky<br />
How many horizons<br />
Can we count?<br />
There are no mushrooms<br />
here<br />
Thoughts fold within thoughts<br />
Worlds collapse within worlds<br />
Dreams fly<br />
Like pterodactyls<br />
Perched on prehistoric trees<br />
I can still hear her voice<br />
I can still hear his voice<br />
The heat emanating from his<br />
Body<br />
The restitching begins<br />
A call to<br />
Service<br />
Devotion<br />
What was so<br />
Crisp<br />
Now a receding dream<br />
The shattering<br />
The burying<br />
The splashing<br />
The ocean spits at me<br />
The crab hides<br />
The walrus lies<br />
The ink runs<br />
The water races to<br />
Erase the words<br />
To blot out my existence<br />
I reach and sit in silence<br />
Trying to hold<br />
The laughs<br />
The smiles<br />
The gestures<br />
But it slips<br />
Like water through fingers<br />
How do you bury something<br />
Already too deep to find?"
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
France Rreally<br />
USA<br />
www.france-rreally.com<br />
About<br />
France Rreally is a multimedia artist working with video<br />
art, documentary, performance, and fabric to reflect the<br />
reality of constant change and the personal agency it makes<br />
possible. He uses accessible materials like consumer digital<br />
cameras, handmade sets, and found ephemera to guide<br />
journeys between banal everyday life and ridiculous digimagical<br />
fairytale worlds. With a world in flux, systems can<br />
be undermined, human identity and form is fluid, and reality<br />
itself is complex and customizable--empowering users to<br />
take what's in reach to create their ideal lives.<br />
He is a member of the NYC/Philadelphia film and video art<br />
collective Krissy Talking Pictures and has performed and<br />
screened his work online and around North America and<br />
Europe including at BRIC Arts Media, the Hudson Valley<br />
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sameheads Berlin, and<br />
various film festivals such as Film Diary NYC, Antimatter<br />
Media Art, and Cactus Club Independent Film Festival. He is<br />
based out of Brooklyn, NY, where he is always becoming and<br />
re-becoming himself.<br />
Movie storyboarding and filming<br />
Most of my time during the residency was spent on the<br />
earliest stages of an upcoming movie I’m creating. I spent<br />
the first two weeks of the month coming up with an idea,<br />
creating a workable storyboard, making costumes and<br />
gathering props, then the last two weeks filming, filming, and<br />
more filming.<br />
While I had wanted to come prepared with an original<br />
idea and hit the ground running, it took arriving at <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
and experiencing the surroundings without a cellphone<br />
or internet for the story to reveal itself. I sewed original<br />
costumes for the three central characters out of found fabric<br />
and free clothing. I shot footage in the forest, on the road,<br />
by the lake, and in front of a green screen, and was lucky<br />
to share the screen with a few other enthusiastic residents<br />
who helped me bring my ideas to life. With every element of<br />
the movie, I encouraged myself to follow my intuition. I was<br />
striving to trust the story I was creating and allow meaning<br />
to emerge from the ideas instead of the other way around.<br />
Then, what started as disjointed images in my mind gradually<br />
revealed themselves to be springing from the same source<br />
as cohesive components of a larger picture.<br />
Though I have a long road until the project is finished, it is<br />
invaluably steeped with the lively worlds I experienced in and<br />
around the forest, moments of present awareness, and the<br />
support of those I met in my time at <strong>Arteles</strong>.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Angela Long<br />
Spain / Canada<br />
www.angelalongwrites.com<br />
About<br />
I'm a multi-genre writer seeking answers to all the big<br />
questions: Why are we here? Where did we come from?<br />
Where are we going? For decades I've wondered and<br />
wandered – from the rainforests of Guatemala to the peaks<br />
of the Himalayas. While I have a bachelor's degree in<br />
creative writing and a master's degree in journalism, my true<br />
education has come from the people I've met along the way.<br />
My CV lists everything from planting trees to throwing pots<br />
to teaching English. My list of publications reflects a life lived<br />
in liminal zones and a quest for social justice. To stay sane, I<br />
try to cultivate a love of small things – a sprig of red currants,<br />
a faded blue shutter. Home is both Toronto, Canada, and a<br />
house by the sea in Galicia, Spain, where I care for a growing<br />
number of abandoned cats. Lately, I've been looking to the<br />
stars for both solace and inspiration. At <strong>Arteles</strong> I hope to add<br />
to my collection of astronomy-themed poetry.<br />
Crowns of Wildflowers<br />
I'm not used to seeing so much sky," said an artist from<br />
New York on the first day. I looked at the sky differently after<br />
this, realizing that while I was used to seeing large swaths of<br />
sky, I'd stopped looking. My perspective had narrowed. At<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong>, I opened up again – in heart, mind, and spirit. Being<br />
surrounded by such a diverse group of multidisciplinary<br />
artists, who were as talented as they were fun-loving and<br />
kind, for an entire month without any "outside" interference<br />
(aka cell phones) unleashed a wave of creative freedom.<br />
This manifested in many forms. Sometimes it was as an<br />
elaborate feast. Sometimes it was flying down a hill on a<br />
bicycle. Sometimes it was writing a poem about the speed<br />
of light. There were times of silence – of the vibration of the<br />
meditation bell, of standing barefoot on the moss in the heart<br />
of a forest, of turning the page of a book after midnight. And<br />
there were times of chatter and storytelling and the crackle<br />
of a campfire. We laughed together. We cried together. We<br />
sang together. We celebrated each other with crowns of<br />
wildflowers. I began to understand that the act of being –<br />
fully being with the people sharing a moment of space and<br />
time with you in such a magical place – was an act of creating<br />
art.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST <strong>2023</strong><br />
Giada Matteini<br />
USA / Italy<br />
www.wadedance.org<br />
About<br />
I am a multi-hyphenated creative being, cultural manager and<br />
entrepreneur, inhabiting conflicting cultures that both enliven<br />
and haunt me. I was born in Florence, Italy, but I have been<br />
living in New York City for almost three decades now. Dance<br />
is my first love and I have spent most of my life manipulating<br />
movement in its many forms as a performer, choreographer,<br />
curator, producer, and educator. I have been teaching all over<br />
the world, taking my favorite travel companion (my son) along<br />
with me to the Americas, Europe, and Asia.<br />
Intersections fascinate me; the women-led multifaceted<br />
performing arts company I founded, WADE, intersects with<br />
research, restorative justice strategies, women’s rights<br />
and social action. The more unexpected the intersections,<br />
the more interested I am: classical ballet with radical love<br />
and self-care, soft jazz with ice hockey, grind culture<br />
with authentic connections. I wander between art forms,<br />
geographical borders and languages, centering in my<br />
purpose every day and finding myself in awe of the crooked,<br />
knotted, and gnarled beauty of trees.<br />
WADEintoLOVE<br />
The book, part love letter to New York City, part selfdeprecating<br />
memoir, chronicles the journey that led me to<br />
create WADE, a company born by transforming my grief<br />
into an act of love. It speaks of my experience with violence<br />
both in the childhood and marital home, how dance has<br />
continued to be intertwined with these experiences offering<br />
solace, healing and the strongest impetus to end the cycle<br />
of violence. It wants to offer an in-depth explanation through<br />
biographical essays of why a survivor would want to invest<br />
time in working with perpetrators of violence. And finally, it<br />
highlights the choices I have made along the way to create a<br />
pedagogical approach to ballet based on somatic awareness<br />
and radical love.<br />
In my DreamSpace, all men stand up to sexism and violence.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Thessia Machado<br />
USA<br />
www.thessiamachado.com<br />
About<br />
Thessia Machado is a visual/sound artist, instrument builder<br />
and performer whose work plumbs the materiality of sound<br />
and its effect on our shifting perceptions of space. She<br />
creates circumstances in which to mine the matter of her<br />
pieces for their innate physical properties and the sonic and<br />
visual relationships that can arise from their interactions. In<br />
improvised and composed performed works, the ensemble<br />
of things is augmented by a dynamically responsive and<br />
intentionally unpredictable human element. Electronics are<br />
usually implicated.<br />
Gota (a short video) & wheel (a sculptural instrument)<br />
Created with an instinctual approach, the video 'gota' reflects<br />
an existential concern with time, permanence, and the role<br />
of the artist in society. The instrument 'wheel', built from a<br />
found bicycle wheel, is a playful take on circularity, decaying<br />
rhythms, and teasing interesting sounds from unexpected<br />
sources.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Silvia Mantellini Faieta<br />
Italy<br />
www.silviamantellinifaieta.com<br />
About<br />
Our collective and biological memory, the idea we have of<br />
ourselves, others, the space in which we live, and aggregations<br />
rituals affect the connection between us and others. Words,<br />
sounds, and images are the basis of coexistence and are<br />
fundamental to creating dialogues, sharing, and progress.<br />
Every human being has those elements to create his reality<br />
confirming that every human is a creator, an artist.<br />
Involving different kinds of communities and groups of<br />
people, and embracing inner speeches, my artistic research<br />
shows social experiences as a simple representation of the<br />
eternal changing of life in a continuous dialogue with our own<br />
spaces. Using moving images and words, referring to specific<br />
human conditions (in choosing participants of my videos and<br />
my actions), this representation lets emerge the emotional<br />
and spiritual dimensions creating a real connection with the<br />
world in which we live and within us.<br />
Waking Dreams<br />
Indigo (7’57’’, single-channel video) is the story of humans<br />
who lost their trust in the Higher Powers: Chiron, Water and<br />
Time. There is just one Believer, but if she is dreaming,<br />
desiring or remembering we will never know.<br />
Made in four different languages (English, Dutch, German<br />
and French), it is divided into five chapters.<br />
Shadow is part of Deep Blue Sea EP by R.E.A (Andrea Frahn)<br />
Inspired by the long shadows of the midnight sun, this video<br />
is a collaboration between video art and pop music.<br />
D.A.N.L. (1’22’’, single channel video) is a video made of<br />
thirty-one different skies. A voice-over tells poetically a<br />
personal violent experiences that my body told me during<br />
silence moments.<br />
My artistic practice, after my staying at <strong>Arteles</strong> Creative<br />
Center, is in changing mode: if before I was more focus on<br />
reality, now I am opening my research to dreams, poetry and<br />
fantasy, that till now I was hiding to my self even if they were<br />
present latently in my actions, thoughts and work.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Blaine Deutsch<br />
USA<br />
www.blainedeutsch.com/artwork<br />
About<br />
I’m a painter, printmaker, designer, producer, cyclist,<br />
conversationalist, writer, and seeker of inspiration. My daily<br />
intent is to further my skills as a storyteller, image maker, and<br />
amateur quantum physicist. I have a giant garden, partially<br />
for all the great produce it provides, but also because it<br />
functions as a grand experiment in wonder. I truly believe<br />
that we are each better for the people around us and that<br />
it is possible to do great work while still being nice to one<br />
another.<br />
Much of what I do in life is based in research - my own desire<br />
to learn more. Art, cooking, writing, exploring. I want to know<br />
how, and sometimes more important, why. When I hear about<br />
something that interests me, I'm soon surrounded by any<br />
books I can find on the topic. If I try a new dish, I'm in the<br />
kitchen the next day in attempt to create my own version. I<br />
often ask friends what color a song is, because I love to think<br />
that all our senses can be tricked to take on other roles and I<br />
feel the idea of perception is far too often overlooked.<br />
Rediscovering Intention<br />
Though I didn’t accomplish all I set out to do while in Finland,<br />
I achieved more than I could have ever imagined. Arriving<br />
with a box of supplies and ideas I had been holding on to for<br />
a while, I thought I knew exactly how this month was going<br />
to play out. But the air, the people, the sense of space all<br />
helped me to quickly realize this opportunity had other plans<br />
for me. This was my first hint that this month was going to<br />
change me. This experience allowed me to fully lean into the<br />
idea that our focus should not be on making art, but rather,<br />
creating a space in which art is made. The physical space<br />
- stopping to truly absorb all that surrounds us, respecting<br />
the studio. The mental space - daily meditations that forced<br />
time to behave differently. The personal space - cultivating<br />
community, finding trust amongst a group of strangers who<br />
have all dedicated our lives to being vulnerable and baring<br />
our souls.<br />
I experimented with new techniques, filled notebooks with<br />
ideas, picked blueberries every morning, hiked the forest at<br />
2am, and rode a bike to Mouhjiärvi for ice cream. I pushed<br />
myself, let myself rest, tried to include intent in every action.<br />
I had dreams more vivid than ever before. I left with a head<br />
full of ideas, the reassurance that I’m doing exactly what I<br />
should be doing, and the promise to myself that I would be<br />
back there some day.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Julia John<br />
USA<br />
www.juliajohn.net<br />
About<br />
I am an artist based in Brooklyn, NY who makes clothing<br />
and works primarily with textiles. I explore the interaction<br />
between body and garment, the tactile nature of cloth as<br />
a communication tool, and how clothing can function as<br />
sculpture when a body is absent. My work is informed by<br />
exploration of my surroundings and a search for joy.<br />
Learning to Draw<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> was a nurturing, quiet space to confront fears, pick<br />
wild blueberries, and ask big questions that were received<br />
openly. It was a space to move slow and be still, to rest, and<br />
to consider what it means to go back to basics. Artwork<br />
came after deep reflection and when it did, it came playfully.<br />
I became interested in how the same repeated shape could<br />
represent many lifeforms, places, and moments. Here is a<br />
boat that is a feather, a flame, a crevice, a curtain, a pea pod,<br />
a petal, a cocoon, an armpit, an embryo, a leaf, the negative<br />
space between limbs. I saw the human body mirrored in<br />
natural forms when I sat by the lake with my eyes just above<br />
the surface of the water. I stayed up all night watching the<br />
sky stay light, curious to know where the courage to make<br />
art comes from.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge<br />
Canada / USA<br />
www.evelynelr.space<br />
About<br />
At the center of my art practice are images, usually taken<br />
with a camera, printed, projected, on screens, bounded in<br />
a book, sent by mail, wrapped around objects, or carefully<br />
placed in a room. My projects generally involve acts of close<br />
observation of the physical spaces I (and/or collaborators)<br />
inhabit, whether it’s the details of a dusty waiting room green<br />
plant, the texture and wood grain of my desktop, the corner<br />
of sky to be seen from a small window, or the dance of paper<br />
and wind.<br />
Finding ant nests<br />
When I explored <strong>Arteles</strong>’ location via google street views<br />
before the residency, I strangely recognized the landscape, its<br />
plants and trees and gravel roads. The forest looked familiar,<br />
even through the google-mediated format. I grew up in a<br />
similar remote rural setting in Northeast Quebec. Flashbacks<br />
from my childhood resurfaced during my month at <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
and helped me outline a project I have had in mind for a few<br />
years but never knew how it would take shape. It is slowly<br />
becoming a book and a short film about the reconnection<br />
with and then loss of a childhood friend, the act of writing,<br />
sending and receiving letters, the roles and stories of trees<br />
in both rural and urban settings, and, the familiarities and<br />
estrangements to a landscape, a place.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Fenella Clarke<br />
New Zealand<br />
clarkefenella.cargo.site<br />
About<br />
Growing up in a small town at the bottom of the world,<br />
Fenella Clarke spent her childhood learning to sew,<br />
embroider and cross-stitch. Clarke then moved to Wellington<br />
in order to study fashion design and gain more knowledge<br />
of the textile arts, through Massey university. Inspired by<br />
the act of creating just as much as the final product, Clarke<br />
orchestrated a community weaving project that included<br />
students from various majors. After graduating with a<br />
bachelor's degree in design with honours and a certificate of<br />
business, Clarke moved again down to Wanaka. She started<br />
working in a local art gallery, while experimenting with multi<br />
media textile design. She also continued to further her skills<br />
in cross stitching by creating abstract self-portraits and<br />
expressionist work that aims to push the discipline of craft<br />
art. She is mainly interested in exploring how humans can<br />
hide and contradict integral parts of themselves when faced<br />
with social expectations of the community they live within.<br />
Hand embroidery<br />
While at this residency I took the time to focus all my attention<br />
on my largest scale project yet, a hand embroidered self<br />
portrait consisting of 24,768 cross-stitches. One of my goals<br />
going in was to see how much I could get done if I focused<br />
on my art full time, something I have never had the chance to<br />
do before this. It didn't feel integral to finish the piece just to<br />
get as much done, while still having time to enjoy the places<br />
and people around me. I am happy with the progress I made<br />
on the work and am excited to get stuck in in the next couple<br />
of months to finish it off.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Geerke Sticker<br />
Belgium<br />
www.geerkesticker.be<br />
About<br />
Geerke is an artist whose work is grounded on matter. Matter<br />
that lives, dies and has something to say. Geerke searches<br />
for a way to let that matter speak through the medium of the<br />
sculpture. The creation process of her organic sculptures<br />
often flows into the care of the sculptures that show transient<br />
traces through time. The artist sometimes shares her work<br />
(process) in a ritual way where other people can participate<br />
to create an awareness about the relationship between man<br />
and matter.<br />
Healing landscape<br />
My stay at <strong>Arteles</strong> made me realize that "the landscape"<br />
became part of my studio space. The landscape that moves,<br />
transforms and reflects in all kinds of colors during the long<br />
summer days in Finland. During the slow setting evening sun,<br />
the landscape covers in shadows. Also the long shadow of<br />
myself during an evening walk left me wondering. Shadows<br />
as an affirmation of our presence in the here and now. I never<br />
felt more present on this beautiful planet than in the wavy<br />
landscape of Finland.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Christina Carè<br />
UK<br />
www.christinahcare.com<br />
About<br />
Christina is an Italian-Australian writer living in London. She<br />
is interested in female subjectivity, the creation/destruction<br />
of family structures, how narratives (our own and others) can<br />
be co-opted and altered and the impact of technology on<br />
language and freedom. As a third-culture kid, she seeks out<br />
opportunities to unpick the influence of environment over<br />
personal/family identity.<br />
Overly curious, she studied Architecture, Art History and<br />
Philosophy before leaning into her passion for fiction. She has<br />
interviewed actors for Spotlight, turned data into compelling<br />
stories at Google, and has edited for the F-Word feminist<br />
collective. She was first runner up for the Evening Standard<br />
Short Story Competition 2022 and has been published in<br />
Bedford Square anthology (<strong>2023</strong>), City of Stories (2022), and<br />
the Mechanics Institute Review (2021). Previously, she was a<br />
London Writers Awardee (<strong>2020</strong>), as well as being mentored<br />
by author Kirsty Logan. She is deeply interested in the<br />
practice and habit of art-making, and has taught sustainable<br />
creativity for Spread the Word.<br />
Go deep. Surface.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, I finished a draft of my novel. At least, that is<br />
what it appears I did. But the reality is far more nuanced<br />
and complex, and the process was not linear. I learned a lot<br />
about myself and my work and that the term 'finished' is not<br />
so golden as it appears. Artists live in the world of their own<br />
process, a world that <strong>Arteles</strong> made tangible to me in a new<br />
way. Therefore, my practice as a writer grew immeasurably<br />
with this experience, and I now have multiple new threads<br />
to follow in my work. Nothing is truly 'finished'; I am more<br />
excited than ever to continue my work.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, she aims to finish her first novel, which follows a<br />
female-led cult. Entitled Rabbit Hole, it explores how minority<br />
bodies can create safety and intimacy in a threatening world.
Back to Basics program / JULY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Danielle Robitaille<br />
Canada<br />
About<br />
After having worked as an architect during my professional<br />
life and practiced painting in parallel, a few years ago I<br />
undertook a MFA in order to develop a personal artistic<br />
practice. From the beginning of my master's degree, seeking<br />
to understand what motivated me, I decided to problematize<br />
the notion of emotion and to make it the very heart of my<br />
research.<br />
As my main project during the MFA, I have developed a<br />
procedural practice by which I carry out a daily mapping<br />
of my affective state. Each day, I score 64 groups of words<br />
(hesitation, guilt, hope, etc.) and then visually translate the<br />
collected data according to a color combination protocol.<br />
The chromatic richness that I obtain, although it is from a<br />
digital source, allows me to reconnect with the pleasure of<br />
manipulating colors that I felt in painting.<br />
The daily examination of my affective state requires a time<br />
of pause and presence to oneself that I associate with<br />
meditation. In order to deepen this link, I will participate, in<br />
<strong>2023</strong>-2024, in a short graduate program on meditation and<br />
the creative process.<br />
The Finnish list<br />
I used my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> to carry out two projects. The first<br />
one was sharing my daily emotional mapping project with<br />
other artists who wanted to participate and explore that<br />
process for themselves during their stay. I used their data<br />
to make personal portraits of the artists as well as a group<br />
portrait. The exercise gave rise to interesting discussions<br />
on the emotional variations we go through and their<br />
representation using colors.<br />
For the second project, I prepared a list of seven activities<br />
that I should do to improve my emotional state (including<br />
meditation, taking time to do nothing, etc.), but which I<br />
usually resist. My stay at <strong>Arteles</strong> allowed me to immerse<br />
myself in those activities and observe their impact. In a large<br />
frame built using wood taken from pallets stored in the barn, I<br />
recreated a calendar of the first three weeks of the residency,<br />
using an embroidery circle for each day. On each circle, I<br />
attached a strip of paper for each of the seven activities<br />
that I managed to do during that day. As I have transcribed<br />
a sentence from my personal diary on each strip of paper,<br />
the whole work constitutes a diary of my stay at <strong>Arteles</strong>: it<br />
begins with observations, mainly concerning the immediate<br />
environment of the residence, then continues with the moods<br />
aroused by the course of daily life, the company of other<br />
artists, the time available, the preparation of projects, etc.<br />
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the<br />
Arts.
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Ke-Ni Zoe Shao<br />
Taiwan<br />
www.instagram.com/zoeshao.art<br />
About<br />
I am a self-taught artist whose inspiration comes from<br />
spirituality across cultures and the world of more-thanhuman.<br />
While drawing has been a powerful figure of speech<br />
of my soul, I am also good at reading between the lines<br />
as I have a MA in English Literatures from National Taiwan<br />
University.<br />
Worked as a coordinator between different cultures in various<br />
organizations, I have been searching for the meaning of life.<br />
A series of soul-searching journeys led me to the Life itself:<br />
the plants, insects, animals, rocks, mountains, waters, and<br />
the divine guidances in Eastern and Western cultures. I feel<br />
what it is like to live among all the beings as “human beings”.<br />
I come to develop an integrated approach of tuning the<br />
presence of the body with the purpose of the soul. Mindful<br />
Meditation, Yoga, Hypnotherapy, Energy Art, Storytelling,<br />
Akashi’s Record Reading, Energy Healing and Spiritual<br />
Messages…, are my tools towards more understanding.<br />
For this stay, I’d love to provide energy reading and “releasing<br />
the creator’s block” meditation to fellow artists.<br />
Being Present Mindfully<br />
1-Making flower essence in Summer Solstice.<br />
2-Collab exhibit “Spiritual Bonding”. Part III: Hidden Portals.<br />
3-Collective project “Making Amulets”. Handcrafted an<br />
amulet for “Storytelling”. Drew 14 illustrated cards with ink.<br />
4-Emotionally triggered events: the hail I felt with bare feet on<br />
the 1st day; the views of Parilanjärvi when waiting for help on<br />
a boat on the 5th day; and the view of finally consummated<br />
boat trip with my previously stranger life-saver now a dear<br />
friend on the 27th day.<br />
5-“Spirit of Sauna”. Digital art of the view from my favorite<br />
window seat in the Sauna.<br />
6-Collab workshops: “Forest Therapy & How to Communicate<br />
with Trees”.<br />
7-“Releasing the Creator’s Block”: a reading/meditation/<br />
talking-healing I offered to 10 people in a month.<br />
8-Collab exhibit “Spiritual Bonding”. Part I: Sketches of the<br />
Spirits. Sketch and stitch. Part II: Layers of the World. Earth<br />
materials mandala.<br />
The reflection for <strong>Arteles</strong> residency is difficult, as I feel so<br />
wrong when attempt to make it sound impressive. Finally, I<br />
went with simply making a list. The truth is, <strong>Arteles</strong> become<br />
part of me in a way that I could not be anything but honest<br />
with it. The forces of nature changed me: old beliefs fell<br />
off; resistance softened and weathered away. I now see<br />
vulnerability as the crack in me and in a group that allows<br />
Love to flow through. I also learn that, in my quest to be a<br />
medium-healer-artist, being who I am with consistency is<br />
everything and enough.<br />
Being truthful in living your raw force of life.<br />
Responding to your desire to be a creator with a whole body.<br />
Plunging in every moment with a playful heart!
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Arianna Santoriello<br />
USA<br />
https://www.ariannasantoriello.com<br />
About<br />
I am an abstract multi-media artist with an affinity for saturated<br />
colors, repetitive patterns, and organic symmetrical shapes.<br />
I am often inspired by the nature of the creative process,<br />
the waves of emotion we surf through on a daily basis and<br />
the routines and rituals that structure our daily lives. I have<br />
developed a unique method of creating colorful patterns in<br />
my artwork. In order to relinquish some control, I will use<br />
digits in phone numbers and other collected personal data<br />
to dictate the placement of shapes and colors in my work. By<br />
doing this I open up space in my creative process for mystery<br />
to arrive.<br />
Recently I have been creating large scale symmetrical,<br />
organic shapes. My spiritual practice and connection to the<br />
movement of my body inspire these organic goopy forms.<br />
They started as small drawings and have evolved into<br />
paintings and now into shallow hand-carved wooden works.<br />
Blissful surrender<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to surrender deeply to my creative flow. It<br />
took me on a wild ride.<br />
I experimented with yarn dyeing and creating small<br />
handwoven pieces.<br />
In between those moments, I created a large painting on<br />
paper to add color to my bedroom and ended up cutting it<br />
up and collaging with it. These were a breath of fresh air for<br />
me. I loved the immediacy that these small paper collages<br />
provided, compared to the slow methodical planning<br />
necessary for weaving.<br />
I also cut and sanded a wooden sculpture and installed it<br />
in the forest. Many hands contributed to this piece and it is<br />
the piece I made at <strong>Arteles</strong> that brings back the warmest<br />
memories when I look at it.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong> I plan to focus on fiber arts, with weaving being the<br />
highlight. This has been an interest of mine for years and I am<br />
looking forward to this dedicated time to take my first deep<br />
dive into developing my personal style of woven artwork.
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Lisa Rebert<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.wordalchemists.com<br />
About<br />
Lisa is a self-described word alchemist whose day job<br />
consists of copywriting, editing, and otherwise playing with<br />
words in various freelance communications projects. Now<br />
she is shifting her attention to producing her first collection<br />
of short stories.<br />
Lisa writes both fiction and creative nonfiction, and grounds<br />
her work in a strong sense of intersectional feminism, the<br />
power of cultural exchange, and a desire to free travel writing<br />
from its colonial shackles.<br />
She has long been interested in the power of storytelling and<br />
the stories we tell ourselves (collectively and individually),<br />
and how they ultimately frame the world we live in. For Lisa,<br />
storytelling is less of an escape from the human experience<br />
and more of a distillation that strengthens its proof.<br />
Stories: Fiction + Non-Fiction<br />
I watched the Lily of the Valley give way to Oxtail Daisies and<br />
Scentless Chamomile. Plodded through waist-high fields of<br />
Valerian while the Lupine struggled in the relentless heat. I<br />
became like the Jackdaws – colonizing an existing room and<br />
helping build a community that foraged together. Mining our<br />
various talents; being generous with our gifts. I built sauna<br />
fires with quiet intensity, which were fueled by solidarity as<br />
much as by the natural laws of chemistry. I walked in the<br />
forest, leaned against white birch, and found myself once<br />
more. It’s not that I was lost, I just needed the stillness to<br />
guide me.<br />
Armed with my neon sticky notes, sitting in the yellow<br />
reading chair in the attic or on the picnic blanket beneath<br />
the trees – (coincidentally?) the soft blue-green fabric the<br />
color of Jackdaw eggs flecked with dirt, imitating their brown<br />
speckles – and accompanied by a stack of ever-rotating<br />
books, I wrote. I began two non-fiction essays while also<br />
cleaning up several short pieces of fiction. Most importantly<br />
I rekindled that creative fire within me, in large part due to<br />
several books from the <strong>Arteles</strong> library. A big thanks you to<br />
those in my cohort and these books for all that they inspired<br />
in me: The Courage to Create by Roland May, Women Who<br />
Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, The Zen of<br />
Creativity by John Daido Loori, and Devotions by Mary Oliver.
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Maria Carmen Garcia Granados<br />
Mexico<br />
www.instagram.com/carmengarciagranados<br />
About<br />
I was born and currently live in Mexico City. Originally a<br />
graphic designer and working professionally for 15 years, I<br />
evolved into painting and eventually into handmade paper<br />
art.<br />
The natural world is an axis in my work which is intimately<br />
linked to raw material, sometimes directly but more often<br />
transformed or intervened by manual or industrial processes.<br />
The connection between the materials arises from their<br />
reaction when manipulated, and from there comes the<br />
possibility of associating them in a dialogue. Discovering the<br />
distinct language of the elements is an unavoidable path in<br />
my experimentation processes.<br />
I enjoy walking in different landscapes which include woods<br />
and semidesert areas. Here I see the constant changes and<br />
transformation processes along the paths. These changes<br />
take place in my work as a constant sense of movement of<br />
objects of different sizes that revolve around atmospheric<br />
spaces. You can see chaos, but also rhythms that suggest<br />
reordering and peace. I find movement and resilience at the<br />
core of my abstract compositions.<br />
Working in nondigital conditions, unique landscapes and<br />
environment is a one opportunity for me to genuinely express<br />
the character of back-to-basics program.<br />
In sealed movements<br />
All along my stay at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I felt a deep connection to the<br />
environment. Blending with the wind, water, and natural<br />
movements became a way for me to introspect and flow with<br />
them. I wondered if it was stillness or the very essence of life,<br />
moving and changing in its imperceptible subtle way, that so<br />
overwhelmed me. It was a state of mind that captivated me<br />
throughout June.<br />
Movement has always played a role in my artwork, but it was<br />
the specific moments and surroundings that left a lasting<br />
impact. Nature's direct influence was necessary to capture<br />
these fleeting moments.<br />
I collected rocks, made ink prints of water in Parilanjärvi,<br />
took photos, and gathered objects that kept these moments<br />
in sealed. The marks left by water on various elements<br />
are already present in the earth's topography. Through<br />
observation and interaction with nature, I found a way to<br />
connect with my inner self. This digital-free experience<br />
allowed me to explore and interpret these insights through<br />
drawings, handmade paper, and rock powder. It is a first<br />
approach to future creative progress, and I am so very<br />
grateful.
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Kevin Andrew Heslop<br />
Canada<br />
www.kevinandrewheslop.com<br />
About<br />
Kevin Andrew Heslop is a multidisciplinary artist from<br />
Canada's London® whose recent work includes the poetry<br />
collection the correct fury of your why is a mountain (Gordon<br />
Hill Press, 2021); art exhibitions six feet | between us (McIntosh<br />
Gallery, 2022) and in medias res (Westland Gallery, <strong>2023</strong>); and<br />
an internationally award-winning, multi-media, tetralingual<br />
poetry anthology, mo(u)vements, adapted to film and<br />
distributed through Rose Garden Press and Astoria Pictures,<br />
an independent film company Heslop founded in 2022. His<br />
current work includes two series of comedic shorts, two short<br />
films (Astoria Pictures, 2024), two co-written poetry volumes<br />
(Baseline Press, 2024; Rose Garden Press, 2024), a book of<br />
interviews about Medical Assistance in Dying (Gordon Hill<br />
Press, 2025), a new full-length poetry collection, a new book<br />
of interviews, and a collaborative art exhibition. Heslop also<br />
serves as resident interviewer with The Miramichi Reader,<br />
Managing Editor with Centred Magazine, and Director with<br />
Changing Ways. With support from the London Arts Council,<br />
Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts, he<br />
lives and works at artist residencies around the world,<br />
including (in <strong>2023</strong>) the Belgrade Art Studio, <strong>Arteles</strong> Creative<br />
Centre, BRAZZA Artist Residency, Casa Na Ilha Residency,<br />
and Kaaysá Art Residency.<br />
Film, Two Books<br />
Meditation was and is always central in my practice. But after<br />
attending diligently to that, while at <strong>Arteles</strong> I completed three<br />
projects, one film and two books: mo(u)vements. (available<br />
now at AstoriaPictures.ca); the rules of grammar will not save<br />
you at the hour of your death (co-written with poet Roxanna<br />
Bennett and available from Baseline Press Spring 2024); and<br />
Unspeakable (available from Gordon Hill Press Spring 2025).
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Kuan-Wei Wu<br />
Germany / Taiwan<br />
rub.academia.edu/KuanWeiWu<br />
About<br />
A freelance columnist, an art critic, and sometimes a<br />
podcaster. Fond of writing novels, essays, and poetry.<br />
breathing with nature<br />
I am now conducting a transcultural philosophical discussion<br />
of humans and nature. I am looking for resonance between<br />
the existentialism of Continental Philosophy (especially<br />
Kierkegaard’s “Authentic Existence” to Heidegger’s<br />
“Dasein”) and the more-than-human relation discussed in<br />
Eastern Philosophy (such as Yi-Jing: the Book of Changes, a<br />
topological approach to understanding human as a temporal<br />
and spatial being to Kitarō Nishida’s concept of “basho” in<br />
Kyoto School). Furthermore, I am concerned that in some<br />
ways of basic-to-basic creation and exploration, it is a key<br />
to transcending Anthropocentrism lies in the aforementioned<br />
transcultural dialogue. Additionally, the “multi-perspectivism”<br />
(Kohn, 2013) in the Shamanic channeling with “the Parliament<br />
of Things” (Latour, 2018) brings insight into human’s Bios/<br />
Zoe (Braidotti, 2008).
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Candice Raeburn<br />
Australia<br />
twitter.com/candiceraeburn?lang=en<br />
About<br />
Candi is a passionate STEM professional working across<br />
government, education and research sectors. Her past<br />
research has looked at ways to use bacteria to clean up<br />
nuclear fallout zones, has explored bacteria living in extreme<br />
environments (such as the deep-sea floor), and has created<br />
glowing biosensors that can help us better understand<br />
neurodegenerative diseases. She is a passionate science<br />
communicator, always interested in finding new ways to<br />
explain the natural world and potential of science in nonconventional<br />
ways.<br />
Candi is currently undertaking a project looking to explore the<br />
language and biochemistry of human behaviour, particularly<br />
love. She is working with the Museum of Broken Relationships<br />
in Croatia to explore the words we use to describe love and<br />
loss across language, culture and time. She is also interested<br />
in transformative experiences, rituals and all forms of bio-art.<br />
Science of Love<br />
Deeply immersed in data, stories and frameworks relating<br />
to love and loss. During the residency, I analysed stories<br />
from the Museum of Broken Relationships to understand<br />
the words we use when we talk about love, and objects that<br />
represent the feeling across language, culture and time. I<br />
also analysed my own data-set where people explained what<br />
different 'species' of love such as 'love', 'romance', 'worship'<br />
and 'adore' meant to them. A new framework and research<br />
study was designed, and the cascades of chemicals and<br />
neurotransmitters that are triggered as people move between<br />
emotional states were mapped.<br />
The spaces between the data were filled with conversations,<br />
nature, writing and learning the arts of weaving and pop-up<br />
art creating (aka 'paper engineering').
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Katharine Rogers<br />
Australia<br />
www.filmgalinpurple.com<br />
About<br />
Katharine is a filmmaker, picture book author and curator.<br />
Her short films have screened at international festivals,<br />
received theatrical distribution in the USA, and been featured<br />
on Virgin In Flight entertainment. Her debut picture book,<br />
Cockatoo Magic was published by Loose Parts Press in 2022<br />
and has featured on the Better Read Than Dead Kids best<br />
seller list three times. Recently, nature has become a passion<br />
for her and in <strong>2023</strong> she received a Highly Commended in<br />
the Australian Photographer of the Year (Animal and Nature<br />
Category)<br />
Wild places<br />
Through the space and time, <strong>Arteles</strong> afforded me, I created<br />
several written works, including three children's picture<br />
books, a short story for adults, and a synopsis for a reality<br />
TV series. I also experimented with photography, another art<br />
form I love, to create a series of black-and-white images of<br />
nature objects with mixed media elements. These capture<br />
a sense of the wonder and magic at <strong>Arteles</strong> and its natural<br />
surroundings.
Back to Basics program / JUNE <strong>2023</strong><br />
Debra Spark<br />
USA<br />
www.debraspark.com<br />
About<br />
I am a fiction writer who likes to sneak away to write articles<br />
and essays on a variety of topics. I have published five novels,<br />
two collections of stories, two books of essays about fiction<br />
writing, and two anthologies.<br />
I teach both at Colby College and in the MFA Program<br />
for Writers at Warren Wilson College. While at <strong>Arteles</strong>,I<br />
hope to continue work on a nonfiction project concerning<br />
coincidence stories. I am interested in narrating coincidence<br />
stories and their aftermath and how such stories allow me<br />
to explore issues like grudges and reconciliation, perception<br />
of risk, religious faith in the light of personal misfortune, and<br />
late-life female friendship.<br />
No Coincidences, No Story<br />
I worked on the first draft of several essays for a book that<br />
will consist of coincidence stories. I use the stories as an<br />
occasion for exploring diverse subjects, including the<br />
diagnosis and treatment of a rare disease, the likelihood of<br />
foul ball injuries, the effect of a public accounting of a private<br />
love affair, and grudges and reconciliation in the lives of two<br />
famous architects. I wrote eighty draft pages and revised 20<br />
more pages. For me, this is an enormous amount of work,<br />
and sets up the work I will likely do for the next half a year.
Back to Basics program / MAY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Yuiga Ohtsuki<br />
Japan<br />
www.yuigaohtsuki.com<br />
About<br />
Born in Hyogo, Japan. Currently lives and works in Tokyo.<br />
Ohtsuki graduated from Musashino Art University in 2014.<br />
In 2019 she graduated from Tokyo University of the Artsʼ<br />
Graduate School of Fine Arts, majoring in inter media art, and<br />
completed her PhD in <strong>2023</strong>. In Ohtsukiʼs process of creating<br />
artworks, she incorporates her thorough research in order to<br />
deal with Death and Life, Human Activity and Climate, Place.<br />
She received the encouragement award at 13th “1_WALL<br />
Photography” (2015). Her major exhibitions include “Barrow<br />
of Equilibrium” (Nikon Salon Shinjuku/ Osaka, 2015), “How<br />
we create a ʻLandscapeʼ” (Citizens Gallery, Meguro Museum<br />
of Art, 2021).<br />
Supported by Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation<br />
Reflect myself<br />
It was the first time for me to spend a whole month in the<br />
countryside. So, this is the first time I've known the nature<br />
changes so quickly in Spring.<br />
I walked for few hours once every two or three days. While<br />
walking, I thought about nature, our world and art. I took many<br />
photos everyday. I had conversations with other residents in<br />
forests and fields.<br />
Geological and topographical condition are completely<br />
different from my country. When I walked around residence, I<br />
always found something new about trees, plants, rocks, soils<br />
and water.<br />
Through this experience, I noticed what I am really interested<br />
and the most important thing for my life.<br />
During this residency, I started to consider my drawings and<br />
embroideries as a part of my art works. Before I came here,<br />
these small handworks were only meditation and hobby.<br />
But these are kinds of my daily life same as living in nature;<br />
breathe clear and fresh air, smell soil and leaves, observe<br />
minute change of the season. And also, they can sometimes<br />
describe easy my feelings.
Back to Basics program / MAY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Loretta Mae Hirsch<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.lorettamae.com<br />
About<br />
I studied at the Glasgow School of Art, received my BFA at<br />
Savannah College of Art & Design and my MFA at the New<br />
York Academy of Art. I am originally Oklahoma but I currently<br />
reside and work in Amsterdam, Netherlands. My work<br />
embraces the feminine body and human desires.<br />
Drawings: Magical realism<br />
My drawings at <strong>Arteles</strong> told a whimsical tale. I was inspired<br />
by the symbolism in the writings and art of magical realism,<br />
blurring the lines between fantasy and the feminine body.
Back to Basics program / MAY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Jen Herszman Capraru<br />
Canada<br />
www.theatreasylum.com/home.html<br />
About<br />
Jen grew up in a haunted house in Montréal. She is an<br />
international theatre director whose work has been seen in<br />
Africa, Cuba, USA, Canada and Europe, and is also active in<br />
film. As artistic director of award winning Theatre Asylum,<br />
she premieres thought-provoking contemporary theatre by<br />
and about women and humanist issues from the inter/national<br />
repertoire. Awards include le Prix de Théatre Africain, Dora<br />
awards, finalist for the Siminovitch , Hirsch and Freedom to<br />
Create prizes, as well as being an invited artist to Banff, the<br />
Lincoln Centre and Schloss Solitude. Merci for support by<br />
the Canada Council for the Arts.<br />
The Inner Compass<br />
O Finlandia. This small forested mythic land loomed large<br />
in my consciousness ever since I fell into the world of the<br />
films of Kaurasmäki. Long awaited through the pandemic,<br />
the journey from the idea of north in Canada to that of Finland<br />
was finally made as the land broke free of winter.<br />
Days were composed of reading for hours, nature, silence,<br />
yoga, lake, blessed sauna, film scripts . They were bent in a<br />
way time refracts to the horizon when technology is taken out<br />
of being. My old friend solitude was waiting for me, as ever<br />
patient and without judgement. <strong>Arteles</strong> is a magical place, a<br />
sacred space. The creators of it are architects of the sublime<br />
and all of us envision it, keep it alive. Each artist’s energy<br />
over time contributes to its growth and creative fire. The<br />
alchemy of the elements purify us; nature, sauna, sun, dark,<br />
rock, meditation, exploration. All equal bliss. May <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
Creative Forces rule.
Back to Basics program / MAY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Carole Wu<br />
Taiwan<br />
www.hummingbirdbibibi.com<br />
About<br />
I used to be a visual effect artist for 10 years, but I have loved<br />
art since little. I’m a self-taught artist. All my paintings are<br />
driven by emotions. Emotions are primitive and shared by<br />
living beings. and when seeing an art piece involved with<br />
emotions, I feel happy to meet the same kind, and feel so<br />
touched by similar souls.<br />
The loneliness always lingers and blue moods are with<br />
me from time to time, and drawing is my only channel to<br />
let them go, and be peaceful with them. Oftentimes, I'm<br />
drawn and moved to solitude and misfits from various art<br />
expressions,""I'm Nobody, who are you? '' by the poet Emily<br />
Dickinson."" was the very early memory imprinted on my<br />
teens till now. Also love Van Gogh's madness, the swirling<br />
strokes in the mundane scenery, I feel him.The ancient murals<br />
for illustrative storytelling are also addictive. Nevertheless,<br />
encounters with another culture and meeting new people are<br />
what I’m longing for, and always trigger me to create more<br />
with fresh perspectives on my art works.<br />
Went to <strong>Arteles</strong> residency without any premise. Enjoyed<br />
my daily routine visiting the nature, and read in the woods.<br />
Hanging out with other artists, venturing out with them during<br />
dayttime, and drinking in the night time. Felt the emotions<br />
surfacing in my room when alone, and then I started to draw<br />
what I felt about Finland.<br />
Every little thing about you.<br />
Painter / Draw / Fun
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Yu Dien Chen<br />
Taiwan<br />
www.vimeo.com/yudienchen<br />
About<br />
Born in 1990, Yu-Dien Chen is a performance maker working<br />
across the forms of theatre. His works have diverse themes,<br />
including directing traditional Chinese opera, magic, and<br />
theatrical installation. He considers the theater space as the<br />
environment and pays attention to the "vulnerability" people<br />
display. His works emphasize sensual feelings, focusing on<br />
perceptions beyond speech and often revealing emotional<br />
tension within the intricate structure to shake reality with<br />
the co-existing body experience. His works have been<br />
participating in the Festival OFF Avignon, Taipei Arts Festival,<br />
Taipei Children's Arts Festival, Taipei Performing Arts Center,<br />
National Taichung Theater, and National Kaohsiung Center<br />
for the Arts.<br />
On a snowy day, the steps outside the blue and yellow house<br />
are all covered by snow, and everyone must diligently clean<br />
once again when they come in and out.<br />
The Snow.<br />
Naturally, cover the traces made by everyone, and thanks<br />
for covering the footprints that I set my foot on by staring at<br />
myself from outside my room for a long time. Now the prints<br />
of the two positions come to one, returning to myself. It's<br />
time intending to go back up.<br />
Ten things that occur in <strong>Arteles</strong>:<br />
Human-Nature-Human<br />
1 Keep watching the wind and snow; paint the side of the<br />
pine tree white.<br />
2 Finnish Sauna<br />
3 Re-acquaint myself with my language, such as "xiāng."<br />
4 Me being too polite.<br />
5 Pay attention to my creative value.<br />
6 Know the beauty of communal.<br />
7 Leaving is a metaphor, like a death, my scent will disappear<br />
here.<br />
8 Cooperate with nature, cooperate with animals.<br />
9 Finished reading a novel named Dans les forêts de Sibérie.<br />
10 Completed a script and kept writing more after <strong>Arteles</strong>.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Rachel Rinker<br />
USA<br />
rachelrinker.wixsite.com/artist<br />
About<br />
Rachel uses painting, drawing, collage and printmaking to<br />
explore notions of memory, archive and entropy as they<br />
process their states of being over time. As they experience<br />
human needs for connection and organizational structures,<br />
they tangibly unfold them during the creation of new work.<br />
Periods of rest are paramount to balance energetic bursts of<br />
rhythmic, painterly movements and the unfurling of visually<br />
stimulating environments full of layered history and human<br />
connection.<br />
Typically drawn to themes of accumulation and upcycling<br />
in their visual art practice as instinct, necessity, and as a<br />
sustainable approach to art making, Rachel is excited to find<br />
themselves amongst the spaciousness of silence to discover<br />
whether the clutter may cease or sustain their creative<br />
process. During their time at <strong>Arteles</strong>, they are open to the<br />
fall-out, the re-discovery, the finding of new quietly powerful<br />
somatic pathways.<br />
What Happened?<br />
Gloriously swollen, I’ve never more distinctly experienced<br />
the powerful cyclical period of one month. I came to this<br />
experience with as few tangible expectations of myself as<br />
possible. Silence. Awareness. Existence. was a powerful<br />
thread to hold our month together… social weeks punctuated<br />
by silent weekends allowed the ebb and flow of creativity<br />
to take hold at all the right times. I had freedom to simply<br />
exist in my self, establish a meditation practice, listen to<br />
the radiators hiss, develop community with an amazing and<br />
diverse group of creatives, traipse through the snow, learn<br />
how to make bread, and share a part of myself in a lush and<br />
welcoming space. I emptied out from the very beginning<br />
to almost a shell of myself, questioned how I could then<br />
possibly relate to the world if I’m empty? But, through time, I<br />
remembered myself - my body, my being - that I am the world<br />
and the world is me - and this helped maintain the rest of<br />
my journey as I meandered through exploring new avenues<br />
of creativity for the simple sake of play, experiment, and a<br />
release of expectations to “produce.” Nonetheless, I did<br />
complete six+ intimate abstract landscapes (heartscapes?)<br />
that transformed over the month’s time from clean, gessoed<br />
substrates, to watercolor studies, to upcycled collages, to<br />
gouache playgrounds, where these scenes emerged to<br />
fruition. It was a reconciling with my established creative<br />
practice, while letting the experience of the swollen month’s<br />
cycle gently guide me with newfound awareness and intent.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Christopher Heath<br />
UK<br />
www.cbheath.com<br />
About<br />
I am a freelance writer and poet living on a narrowboat on the<br />
Kennet and Avon canal near Bath, England. I hold an MA in<br />
Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and my poetry has<br />
been published in journals Raceme and Beyond the Storm,<br />
and longlisted for the Rialto Nature and Place prize. Critics<br />
have said of my poetry that it “strikes clean notes of true<br />
originality” and that it offers a “clear, consistent voice”.<br />
Play<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> was an opportunity to allow both internal space and<br />
external movement to develop of their own accord. Away<br />
from news and social media, I found myself engaging with<br />
others and the natural world in a mode of childlike play.<br />
The people were beautiful. The woods were beautiful. The<br />
playfulness was beautiful.<br />
My time is equally divided between writing poetry and<br />
practising traditional Buddhist meditation. In all things I<br />
pursue a quiet stillness, an evocation of the divine, and a fully<br />
integrated understanding, and transcendence, of the self.<br />
I am currently developing a creative-led meditation tutoring<br />
service, where I will offer one-on-one and group-based<br />
teaching to writers hoping to develop their creative skills in<br />
tandem with their meditation practice.
Resident in Snow<br />
for the <strong>Arteles</strong> cohort – March '23<br />
Some things never change. Impermanence,<br />
flow. The artists here are making fractures:<br />
things construct yet brittle. Volcanos made of<br />
snow, sweating from their interior fires.<br />
Collages weaved from yesterday's news.<br />
Landscape studies of Dali-dripping woods.<br />
Marks are being set on past pages<br />
by a poet of loss. When even those do not gel,<br />
he sets his feet in the ice instead. Slides.<br />
On silent days, only one thing is truly unsaid.<br />
Something like: ouch.<br />
Or: oh, the restless stoppage.<br />
The freight-speed itinerary of cancellations.<br />
On sharing night, we freeze our work,<br />
best we can. But slides are slipped. Eyes lit.<br />
For a pot is struck with a wooden spoon<br />
by a woman dancing through the halls.<br />
It's an emergency of magnetism, so we unthaw,<br />
meeting ourselves in the clear night,<br />
standing close but apart, to peer North.<br />
Coats half-zipped. Hoping to pupate.<br />
We are desperate for it, that beauty<br />
we have heard is ours. So we hang jaws<br />
ready to drink it. The Aurora. Dim show,<br />
morphing memory of moss in bore winds.<br />
Until it flickers out. Is lost. Disappears<br />
temporarily. And then we're sure we saw it.<br />
We're quite sure, by our loss, that we had it.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Bert Jacobs<br />
Belgium<br />
www.jacobsbert.be<br />
About<br />
Space is something that I often think about in my work;<br />
whether physical or the more mental. It has nothing to do with<br />
functionality or surrealism, but more with one’s experiences<br />
or memories, and its revival or visualisation. I’ll come across<br />
certain things, and my first instinct is to try and capture it, to<br />
register the phenomenal sight fully. We constantly take – or<br />
at least, I do – so much for granted. So I like to put a focus<br />
on one thing, which will then allow me to understand it better<br />
somehow. In turn, the intention isn’t necessarily to make the<br />
audience visualise or feel, but rather surprise them to look;<br />
to notice, pay attention, and appreciate them more. Perhaps<br />
that makes my work rather situationist.<br />
Snow Vulcano<br />
My time in <strong>Arteles</strong> was wonderful. I came with the idea of<br />
focusing back on drawing and having some time to empty<br />
my head, close previous chapters, and find new inspiration.<br />
Instead, I found out that the landscape of the Finnish<br />
countryside is truly beautiful, the ice lake and sauna are<br />
very addictive, and the food at Frantsila is delicious. I made<br />
friends from Taiwan, Croatia, and the US, and every single<br />
one of them was very inspiring and fun. The Silent Awareness<br />
Existence Program offered the chance to make the headspace<br />
needed, and it activated me into playing with snow and fire.<br />
This resulted in Snowvolcano, a pile of snow with a chimney<br />
and a fire. The opposite of cold and warm, water and fire<br />
come together in these sculptures. During the course of the<br />
month, nature melted and shaped the Snowvolcanos in an<br />
organic and surprising way.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Pamela Jue<br />
USA<br />
www.pamjueart.com<br />
About<br />
My work examines what it means to feel in the body without<br />
judgment. I explore how thoughts and emotions manifest in<br />
the body as we grapple with impermanence, uncertainty, and<br />
acceptance. The subject matter is inspired by a sensation or<br />
thought that comes up. An important part of the process is<br />
not to rationalize or create a narrative to make sense of it, but<br />
to give it space and let it unfold.<br />
Through the course of creating, I observe my thoughts that<br />
arise and feel where it manifests in the body. Each line or<br />
mark documents how the sensations move, morph, and<br />
sometimes release. The work evolves and adapts as it<br />
mirrors what is happening in my internal state. Through my<br />
art, I am teaching myself how to feel and reconnect back into<br />
my body.<br />
01.03.<strong>2023</strong> - 31.03.<strong>2023</strong><br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> with a roll of paper, various colors of ink,<br />
and an intention to go deep into myself by drawing my<br />
internal state throughout the month. Each day I focused on a<br />
small portion of paper, rarely looking back or ahead, to force<br />
myself to draw what was happening to me at that moment.<br />
There was discomfort because so much was arising mentally<br />
and emotionally, but the only way through was to let go of the<br />
mind and surrender to the experience.<br />
Slowly, my mind became more still and the concept of “I”<br />
dissolved into a feeling of interconnectedness with my<br />
peers. Channeling this oneness felt like my work no longer<br />
represented just me, but everything around me. At the end of<br />
the month, I gave each artist a piece of my work, symbolizing<br />
our connection manifested in my drawings.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Julia Rose Waters<br />
USA<br />
julia-rose-waters-art.square.site<br />
About<br />
I want to highlight the magic that is already present in<br />
nature in order to bring people closer to the earth. I capture<br />
dreamy, moody scenes inspired by wildlife, magical realism,<br />
medievalism, natural objects & phenomena, and I often use<br />
spiritual and folkloric representations. Influences from my<br />
youth in the foggy, forested, mountainous Pacific Northwest<br />
are frequent. My work has been described as poetic, totemic,<br />
and ethereal.<br />
My primary mediums are acrylic paint, pen and ink, marker,<br />
watercolor, and some digital coloring. I have some experience<br />
with design projects using Photoshop.<br />
I had a previous career as a public library archivist in<br />
Colorado, where I currently live in a rural town near the<br />
Colorado Renaissance Festival grounds. A dream of mine<br />
is to sell artwork at the Festival one of these summers. I’m<br />
a music lover (especially metal!), a vegetarian, and I love to<br />
cook. I travel with my partner as much as I can, although that<br />
means I sometimes have to be apart from my Goblin/Boston/<br />
Shihtzu mix dog and two cats.<br />
Worldbuilding<br />
Lately I've been searching for the threads that tie my art<br />
together as a body of work and also redefining myself as an<br />
artist. Just before leaving Colorado for <strong>Arteles</strong>, I stumbled on<br />
a brain flash that I wanted to explore further. Looking at my<br />
past and present work, I imagined a post-apocalyptic future<br />
in which magic, beauty, and evolution are emphasized in the<br />
absence of humanity. I had only vague notions of this story,<br />
especially atmospheric impressions such as radioactive color,<br />
sculptural bones, and subtly altered evolutionary processes.<br />
The pressure-free environment and the mental space I found<br />
during the Silence Awareness Existence residency allowed<br />
me to explore storytelling and worldbuilding for the first time.<br />
As a result, I produced several pieces which were conscious<br />
snapshots of this imagined landscape, as opposed to the<br />
instinctual approach my previous art has taken. In my favorite<br />
paintings, ghost-like beings wander, traces of unidentified<br />
rituals remain in forested landscapes, and animals have<br />
undergone mysterious and subtle alterations due to the<br />
mysterious past events that caused people to disappear. The<br />
wintery Finnish landscape with its harsh beauty contributed<br />
greatly to my process. I have some further ideas and in the<br />
near future, I hope to continue fleshing out my story.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
José Andrés Mora<br />
Canada<br />
www.joseamora.com<br />
About<br />
José Andrés Mora (he/him) is a Venezuelan-born artist living<br />
in Canada. Mora graduated from the Nova Scotia College of<br />
Arts and Design (2013, BFA in Interdisciplinary Arts) and the<br />
University of Guelph (<strong>2020</strong>, MFA in Studio Arts).<br />
Mora’s work elicits a sense of disconnect deeply tied to<br />
his experience as a member of the Venezuelan diaspora.<br />
Mora excises written narrative fragments from personal<br />
experience, grafting the textual content to digital and<br />
physical surfaces and disconnecting the fragment's narrative<br />
voice from context. He describes this untethered state of<br />
his written language as one analogous to his relationship to<br />
home and culture.<br />
Trying everything<br />
On purpose, I started as many ideas as possible, hoping not<br />
to finish any of them during the residency. I wanted to return<br />
home with many incomplete things, like leaving with many<br />
seedlings, hoping I could plant them once I returned home.<br />
It’s hard to describe the process as anything else other than<br />
playing and indulging my own curiosity.<br />
I bonded with so many people in this residency and I left<br />
feeling transformed.<br />
Mora has exhibited across Canada since 2013 in notable<br />
galleries and public programs such as Nuit Blanche (2014),<br />
Birch Contemporary (2019), Trinity Square Video (<strong>2020</strong>),<br />
Dalhousie Art Gallery (<strong>2020</strong>), Artspace Peterborough (2022),<br />
Art Metropole (2022), the Digital Arts Resource Centre (2022),<br />
and The Plumb Gallery (2022).<br />
Currently, Mora is presenting a solo exhibition show at Maison<br />
de la Culture (Montréal, <strong>2023</strong>). Future projects include a solo<br />
show at Hamilton Artists Inc. (Hamilton, 2025), and group<br />
projects at TAP Arspace (Montréal, <strong>2023</strong>) and Latcham Arts<br />
Centre (Toronto, <strong>2023</strong>).
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2023</strong><br />
Lynn Lobo<br />
Australia<br />
www.lynnlobo.com<br />
About<br />
I’m a painter and a Process Oriented psychotherapist from<br />
Australia. My main media is oil paint and gouache. As a<br />
perceptual painter, I watch nature closely and paint mostly<br />
from direct observation within the genres of landscape<br />
and still life. What really fascinates me are light and colour<br />
patterns. Composition is a play of abstract shapes in<br />
pictorial space. As a perceptual painter, I am questioning and<br />
breaking down my assumptions of perception. Nature is my<br />
greatest teacher.<br />
Ideas emerge through a deeply felt, meditative gaze. They<br />
are drawn in pencil and coalesce through gouache studies.<br />
These studies form the foundation for larger compositions in<br />
oil paint. The slow drying nature of oil paint enables paint to<br />
be laid down thickly or thinly glazed, creating rich layers of<br />
subtlety and depth. The blending of edges and the ‘meaty’<br />
pull of paint weaves the image together. Through the act<br />
of painting, I enter into a mysterious struggle. The painting<br />
works itself out through my body.<br />
Incidental moments that we marginalise are my starting<br />
point. I feel into the way light moves through air and observe<br />
the way colour shifts through space. Beauty lies within the<br />
mundane, in a fleeting moment.<br />
Light on Snow<br />
During this residency, I learned how to see the colour of snow,<br />
and through study, snow taught me about a whole new side<br />
of my palette. Every painting was a challenge and I learned to<br />
work from memory. Our experiences shape us. Our shape is<br />
in part the culmination of experiences embodied throughout<br />
our life.<br />
While hunting for a subject to paint, I lightly hold the<br />
question, ‘what aspect of myself wants to be seen?’ I enter<br />
the landscape without preconception, phone in hand. When<br />
something catches my attention, I catch it, taking many<br />
photographs. I am trying to clarify something, a vague feeling<br />
or a moment of light.<br />
One brushstroke at a time, my whole being creates a painting.<br />
My whole being remembers. I have some basic ideas, values<br />
and strategies for organising marks on a canvas. But so much<br />
is not consciously planned. The tremor in my hand, holding<br />
the brush is the wrestle between conscious and unconscious<br />
intent. Then I have to surrender and let the painting paint itself.<br />
It occurs to me that my body is organising it’s patterned self<br />
in that moment through the emerging patterns on the canvas.<br />
In other words, I perceive a pattern in the world and through<br />
the filter of my being, I reflect it back in paint. I am those<br />
closely observed patterns. Through painting, I am organising<br />
and remembering myself, distilling the experience down in<br />
stillness. In stillness, I have many faces.<br />
You can read my blog posts here: https://www.lynnlobo.<br />
com/<strong>2023</strong>/04/11/finland-residency-reflections/#more-6314
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Kier Adrian Gray<br />
Canada<br />
kier.substack.com<br />
About<br />
Kier Adrian Gray is a writer whose work was called “a<br />
specific slice of brutal Canadian honesty” by Broken Pencil<br />
Magazine. Over the years they have published fiction,<br />
creative nonfiction, poetry, photo essays and news articles.<br />
The complexity of agency, the search for transcendence and<br />
the sacrifices we make in order to belong are themes that run<br />
through their body of work.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, Kier will be drafting a memoir about coming of age<br />
among anarchists in Vancouver and Montréal, which they<br />
hope will be a timely contribution to conversations about<br />
political polarization, mental illness, and most importantly,<br />
hope.<br />
Writing, Reflecting, Collaging<br />
I spent the residency working to desacralise my writing<br />
practice: to come back to it over and over again, in all states<br />
of mind and body, until it became absolutely ordinary. I<br />
succeeded in this regard, and came one chapter short of<br />
completing the first draft of my memoir by the end of the<br />
month. I also challenged myself to experiment with a new<br />
medium: collage. The moments of uncertainty and frustration<br />
were a reminder of what it takes to learn, and how worth it it<br />
is in the end. A truly unforgettable month.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Dirk Bahmann<br />
South Africa<br />
About<br />
I am an artist, architect, academic and doctoral candidate<br />
based at the University of the Witwatersrand. My work<br />
explores and seeks to understand the ineffable spatial<br />
experience of numinous atmospheres, typically found in<br />
sacral architecture / spaces. This praxis aims to develop other<br />
ways of knowing that champions embodiment. It attempts<br />
to find a methodology with which one can articulate, know<br />
and communicate, to oneself and others, the nature and<br />
qualities of the numinous experience. It uses “Making” as<br />
an embodied performance to engage with entangled human<br />
and non-human worlds in order to gain direct and better<br />
understanding of architectural affect.<br />
Exploring Numinous atmospheres<br />
During my stay, I wandered in circles physically, mentally<br />
and psychically. Always moving along the same path, always<br />
available, familiar, comforting, routine and banal in its nature.<br />
It anchored me, so I could aimlessly drift into the inner and<br />
outer landscape. Held in delicate silence and emptiness, and<br />
within the dim light, I became aware of the presences and<br />
beauty that reside there: mysterious, magical, awe-inspiring<br />
and frightening. Open to plain sight for all to see, but always<br />
hidden from view. With each circumnavigation, with each<br />
orbit, it revealed new vistas, new meanings, new worlds,<br />
that in its endless rotation are twisted and bound together,<br />
recounting and revealing a path that is simultaneously unique<br />
and eternally unchanged.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Jennifer A Gillenwater<br />
USA<br />
www.jennifer-gillenwater.com<br />
About<br />
Jennifer is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago, IL.<br />
She is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker that<br />
has presented films in festivals around the world. She works<br />
primarily in filmmaking and video installation, and additionally<br />
works with fibers, textiles, and ceramics. She received her<br />
BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in <strong>2020</strong><br />
and is looking to pursue an MFA in <strong>2023</strong>. Jennifer works<br />
primarily on comedic and experimental narrative topics<br />
inspired by genres such as existentialism and surrealism.<br />
Her work is rooted in storytelling from a deconstructive<br />
lens that redefines the relationship between the viewer<br />
and art. Inspiration for her work comes from exploration<br />
of nature, dreams, and spirituality as well as research and<br />
experimentation in storytelling.<br />
Research and Experimentation<br />
I found out I would attend <strong>Arteles</strong> 3 weeks before I was due<br />
to arrive. I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> in search of creative inspiration;<br />
looking for a new story to tell and a new landscape to<br />
explore. During the month, I developed a short script about<br />
a girl searching for her soul in a transcendent realm. I made<br />
progress on textile projects, advancing a crochet coral piece<br />
and starting a new knit pattern. <strong>Arteles</strong> was a wonderful<br />
home to reconnect with myself and my artmaking process.<br />
Through adventure in the Finnish woodlands and playful<br />
experimentation with ice making, I found myself connecting<br />
with the elements all around us and listening to the stories<br />
they had to tell. I got to research, play, and collect media<br />
surrounding my own reflection on Silence, Awareness,<br />
Existence.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Sònia Sola Gil<br />
Spain<br />
www.soniasolart.com/statement<br />
About<br />
Since its beginnings, my work as an artist has been a<br />
constant reflection on two questions: what does it mean to<br />
be a woman and what does it mean to have a body?<br />
The illustrations and paintings in my work touch on the world<br />
of women, the unconscious, the fears, the anguish as well as<br />
their strengths. I always try to show the most intimate and<br />
invisible to the eye, and how a body touches in different ways<br />
the subjective, the political and the cultural.<br />
I try to obtain by painting, illustrating and experimenting with<br />
different techniques, a vision of the woman as an individual<br />
and the woman within society, together with the study of<br />
anatomy, and abstraction and its distortion.<br />
I seek to express how our thoughts, emotions and bodies<br />
connect and communicate with each other in the world, from<br />
a gender and feminist perspective.<br />
The main media for the realization of the works are oil and<br />
black ink, being always present the body and the symbolism.<br />
The gaze of time and the time of the gaze<br />
The aim of this project is to allude the biography of people,<br />
i.e. the period of time between birth and death. This work<br />
is an interior space for the viewer that calls for meditation,<br />
concentration, awareness of oneself: a re-encounter with<br />
oneself. Also, and quoting Susan Sontag: ""We can be sure of<br />
one thing about this uniquely modern mode of all experience:<br />
the gaze, and the collection of the fragments of the gaze, can<br />
never be complete.<br />
The following work, also, aims to vindicate the woman's<br />
body from a place outside of objectification and outside of<br />
the patriarchal gaze, where the body is cloistered under its<br />
dictates and desires. There is a difficult cycle to break within<br />
the patriarchal eye, we want to be desired and desirable but...<br />
desirable for whom and for what? This is a question that must<br />
be analyzed in detail so that our bodies are not transformed<br />
into spaces for the accumulation of capital. The aim is to<br />
rethink, then, the place of women's body -using my body as<br />
an example- and simultaneously generate a reflection that<br />
acts as a critical counterpoint, as a space for action and as a<br />
place of subversion.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Catherine Arseneault<br />
Canada<br />
www.catherinearseneault.com<br />
About<br />
Through a variety of photographic techniques, I explore<br />
the intuitive nature of intrapersonal communication and<br />
internal dialogue. My practice is essentially a regurgitation<br />
of overanalyzed affective mindscapes and self imposed<br />
anxieties. My creative process is fuelled by an incessant<br />
need to evaluate and understand my own realities/memories.<br />
Instinctively, my work is the result of thoughts of thoughts;<br />
concepts of concepts; and interpretations of interpretations.<br />
My pieces represent fetishized stories, imagined spaces or<br />
scrutinized memories.<br />
Often accompanied by words or sound and sometimes video,<br />
my photographs act as filters: they speak with boundaries;<br />
they purify contaminated ideas; they allow me to voice and<br />
make tangible very specific instances of ambiguous contexts<br />
and ephemeral moments. The inclusion of words and sound<br />
serve to divulge additional information related to my imagery.<br />
They attempt to clarify my perceived realities. However, my<br />
work tends to remain rather cryptic.<br />
By exposing ruminating thoughts - as wavering as they<br />
can be - I hope my work is able to create links between my<br />
subjective realities and those of who contemplate/participate<br />
in my work.<br />
In no particular order<br />
I brought images from home and collected images from here<br />
- to bring home - to remember this distance. To make links<br />
with images. To put two places together.<br />
It was windy that day. I went into the trees. I sat up against<br />
one’s truck. It was swaying in the wind. Can I look at you<br />
again? Would you sit and be silent with me? Would you look<br />
out at the landscape with me? The birds were all around<br />
today. I found bones. The fog came.<br />
Going past where the power lines reach and taking a walk<br />
to where the rivers meet - a conflux is a merging of rivers.<br />
Otherwise in salty waters, under a hot sun, feeling sand<br />
between my toes. The way the light can shine sometimes.<br />
How it enters a room and makes dust particles shimmer. Or<br />
how it makes shadows dance in the wind. The window divides<br />
my view into six panes. Anxiety. Pain. Fear. Embarrassment.<br />
Frustration. Worry.<br />
It’s nice to think in maybes. Possibilities. Each for different<br />
reasons. The ones I hardly ever see - but think about often.<br />
The old house I live in, with its creaky floors and old light<br />
fixtures. The lady I noticed yesterday with a really tight perm<br />
and perfect deep red lipstick. Some things can be so perfect.<br />
Like curiosity and something about the splendour of it all…<br />
The tulips died beautifully.<br />
I read that observation changes what is being observed.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Katy Richardson<br />
UK<br />
www.katyrichardson.co.uk<br />
About<br />
Katy Richardson works with the intersections between<br />
trauma, haunting, mental health and grief. She is interested in<br />
the relationships between things often thought of as bodily:<br />
ritual, movement, voice and sound-making, listening; and<br />
things perhaps more often associated with the mind: altered<br />
states (both invited and otherwise), intuition, time/space<br />
transcendence, journeying, communication. Often inviting<br />
collaboration into her ways of working, she values listening<br />
and discussion as part of her practice - allowing ideas and<br />
themes to develop somewhere in the space between people<br />
and their diverse experiences.<br />
Hello Ida<br />
A grief practice for an ancestor, sourced from inherited<br />
impulses.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Alli Smith<br />
USA<br />
www.allismyth.com<br />
About<br />
I'm Alli Smith, also known as Alli’s Myth!<br />
I am a multidisciplinary artist with a strong affinity for painting;<br />
playing with my sense of humor and searching for ways to<br />
adequately express my existential dread simultaneously.<br />
I utilize playful mark making, a vibrant color palette, and I<br />
use a recurring motif of what I consider to be cyclops-feline<br />
creatures to drive the narratives in my artworks. These<br />
cyclopi, alongside other distorted figures, serve as tools of<br />
transformation and emotional catharsis; turning parts of my<br />
life that are confusing, painful, or embarrassing into a cast<br />
of characters experiencing these same feelings amongst<br />
themselves and with each other. The specifics of these<br />
narratives are often murky; intentionally so that my audience<br />
can project their own feelings onto a given piece. I find<br />
that what is not being said is just as important as what is.<br />
Ultimately, through my work I aim to create a contradictory<br />
feeling of lightheartedness and sorrowfulness.<br />
With Love, Cyclops<br />
My primary project at <strong>Arteles</strong> was a costumed performance,<br />
“Cyclops Sends Her Love”. Out of canvas and acrylic paint I<br />
created a mask, gloves, and pants with a tail included; made<br />
to wear. Originally this was going to be the extent of the<br />
project, alongside documentation of me wearing it outdoors.<br />
Separately, I realized I wanted to create a way of saying<br />
goodbye to everyone at <strong>Arteles</strong>, other than just saying it. I<br />
had the thought of using felt to cut out hearts with cyclops<br />
faces drawn on them, and give one to everyone.<br />
During an evening meditation session I realized my costume<br />
and my goodbye could work together, and thus the cyclops<br />
sent her love! I called all willing participants to come together<br />
outside, and from the shed I emerged with a bag in tow;<br />
handing it off to Katy to grab a felt heart from and pass around<br />
for everyone to do the same. They were made to keep.<br />
As some <strong>Arteles</strong> residents left for their own reasons, saying<br />
goodbye in their own ways, I knew it was important for me<br />
to say goodbye in my own way; a tangible way to show my<br />
appreciation to everyone I met.<br />
I wanted “Cyclops Sends Her Love” to be a means of<br />
bringing us together in a humorous yet sweet way, kind of<br />
the antithesis of going quietly into the night. Its goal was to<br />
reflect how I feel about my time spent at <strong>Arteles</strong>- grateful and<br />
abundant in love!
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Julienne van Loon<br />
Australia<br />
www.juliennevanloon.com.au<br />
About<br />
My most recent book is The Thinking Woman. Published into<br />
the US, UK, Australia/New Zealand and Korean markets, it<br />
profiles the work of six leading women thinkers on topics<br />
relevant to everyday life: work, play, love, fear, friendship,<br />
and wonder. I'm also the author of three novels, including<br />
Road Story, which won The Australian/Vogel’s Award for an<br />
Australian writer under 35 years of age and was shortlisted<br />
for the Commonwealth First Book Prize. A recipient of<br />
fellowships and residencies with Asialink through the<br />
Australia-China Council, Bundanon, Varuna, Redgate Gallery<br />
(China), Banff Centre (Canada) and the International Writing<br />
Program at the University of Iowa (US), I live and work in<br />
Melbourne, also known as Naarm, Australia, where I teach<br />
in the creative writing program at RMIT University. During<br />
my residency at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I will be working on a developing<br />
non-fiction project exploring feminist literary practice as<br />
method, as well as the first draft of a new novel on the theme<br />
of dwelling justice.<br />
Silence. Practise. Comradery.<br />
The combination of regular group meditation, the quiet of<br />
deep winter in a beautiful landscape, and the goodwill and<br />
generosity of the resident artist community at <strong>Arteles</strong> made<br />
for a generative and productive month-long stay. My practise<br />
really flourished. I came away nourished, better read and<br />
with substantial progress made on key projects.<br />
The little drawing model (pictured), purchased along with<br />
some charcoal pencils in nearby Hämeenkyrö, took a new<br />
form each week, according to how I was feeling in relation<br />
to my practise. Here, the model walks a tightrope, balancing<br />
disappointment and excitement, as I read, edit and notate a<br />
long-form work-in-progress.<br />
During my stay, I was inspired by Sophie Howarth's book The<br />
Mindful Photographer (Thames & Hudson, 2022). Two quotes<br />
stood out:<br />
""Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity""<br />
(Simone Weil). I wanted to pay attention to both artistic and<br />
spiritual (Buddhist) practise while on retreat at <strong>Arteles</strong>. I<br />
came to understand that the integrity of such attention can<br />
be a form of generosity, both to oneself and to others.<br />
I also contemplated confidence in one's practise. Howarth<br />
quotes from John Daido Loori: ""When you learn to trust<br />
yourself implicitly, you no longer need to prove something<br />
through your art. You simply allow it to come out, to be as it<br />
is. This is when creating art becomes effortless. It happens<br />
just as you grow your hair. It grows."" I was privileged to<br />
catch a rare glimpse of such trust, on occasion, during my<br />
residency.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Fiona Macpherson<br />
Australia<br />
www.fionamacpherson.com.au<br />
About<br />
Fiona Macpherson is an artist practicing on Gadigal land.<br />
Working primarily with oils, Fiona’s painting practice<br />
explores the nonlinear nature of healing while engaging<br />
with an autobiographical narrative of trauma. Motivated by<br />
impactful personal experiences, her work is focused on the<br />
social and psychological implications of sexual abuse, and<br />
the internal conflicts surrounding intimacy and vulnerability<br />
in the aftermath of sexual violence. Through vibrant and<br />
densely layered paintings, her work seeks to dissect and<br />
examine contrasting themes of silence and visibility, surface<br />
and underside, cognitive dissonance, tenderness, and rage.<br />
Painting 'Daphne'<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was full of reflection and new beginnings.<br />
Sparked by my research regarding the complexities of sexual<br />
violence, trauma, and healing when justice is seemingly<br />
unattainable, my painting ‘Daphne’ is a manifestation of<br />
the transformative power of feminine rage with nowhere to<br />
go. Exploring mythological tropes of monstrous feminine<br />
metamorphosis while also letting the landscape bleed into<br />
my work, the painting focuses on the body as the site of both<br />
trauma and healing; a transformation that represents both<br />
pain and deliverance as I navigate the contrasting themes of<br />
tenderness and rage.<br />
She lives and works in Sydney, NSW, and has just completed<br />
a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at UNSW Art & Design in<br />
2022.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Anne K. Yoder<br />
USA<br />
www.annekyoder.com<br />
About<br />
Anne K. Yoder is the author of the novel, The Enhancers,<br />
published in fall 2022 and highlighted as a must-read book<br />
by Wired and Vulture, among other publications. Her fiction,<br />
essays, and criticism have appeared in Fence, BOMB, Tin<br />
House, NY Tyrant, and MAKE, and has been recognized in<br />
Best American Nonrequired Reading. She is the author of<br />
two poetry chapbooks and is a member of the Chicagobased<br />
publishing and arts collective, Meekling Press.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, she will be working both on a novel manuscript,<br />
that, like many of her fictions, is preoccupied with inherent<br />
contradictions, within a self, a couple, a community,<br />
especially the ways that people will fabricate narratives and<br />
belief systems in order to maintain perspective or escape the<br />
past.<br />
Time Without Words<br />
I arrived at <strong>Arteles</strong> a few months after the publication of<br />
my first novel, with the intent of completing a draft of a<br />
different novel manuscript that I hadn't touched in over a<br />
year. I went over the thousands of words I'd already written<br />
but realized I needed a shift to re-enter the narrative. I had<br />
also come to <strong>Arteles</strong> with the intent of experiencing the<br />
silence and darkness of Finnish winter, to immerse myself<br />
in the surrounding landscape in hues of white and gray, and<br />
to meditate twice daily. The silence and the forest provided<br />
a landscape for reflection, reading, and note-taking. It<br />
seemed that in my silence the landscape was speaking to<br />
me. I experienced such fullness in my four weeks, but my<br />
project for the duration evolved while I was there. The zine I<br />
made, Time Without Words, with is a fiction of sorts, based<br />
on my experiences at <strong>Arteles</strong>, and tells this story alongside<br />
photographs I took.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Alexandra Cool<br />
Belgium<br />
www.alexandracool.com<br />
About<br />
I am a visual artist and work mainly with photography and<br />
sculpture.<br />
For several years I worked in stone in Carrara Carrara (Italy).<br />
Later I set up my studio in a remote place in Corsica and<br />
started making installations and photographs in nature.<br />
Back in Belgium, I set up an artist residency for writers and<br />
and besides running this place, I worked on my own visual<br />
work.<br />
Nowadays, my home base is in Ossogne -Thuin (Belgium)<br />
and the Auvergne (France).<br />
Reflections<br />
I collaborated with Katherine Lyall-Watson on a book of<br />
photographs and poetry about the lake Parilanjärvi.<br />
I have an intimate rapport with nature and my respect for<br />
natural materials and their inherent beauty is a great source<br />
of inspiration. I attempt to reveal what is invisible and silent.<br />
I like to explore the relationship between nature and people<br />
and sometimes my work is clearly socially engaged.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Gab Paananen<br />
Australia<br />
www.instagram.com/gabpaananen<br />
About<br />
Gab is a puppeteer, creature designer, sculptor, taxidermist<br />
and natural history illustrator. She is passionate about<br />
creating realistic creatures that tell stories through immersive<br />
performance and designs mechanisms that capture patterns<br />
in nature including the movement and behaviour of wildlife.<br />
Over the past 10 years Gab has worked as a concept artist,<br />
maker and has toured internationally on productions including<br />
‘Erth’s Prehistoric Aquarium’, Vivid Festival’s ‘The Liminal<br />
Hour’ and various productions at Belvoir St Theatre, Terrapin<br />
Puppet Theatre and Born in a Taxi. She has illustrated several<br />
scientific papers as well as a book that has been published<br />
internationally. She has spent many seasons rescuing and<br />
rehabilitating injured wildlife on the NSW Central Coast and<br />
has produced taxidermy and series of illustrations of critically<br />
endangered species for wildlife organisations including<br />
Zoos Victoria and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. The<br />
movement, behaviour and anatomy of birds of prey as well as<br />
patterns in nature are key influences on her developing work.<br />
Olento<br />
During her time at <strong>Arteles</strong> Gab developed concepts for new<br />
sculptural works. With long walks in the forest and time in<br />
the silence, these emerging concepts reconnect to the<br />
slow movement of the breath. This included illustrations,<br />
photography and creature designs that might inhabit the<br />
snowy winter landscape both above and below the ice.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Callum Williams<br />
Australia<br />
About<br />
Callum is a writer of fiction living in the Adelaide Hills in<br />
South Australia. He is currently completing his PhD in<br />
Creative Writing at Flinders University, focusing particularly<br />
on the genres of Science and Speculative Fiction (though he<br />
dabbles in pretty much everything). Central to his work are<br />
the themes of Space Junk, Progression, Existentialism and<br />
the Human Condition. Callum is in the midst of writing his<br />
creative thesis, a mosaic novel comprising a number of short<br />
stories that revolve around detritus and the near-infinite<br />
future. When Callum isn’t writing fiction he messes around<br />
with music composition, recording and performance. He has<br />
a dog named Goose (who is an absolute goose).<br />
Junk and Robots<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong> I took a deep dive into the creative aspects of<br />
my PhD thesis. I didn't have a particular plan other than to<br />
write as many first drafts as possible. I ended up writing a<br />
500 word vignette every day as part of a collective project<br />
detailing the possible AI that might one day inherit the Earth.<br />
I would start each day with a vignette before transitioning<br />
into writing for my thesis (and working on a novel that has<br />
nothing to do with anything).<br />
I was able to write more than I expected and came away with<br />
a few surprising ideas and stories I hadn't expected. I found<br />
inspiration in the cold and silent north, as well as through<br />
conversations with other artists and that classic collective<br />
experience of trying to figure out exactly what we're all<br />
doing. I think there might be some snow fields and pine trees<br />
featuring heavily in whatever I end up producing at the end<br />
of my doctorate.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Helen Lee<br />
USA<br />
www.momentumsensorium.com<br />
About<br />
Helen Lee (she/they) was born and raised in Chicago to<br />
immigrant parents from South Korea. Their work is rooted<br />
in a deep investigation of honoring and celebrating life,<br />
death, cultural identity and ancestral lineage. They create<br />
performances that weave movement, storytelling, video,<br />
taxidermy, installation and/or social practice that examine<br />
facets of trauma, racism, grief, shame, healing and meanings<br />
of home. Many of their curiosities lean towards the subtle,<br />
the frenetic, the senses and internal shifts that happen<br />
within, around and in between spaces. They are intrigued<br />
and driven by how these elements can bring connection,<br />
disruption and evolution to self, others, truth and nature.<br />
Currently, Helen is working on writings to nurture her inner<br />
child, ways of practicing joy and how to age gracefully as a<br />
healing process. She was at <strong>Arteles</strong> in August 2018 for the<br />
Back to Basics Residency and is honored to return for the<br />
Silence Awareness Existence Residency January <strong>2023</strong> for<br />
the contrasting journey of experiencing the abundance of<br />
darkness and discovering its gifts.<br />
Fall. Falling. Falling. Falling. Falling. Slip. Down|Dark. Darker.<br />
Darkness. Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark|Dark. Light. Dark. Light.<br />
Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Lightness. Light. Light. Light. Light.<br />
Lighter. Light. Pain. Painful. Bask. Light. Laughter. Dark. Cry.<br />
Heave. Pierce.<br />
Heavy. Weight. Heart. Nerves|Heavy. Weight. Heart. Hold.<br />
Pause. Rest. Pierce. Thorn. Chop. Cut. Slip.<br />
Fall. Falling. Slipping. Burn. Rush. Hot. Cold. Freeze. Burn.<br />
Burning. Scorch. Sting. Fire.<br />
Cold. Cold. Cold. Hot. Ice. Itch. Dry. Red. Peel. Peeling. Raw.<br />
Ache. Throb. Crumple. Hurt.<br />
Knock-Back. Rock-Back. Reach-Back.<br />
Crush. Bones. Thorns. Branches. Slivers. Frost.<br />
Blue. Green. Purple. Clover.<br />
Pull Apart. Break Apart. Fall Apart.<br />
Rearrange. Readjust. Realign.<br />
Earth.<br />
Bask. Fall. Darkness.<br />
12. 12. Air. 12. 12. Sky. 12. 12. Water.<br />
Fire. Water. Fire. Water. Water. Water. Fire. Snow.<br />
3. 6. 9. 7. 7. 9. 2. 11.<br />
71. 81. 91. 22. 33. 44. 55. 78. 7. 9. 29.<br />
East. Wind. Song. String. Strum. Air. Heart. Home. Knit.<br />
North. Walk. Star.<br />
Snow. Scream. Snow. Flake. Moon. Moss. Snow. Dust.<br />
Dance. Quiet. Still. Stillness. Silent. Snow. Cold. West. Air.<br />
Wind. Soar. Sky. Mind. Melt. Melting. Mend. Mending.<br />
Wind. Heart. Harp.<br />
Die. Death. Dying. Die. Death. Dying.<br />
South. Under. Down. Dark. Darkness. Snow. Spring. Shadows.<br />
Black. Light. Well. Wellness. Water. Air. Wind. Bones. Heart.<br />
Home. Nerves. Lungs. Trees. Wings. Trees. Air. Home. Hair.<br />
Crack. Break. Home. Ache. Shine.<br />
In my heart. In my heart. In my heart. Am I heard? Am I hurt?<br />
Am I heard? In my heart.<br />
In my heart. In my heart.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Katherine Lyall-Watson<br />
Australia<br />
www.belloocreative.com<br />
About<br />
I am the co-artistic director of an award-winning, femaleled<br />
theatre company Belloo Creative. I have a doctorate<br />
in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland and<br />
Belloo has produced the following plays of mine: Motherland<br />
(2013 and 2016), HANAKO (Brisbane Festival 2016), Rovers<br />
(Brisbane Festival 2018), and Boy, Lost (Queensland Theatre<br />
2022). I have had two of my plays performed in Japan with<br />
Belloo and IDIOT SAVANT theater company: House in the<br />
Dunes (Yokohama, <strong>2020</strong>) and AKIRUNO (Tokyo Tokyo<br />
Festival 2021). I have also written the cabaret Hot Mess<br />
Mama (with Emma Dean, Brisbane Festival <strong>2020</strong>) and Home<br />
Grown Opera (Opera Queensland and Bleach Festival 2022).<br />
I have a long history in theatre having worked as an actor,<br />
director and theatre reviewer before starting playwriting.<br />
I regularly mentor younger and emerging writers and I was<br />
the chair of Playlab Theatre from 2014-2019. When I'm not<br />
making theatre, you'll find me in my garden, tending to my<br />
two beehives.<br />
Quiet and Stillness<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> a burnt-out husk of myself. Within a few<br />
days of losing myself in the forest’s thick snow, I started to<br />
recover my joy and love of writing.<br />
Things that helped me: nature, silence, digital detox, and<br />
daily meditation. I couldn’t believe how many more hours<br />
there were in the day without the temptation to doom-scroll<br />
through the news and social media.<br />
In one month I achieved everything I’d set out to do and, as<br />
an unexpected bonus, I collaborated with Alexandra Cool,<br />
new friend and fellow resident, on a book of photographs and<br />
poetry about Parilanjärvi – the constantly changing frozen<br />
lake at our doorstep.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> opened the door on a new way of being as an artist<br />
and of approaching my practice. My challenge now is to<br />
bring what I learned in the quiet and stillness back to the<br />
“real” world …<br />
beneath the snow<br />
bulbs wait tightly furled<br />
expectant
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Gabriel Gould<br />
USA<br />
www.gabrielgould.com<br />
About<br />
I work with sound. I used to describe myself as a "composer,"<br />
but that doesn't accurately represent what I do now. My<br />
primary work is in podcasting - I produce a contemplative<br />
podcast oriented towards sound and my experiences living<br />
and working with it. I am also a college professor teaching<br />
writing and music at Juniata College in Pennsylvania.<br />
Burning the Thrushes Podcast<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> with the intention of producing 2 new<br />
episodes for my creative podcast, "Burning the Thrushes."<br />
I ended up making 5. My time was spent writing scripts,<br />
storyboarding episodes, creating original background music<br />
(or, in some cases, foreground music), making and processing<br />
field recordings, recording voiceovers, and assembling<br />
everything in a DAW. Several of the new episodes were<br />
unplanned and produced due to creative ideas stimulated<br />
by <strong>Arteles</strong> and the surrounding natural beauty. The whole<br />
process was incredibly organic, because the inspiration<br />
for the podcast was my first trip to <strong>Arteles</strong> in 2017. The<br />
opportunity for quiet contemplation, silence, introspection,<br />
meditation, and communing with Finnish nature in the depths<br />
of winter was all I needed to keep the creative juices flowing.<br />
The podcast and the experience of being at <strong>Arteles</strong> (again)<br />
are so closely linked that it's hard to tell where one ends and<br />
the other begins.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2023</strong><br />
Zorica Kelly Markovich<br />
Canada<br />
www.kellymarkovich.net<br />
About<br />
Zoriça Kelly Markovich is a first-generation Serbian<br />
Canadian, born in Windsor, ON. She attended university,<br />
pursuing a dance degree, later shifting to visual arts and<br />
eventually graduating with a Master of Fine Arts Degree from<br />
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. She now<br />
lives and maintains a studio practice in Kjipuktuk (Halifax),<br />
Mi'kma'ki (Nova Scotia), on the ancestral and unceded<br />
territory of the Mi'kmaq People.<br />
As a multi-disciplinary artist, Zoriça’s work intersects with<br />
art, science, technology, and nature. Fuelled by curiosity, her<br />
exploratory process focuses on interconnectedness—the<br />
relationships within networks, embodied sense memory and<br />
shared collective experiences.<br />
Markovich’s work draws reference from the surrounding<br />
world, ontology, anthropology, and neuroscience by engaging<br />
through issues of permanence, impermanence, presence,<br />
and absence. Her work is multifaceted and expands across<br />
diverse media encompassing 2-dimensional, sculptural, film,<br />
audio, and written prose.<br />
Ice | Light | Tracks<br />
Arriving at the <strong>Arteles</strong> Creative Center, I had a plan. I planned<br />
to work on a documentary film about the Arctic Circle. I<br />
chose this place during January for the specific purpose that<br />
it would emulate and support the silence I had experienced<br />
in the high Arctic. What I failed to recognize was that the<br />
universe had a different plan. One that would not be ignored.<br />
Inspired by the sacred Finnish deep Winter, I allowed<br />
creativity to unfold organically with little direction. My daily<br />
encounters with nature became a deeper investigation into<br />
presence and absence–the following of tracks, the tracking<br />
of light, and the existence of ice in various formations.<br />
What emerged from this ritual of documenting my<br />
environment through light and ice drawings, photographs,<br />
audio recordings, and video became a meditation on<br />
observing. The resulting archives are a poetic expression of<br />
the passing of time.<br />
The disconnection from outside distractions allowed for total<br />
immersion into the “Silence, Awareness, Existence” theme,<br />
making it more meaningful and creatively fruitful!<br />
I am grateful for my experience at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I am grateful for<br />
Teemu's vision, and for the beauty of my colleagues who<br />
shared the space and time with me.
Residents 2022<br />
Silence Awareness Existence - Theme program<br />
January, February, March<br />
Jade Armstrong<br />
Lindi Barnard<br />
Sonya Berry<br />
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya<br />
Jill Borremans<br />
Erin Carney<br />
Jo Clifford<br />
Carrie J Cole<br />
Rachel Fedde<br />
Krzysztof Figielski<br />
Kerri Ann Foweraker<br />
Patrice Hapke<br />
Kourtney Jackson<br />
Yevgeniy Kazannik<br />
Leah Lapiower<br />
Brooke Larson<br />
Manon Leneveu<br />
I-Chi Lin<br />
Dora Lionstone<br />
Emma Livingston<br />
Weihui Lu<br />
Matthew Lupovich<br />
Nene Mahlangu<br />
Jill Mueller<br />
Josiane Roberge<br />
Leanne Rockliff<br />
Yukari Suematsu<br />
Kelly Van Looveren<br />
Laura Waddell<br />
Kirstin Wagner<br />
Franziska Walther<br />
Erik Daniel White<br />
Annette Wijdeveld<br />
Andalyn Young<br />
Australia<br />
South Africa<br />
United States<br />
Australia<br />
Belgium<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Poland<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
Russia<br />
France<br />
USA<br />
Belgium<br />
Taiwan<br />
Germany<br />
Argentina<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
South Africa<br />
UK<br />
Canada<br />
Canada<br />
Japan<br />
Belgium<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
Germany<br />
USA<br />
Netherlands<br />
USA<br />
Sculpture, Installation, Public Art<br />
Drawing, Painting, Writing<br />
Painting, Video, Land Art<br />
Writing, Translation, Computer graphics<br />
Writing, Cultural studies, Philosophy<br />
Painting<br />
Theatre<br />
Theatre, Performance<br />
Painting, Drawing, Video<br />
Drawing, Painting, Graphic Design<br />
Film, TV, Writing<br />
Writing, Drawing, Photography<br />
Writing, filmmaking<br />
Analogue photographic printing<br />
Theater artist<br />
Text, sound, ecology<br />
Drawing, Installation, Mixed media<br />
Visual Arts, Body Movements, Performance<br />
Photography, Visual Arts<br />
Photography, Indian ink drawings<br />
Painting, Printmaking, Installation<br />
Music, Writing<br />
Painting, Drawing, Design<br />
Multidisciplinary, Visual Arts, Creative Writing<br />
Video, Installation, Photography, Performance<br />
Painting, Mixed Media, Textiles<br />
Painting, Installation<br />
Installation<br />
Literature<br />
Autotheory, Poetry, Mixed media collage<br />
Illustration, Design, Writing<br />
Sculpture, Painting<br />
Photography<br />
Writing, Dance<br />
New Course - Theme program<br />
April, May<br />
Bert Bernaerts<br />
Ditte Bolt<br />
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya<br />
Brad Butler<br />
Julia Higgs<br />
Brooke Honeybone<br />
Stéphanie Jeannet<br />
Natalie Johnson<br />
Lucie Kryzová<br />
Jacqueline Kumer<br />
Chloé Lamont<br />
Thérèse Lynch<br />
Anna McGrath<br />
Sophia Mitropoulos<br />
Connie Noyes<br />
Amber Phelps Bondaroff<br />
Adela Posse<br />
Jac Seifert<br />
Goele Van Dijck<br />
Deborah Whitney<br />
Danielle Wright<br />
Belgium<br />
Denmark<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Switzerland<br />
USA<br />
Czech Republic<br />
Hong Kong<br />
UK<br />
UK<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
Argentina<br />
UK<br />
Belgium<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
Music, Music-theatre, Community-art<br />
Photography, visuals, installation<br />
Writing, Translation, Computer graphics<br />
Music, Digital, Traditional Media<br />
Performance, Drawing, Performative drawing<br />
Text, sound, ecology<br />
Graphic novel, drawing, animation<br />
Choreography<br />
Writing, Screenwriting, Storytelling<br />
Illustration, Drawing, Painting<br />
Artist, poet, film maker<br />
Video, Painting, Sculpture<br />
Theatre, film, research<br />
Visual art<br />
Visual art, video, performance, installation<br />
Performance, drawing, music<br />
Design, Creative Direction, Tech<br />
Public Art, Digital Illustration, Surface Design<br />
Dance, movement, sensorial performance<br />
Painting, Drawing, Collage<br />
Visual Arts, Process, Experiment, Repeat
Back to Basics - Theme program<br />
June, July, August, September<br />
Kari Leigh Ames<br />
Audrey Anderson<br />
Dan Busta<br />
Antonio Caruso<br />
Andrew Choate<br />
Susan Clarke<br />
Carolina Colichio<br />
Dora Colquhoun<br />
Liam Cosford<br />
Vicki Donkin<br />
Tómas Franco<br />
Tasha-Tylene Gilmore<br />
Zoe Grey<br />
Sharone Halevy<br />
Amber Harmon<br />
Faiza Hasan<br />
Bee Hayes<br />
Raegan Hodge<br />
Zoe Hogan<br />
Yasuna Iman<br />
Faith Johnson<br />
Laura Klinkenberg<br />
Vasare Krugzdaite<br />
Nesto Lowham<br />
Nicole Massy<br />
So Mayer<br />
Cameron McCracken<br />
Tomotsugu Nakamura<br />
Alexandra Neuman<br />
Iman Osman<br />
Michele Rolstone<br />
Kate Saubestre<br />
Stefanie Schaut<br />
Allison Sommers<br />
Sara Sonas<br />
Hilla Spitzer<br />
Mathilde Strijdonk<br />
Lily Taylor<br />
Martine van Bijlert<br />
Masha Vlasova<br />
Fenna von Hirschheydt<br />
Antje von Stemm<br />
Tobias Wray<br />
Kento Yokose<br />
Hayun Yoon<br />
USA<br />
South Africa<br />
USA<br />
Italy<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
Brazil<br />
UK<br />
UK<br />
Canada<br />
Brazil<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
UK<br />
Netherlands<br />
Australia<br />
Germany<br />
USA<br />
Netherlands<br />
Lithuania<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
UK<br />
Japan<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
South Africa<br />
USA<br />
Belgium<br />
Germany<br />
UK<br />
Israel<br />
Belgium<br />
UK<br />
Netherlands<br />
USA<br />
Switzerland<br />
Germany<br />
USA<br />
Japan<br />
South Korea<br />
Filmmaking, Video effects, Art direction<br />
Drawing, Ink, Graphic novels<br />
Photography<br />
Curatorship, Art and heritage<br />
Writing, Photography, Performance<br />
Drawing, print, Photography<br />
Painting, Sculpture, Installation, Drawing<br />
Theatre, Songwriting, Facilitation<br />
Glass etching, Drawing, Text<br />
Prose fiction, DJing, Scriptwriting<br />
Sound, music, video<br />
Fiction, Literature<br />
Painting, Drawing<br />
Abstract painter, theatre maker<br />
Literature<br />
Writing<br />
Ceramics, Illustration, Printmaking<br />
Drawing, Painting, Photography<br />
Theatre, Writing<br />
Painting, sculpture, writing<br />
Interactive installation, Video, Performance<br />
Design, Photography<br />
Graphics, Photography, Drawing<br />
Drawing, Printmaking, Painting<br />
Sculpture, Installation, Dance<br />
Writing<br />
Illustration, Installation, Ceramics<br />
Painting, Sculpture, Photography<br />
Video, Performance, Collage<br />
Moving image<br />
Printmaking, Sculpture, Mixed media<br />
Painting, Sculpture, Video<br />
Visual arts, Photography<br />
Drawing, Installation, Sculpture<br />
Drawing, Painting, Sculpture<br />
Painting, Drawing<br />
Performance, Writing, Multidisciplinary<br />
Film, print, installation<br />
Poetry,Photography, Research<br />
Experimental film, Video art<br />
Set design, Lighting design<br />
Drawing, Writing, Tinkering<br />
Poetry, Essay writing<br />
Visual arts, Photography, Installation<br />
Drawing, Painting, Installation<br />
Write & Create - Theme program<br />
October, November<br />
Naakai Addy<br />
Marta Carrascosa<br />
Claire Corbett<br />
Lucy Dawes Durneen<br />
Kristi Dick<br />
Yotam Feldman<br />
Isa Fontbona<br />
Donna Hapac<br />
Amber Harmon<br />
Susan Hogan<br />
Sarah Holding<br />
Eddie James<br />
Yoomee Ko<br />
Liana Mack<br />
Alexandra McTavish<br />
Zoe Mars<br />
Zoê Ranson<br />
Michele Rolstone<br />
Clinton Sleeper<br />
Luca Sutto<br />
Wouter van Kelle<br />
Asuka Watanabe<br />
C.C. Webster<br />
Adam Zmith<br />
USA<br />
Spain<br />
Australia<br />
UK<br />
USA<br />
Israel<br />
Spain<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
USA<br />
Australia<br />
Australia<br />
UK<br />
South Africa<br />
USA<br />
Germany<br />
Netherlands<br />
Japan<br />
USA<br />
UK<br />
Writing, Digital collage<br />
Design, Illustration, Cultural consulting, Creative enterpreneurship<br />
Writing<br />
Short Stories, Lyric Essays, Poetry<br />
Screenwriting<br />
Writer, Editor, Filmmaker<br />
Performance, Body sculpting (bodybuilding), Writing, Research<br />
Sculpture, Drawing<br />
Literature<br />
Visual art, Writing, Improv<br />
Children’s fiction, Adult fiction, Poetry<br />
Eddie James<br />
Painting, Poetry<br />
Writing<br />
Painting, Photography, Sound<br />
Performance, Installation, Sound<br />
Fiction, Poetry, Performance<br />
Printmaking, Sculpture, Mixed media<br />
Creative coding, Sound art, Video<br />
Composition<br />
Drawing, Installation, Painting<br />
Graphic design, Illustration, Painting<br />
Filmmaking, Screenwriting<br />
Writing
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Alexandra McTavish<br />
Australia<br />
www.bravemoveart.com<br />
About<br />
Born in Hong Kong to Australian parents, Alexandra’s works<br />
examine notions of gender, sexuality, nature, and solitude.<br />
She works instinctively on paper and canvas with oils,<br />
acrylics, ink and watercolours.<br />
Alex is also a professional voice artist and her project at<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> seek to examine the liminal space between visual art<br />
and sound art. She is interested in the psychological effects<br />
of sound and while her audio collages aim to complement<br />
her visual works, they also stand alone to prompt viewers to<br />
introspect.<br />
Alex lives and works on the unceded lands of the<br />
Quandamooka people of Moreton Bay in Mianjin (Brisbane),<br />
Australia.<br />
Metsän Rouva (Lady of the Forest)<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong>, both the place and its residents, proved a place of<br />
immense healing for me. I arrived sick and tired (after 43.5<br />
hours in transit) with tons of (emotional) baggage. I hibernated<br />
for a few days, only to emerge to find the most beautiful<br />
group of artists to share art, meditation, conversation, and<br />
laughter. I swiftly fell into a routine – early morning coffee<br />
chats, meditation, art, walks, sauna and cold lake swims.<br />
I couldn’t paint for the first week. Instead, I walked the<br />
neighboring forest for inspiration. And slept, a lot. Those two<br />
things created the photographic collages on the neighbouring<br />
page.<br />
Metsän Rouva (Lady of the Forest) is a series inspired by the<br />
Finnish forests. The forests felt very feminine to me and the<br />
birch trees, in particular, called to me. The pine trees hold a<br />
more masculine place in Finnish folklore and they too spoke<br />
to a different aspect of the very personal works.<br />
After these pieces, the floodgates opened and I was able<br />
to paint again. In fact, I was prolific! I returned with two<br />
exhibitions worth of works that go on display in <strong>2023</strong> – a<br />
series of watercolour works and some abstract oils.<br />
I did not do the project I pitched to Teemu, but that said, I<br />
have all I need to create my sound work now I am back home<br />
to my studio.<br />
I am so grateful for my time at <strong>Arteles</strong>. It was a monastic<br />
experience in many ways and just what I needed to heal from<br />
long held wounds.
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Yoomee Ko<br />
USA / Korea<br />
www.yoomeeko.com<br />
About<br />
Currently based in New York City, I am a TCK (Third Culture<br />
Kid) curious about languages, cultures, landscapes and<br />
the interconnectedness of the three in how they shape our<br />
unique yet shared experiences. As a painter, I work mostly<br />
in oils to capture the fragility and resilience of nature, and<br />
its immense power to soothe without asking for anything in<br />
return. As an aspiring poet, I like to dig deep into my emotions<br />
and the stories of others. I often pair my visual works of art<br />
with writing to accompany them, because words can do so<br />
much; they can inspire, comfort, and lessen the weight we<br />
carry inside.<br />
Woodlands<br />
I spent my days walking in the woods, wading through the<br />
soft and wet grounds, meeting the gaze of a fawn, and<br />
chasing after a fox. Transported from the daily grind of a city<br />
life, <strong>Arteles</strong> gave me an opportunity to connect with nature<br />
in a profoundly personal way. The four weeks in Finnish<br />
woodlands taught me how to live with less and strengthened<br />
my desire to nurture plants and wildlife. Instead of painting,<br />
an additive process, I experimented with removing and<br />
cutting out found objects on paper. In the process, I realized<br />
how easy it is to keep taking from our environment, in fear<br />
of not having enough. I want to change that, and unlock the<br />
gift of kindness that can help all of us to give back to this<br />
beautiful planet we call home.
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Kristi Dick<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
Kristi Dick (she/her/y’all) is a screenwriter based in Los<br />
Angeles & Buenos Aires. Comedy features are her focus;<br />
from quirky, indie dramedies to big-budget action-comedies<br />
and everything in between. Thematically, she’s interested<br />
in writing inclusive stories about regular people dealing<br />
with personal trauma as seen through the lens of their<br />
disfunctions, as well as exploring the comedy that comes<br />
from everyday life.<br />
Bread. Coffee. Dialogue.<br />
I arrived to <strong>Arteles</strong> with a lengthy to-do list full of colorcoded<br />
bullet points and an expectation to be as productive<br />
as possible. My first two weeks were incredibly, quantifiably<br />
fruitful.<br />
But as the daylight began to wane, I found my strict deadlines<br />
giving way to magical forest walks. Planned Zoom meeting<br />
were postponed until further notice – somebody had to light<br />
the sauna fire, after all. The rare occasions the Sun decided<br />
to pop in for a visit, all work stopped so I could stand at the<br />
studio window to refuel and soak up his rays.<br />
My shoulder began to lower for the first time in a decade.<br />
I was healing from the trauma of extreme Covid isolation<br />
in a city of 4 million. I was newly inspired to write in ways I<br />
could not have foreseen. I was surrounded by some of the<br />
most talented, multi-disciplinary artists I’ve ever met, who<br />
supported each other unconditionally.<br />
And the bread! My love of the Finnish bread led to a curiosity<br />
that soon became research about baking techniques during<br />
medieval times. The breads of Finland eventually weaved<br />
their way thematically into my script. Bread as character,<br />
nourishment, struggle and history. This would never have<br />
happened without <strong>Arteles</strong>. Kiitos to Amber, Mari, Jukka and<br />
Teemu for the amazing kindness you brought daily.
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Eddie James<br />
Australia / New Zealand<br />
www.whoiseddiejames.com<br />
About<br />
I am a multidisciplinary artist based in niplaulna/Hobart,<br />
Tasmania, Australia. Influenced by a career on the road, my<br />
practice explores the human capacity to see and read body<br />
language. I engage with mind/body connection in its creation<br />
of action, reaction, emotion and physicality. I use body,<br />
movement, the tactile processes of analogue/alternative<br />
photography, printmaking, and drawing to create a visual<br />
tension that highlights displacement, comfort, isolation and<br />
freedom. Bringing in architecture, light and form, I aim to<br />
translate a deep listening of space into a visual experience.<br />
I’m interested in aspects of continuous change and exchange,<br />
as layers to be revealed, as well as effects of time and place<br />
on musings between human, object and environment.<br />
I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the palawa/<br />
pakana people as the traditional and ongoing owners and<br />
custodians of the skies, land and water of lutruwita.. I pay my<br />
respects to their elders both past, present and emerging and<br />
acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.<br />
I planned to work on a few small projects and a bit of research<br />
while at the residency, but this quickly shifted with my bag<br />
lost in transit. Strangely this gave a weird sense of relief.<br />
Without my tools, there seemed to be less pressure. I was<br />
given time to reflect and be more playful with my practice.<br />
Every morning I would write a stream of consciousness for<br />
10 mins, though this would often extend and included jotting<br />
down strange dreams and little drawings or poems. I ended<br />
up having a small love affair with the rocks and started<br />
experimenting with drawing materials, capturing the rock<br />
outside my window. Once my bag arrived my rock obsession<br />
flowed into my photography. In the past, my practice has had<br />
a lot of focus on internal spaces so it felt very freeing to be<br />
pulled into the external landscape.<br />
A haiku written on the last day…<br />
Just an empty space<br />
No edges or boundaries<br />
Where things come and go<br />
Reset. Respond. Rock.<br />
The rock sits quietly, letting change come and go. Just like<br />
the rock my body meets the landscape, some parts catch the<br />
light of day, while other parts staying in the dark. The external<br />
landscape finds a way to become internally and I become<br />
part of it.<br />
This residency created new ideas and fresh perspectives to<br />
further my practice and a prospective new project. I feel very<br />
grateful for getting to experience such a magic place with<br />
such wonderful people.
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Isa Fontbona<br />
Spain<br />
isafontbona.com<br />
About<br />
Visual artist, researcher (Ph.D. candidate in the department<br />
of Art History at the University of Girona, Spain), and natural<br />
bodybuilder competitor.<br />
Using art, mainly through performance, I explore the<br />
malleability of my body offered by bodybuilding. It leads me,<br />
in some cases, to experiment and challenge the limits and<br />
endurance of my body. Effort, resistance, and vulnerability<br />
are concepts that I like to explore through my pieces. I tend<br />
to ask about my own identity in relation to my flesh through<br />
uncomfortable positions and an honest gaze. Putting myself<br />
in a vulnerable position, I like to involve with the audience,<br />
give voice to them, letting them to weaving the meaning of<br />
the piece with freedom.<br />
I like to explore terrains that make me tremble and take me<br />
out of my comfort zone, which has led me to break with the<br />
structuring and rigidity provided by the bodybuilding sphere<br />
entering into the sphere of contemporary dance, and physical<br />
theater where expression and fluidity beat.<br />
Kotelo – inner dialogue<br />
My experience at <strong>Arteles</strong> has allowed me the possibility<br />
to create a break and put distance at a frantic pace, with<br />
a wheel that has no brakes, which often doesn’t even leave<br />
you time to breathe.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> has been a reset for me.<br />
My identity is always located in the “doing,” in physicality, in<br />
effort, in wear and tear. This pattern made me think that the<br />
project I wanted to carry out at <strong>Arteles</strong> was to explore what<br />
happened to my identity, what type of dialogue took place<br />
when I am at the opposite pole of this corrosive physicality.<br />
How do I think myself from the “not doing”? What thoughts<br />
come to my mind? What dialogue do I establish with myself?<br />
What does my body tell me when I let it breathe?<br />
This November has proportionated a very intense weeks<br />
internally, many things have moved in my inner self, that is<br />
why the name of the embodied and lived project: “Kotelo,”<br />
the Finnish term to refer to the chrysalis. A transient state of<br />
the transformation of the butterfly, where apparently from the<br />
outside nothing seems to be happening, but inside this rather<br />
unpleasant-looking element there is life and transformation.<br />
Silence, to feel, to hear...<br />
Second photo: Stillness, in a silent dialogue with the art<br />
piece ‘Two Brief Conversations’ (<strong>2020</strong>) by the artist Luna<br />
Mrozik Gawler.
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Naakai Addy<br />
USA<br />
www.daughterofnai.com<br />
About<br />
Naakai Addy is a Ghanaian-American writer with a<br />
background in performing arts and a creative interest in<br />
photography and digital collage. After spending her childhood<br />
in Southern California, Naakai has since lived, studied, and<br />
worked throughout the United States and in Mexico, Norway,<br />
Ireland, Spain, and Scotland. She studied Linguistics at the<br />
University of St. Andrews, Spanish language and literature at<br />
Wesleyan University, and Creative Writing at Trinity College,<br />
Dublin, where she earned an M.Phil with Distinction.<br />
Naakai worked as a copywriter, essayist, and features writer<br />
for over a decade, and is currently finalizing her first fulllength<br />
novel. Her nonfiction short story 3-Step Face Mask<br />
was published in the Sycamore Review in 2021. Naakai<br />
began ballet training at the age of 3 and has since studied<br />
contemporary, tap, jazz, lyrical, modern, ballroom, and<br />
bellydance. As a singer, she has performed choral music,<br />
opera, and musical theater.<br />
Come Home<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to work on a multimedia project about<br />
reclaiming an inherent sense of value, belonging, and home<br />
in an othered body. For many years ‘home’ felt too elusive<br />
a concept to dive into with any consistency, so I avoided it.<br />
For the first two weeks at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I was pulled away from my<br />
intended project by a different one I needed to edit. While<br />
focused on that, I began to actually feel at home. Maybe it<br />
was that there was no pressure for this to be a home, nor<br />
for this time, space, and group to be anything but whatever<br />
they unfolded to be. I was just…here…and there was nothing<br />
I had to ‘do’ to earn the belonging I craved, nor did anyone<br />
need to grant it. After I finished the tasks occupying the first<br />
two weeks, I took a few days to unravel, rest, panic a little,<br />
breathe a lot. Then, Come Home came back to me. I’ve been<br />
making and editing this digital collage project in Canva and<br />
Pixlr, using a combination of original photography and video,<br />
stock elements, music, and lyrical prose. These stills are the<br />
title card and the first page of a chapter called ‘Texas’.<br />
Under the name ‘daughter of nai,’ Naakai works with lyrical<br />
prose, digital collage, movement, and music to explore<br />
themes of otherness/non-belonging, blackness, womanhood,<br />
non-Western concepts of beauty, and disability. daughter of<br />
nai pays homage to Ga spirituality and centers the sacred<br />
feminine archetypes of the siren, huntress, healer, and queen.
Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022<br />
Sarah Holding<br />
UK<br />
www.sarah-holding.com<br />
About<br />
Formerly an architect and an academic (publishing books<br />
and articles as Sarah Chaplin), I am now a full-time author<br />
based in south-west London.<br />
I mostly write in the emerging genre of cli-fi or climate fiction,<br />
having published ‘SeaBEAN, the trilogy’ in 2013-2014,<br />
‘Chameleon’ in <strong>2020</strong>, and ‘How to Write a Poem’ in 2021.<br />
This is my first writing residency and I am looking forward to<br />
this precious month at <strong>Arteles</strong> away from my busy family life,<br />
when I shall be working on a new collection of poems, possibly<br />
some short stories inspired by my Finnish surroundings,<br />
and finding the focus to complete the first draft of a new YA<br />
novel. I enjoy going for walks in nature, meditating, cooking,<br />
practising yoga, and trying to learn Japanese. As someone<br />
who also loves meeting new people, drawing and playing<br />
jazz, I also hope to learn something from the other residents<br />
working on the music and art side!<br />
inland finland<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> with the intention of deepening my<br />
writing practice as a children’s author whose work has a<br />
strong connection to the environment. Whilst (and perhaps<br />
because) I set myself no actual goals, I’ve come away with<br />
a first draft of a YA novel set in Iceland entitled Gap Year, an<br />
almost finished draft of another YA novel I’d been working on,<br />
and a collection of poems and photographs about my time<br />
at <strong>Arteles</strong>. I challenged myself to meditate and write at least<br />
one poem each morning, as preparatory practices before<br />
continuing with my novel, and the photographs were taken<br />
while out on my daily midday walk around Haukijärvi. At the<br />
weekends when I took a break from writing, I made a few<br />
small paintings and collages in the studio. Sometimes I also<br />
played my flute in the music room.<br />
It has been an amazingly vital experience to watch autumn<br />
turn into winter, to feel the temperature dropping and watch<br />
the lake freezing over, to experience a new relationship to<br />
twilight and darkness, and to become almost as hibernatory<br />
as a forest creature over the course of a month. Accepting<br />
and embodying a quietly creative path has become so much<br />
easier having been around a dozen other creative introverts,<br />
watching their process and getting to know what drives them<br />
to make their work.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Liana Mack<br />
USA<br />
www.lianamack.com<br />
About<br />
Liana Mack (she/her) is an erotica writer born and raised<br />
in the Bronx, New York. Her nonfiction and poetry has<br />
appeared in The Cut (New York Magazine), Heroine, Dream<br />
Boy Book Club, and dirt child. She’s attended residencies at<br />
Atlantic Center for the Arts with Eileen Myles in Florida, the<br />
Edith Wharton Straw Dog Writer’s Guild at The Mount in the<br />
Berkshires and GilsfjodurArts in the Westfjords of Iceland.<br />
She loves watching movies and pink lightbulbs.<br />
Fiction<br />
I completed two short stories, began a novel, made fire after<br />
fire for the sauna, and gazed endlessly at the lake. It was a<br />
magical experience I will always cherish.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Susan Hogan<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
I am interested in intersections and connections. I write, draw,<br />
paint, sculpt and perform on occasion with an improv group.<br />
Writing was my first art-love, and I am returning to it (in fiction<br />
and non-fiction) after years spent working in visual art. I have<br />
been a studio artist, educator, and museum professional. I<br />
often use visual materials (photographs, sketches, other<br />
artworks) as a catalyst for writing. I believe that art (in all<br />
its forms) exists to connect us, and to focus our attention,<br />
at least for fleeting moments, on our common condition -<br />
we are human beings. I aspire to create work that touches<br />
people in ways that encourage them to see themselves in<br />
others, and others in themselves, as well as to remember to<br />
appreciate the natural world we share. I am currently focused<br />
on writing non-fiction, and I am finding parallels between the<br />
process of writing and the process of drawing and painting:<br />
each builds from observation, experience, and the free rein<br />
of intuition. Being in nature cultivates intuition, which is my<br />
most important tool, and <strong>Arteles</strong> will provide fertile ground.<br />
Pay Attention<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> expecting to concentrate on writing, with<br />
creating visual art serving as a supporting activity. The<br />
environment around me – natural, creative, communal – led<br />
me another way. I felt called to respond intuitively to what<br />
I was seeing and experiencing through creating drawings<br />
and paintings. I explored mixing media I had never combined<br />
before. I sometimes worked on multiple pieces at the same<br />
time. I did whatever felt right in the moment.<br />
Some of the artworks I created recorded observations of my<br />
external environment, and others sprang from mysterious<br />
places inside me. I think the ones which came from mystery<br />
are the most engaging.<br />
The atmosphere at <strong>Arteles</strong> links the soul to the sky.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
C.C. Webster<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
C.C. Webster has been working as a freelance screenwriter<br />
and director since 2006. In the last ten years, she has been<br />
thrilled to lend her knowledge to writers at Sarah Lawrence<br />
College, Gotham Writers Workshop, Sundance Collab and as<br />
a private writing coach and consultant.<br />
She is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of the Arts<br />
with an MFA in Directing and Screenwriting.<br />
Dramatic Writing for the Screen<br />
- Research & Revision<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, I focused on research for a feature script centering<br />
around a modern adaptation of a Scandinavian folk tale, and<br />
continued revision of current work. It was an invaluable gift to<br />
be in the Finnish forest, and be amongst incredibly inspiring<br />
artists. My work grew layers like moss and my writing<br />
deepened in unexpected ways.<br />
Her feature script, BLUE BALL, PA, a raunchy senior citizen<br />
sex comedy set in Pennsylvania Dutch country, has been<br />
in development with various producers and directors since<br />
2013. This project has also twice been selected for Coverfly‘s<br />
Pitch Week. Her feature script, MISSING, a Nordic drama<br />
about a bewildered young chef hunting for answers to her<br />
brother’s untimely death in the Swedish archipelago was<br />
the winner of the American Scandinavian Society’s Cultural<br />
Grant, was invited to participate in the Squaw Valley Writer’s<br />
Conference, and received pre-production funding from the<br />
Swedish Film Institute. Her feature script, LITTLE BUFFALO,<br />
a coming of age story about a girl trapped in the illegal drug<br />
world of her parents, trying desperately to find her voice<br />
among the mess, was accepted to the prestigious Writers<br />
Lab--sponsored by Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep, and<br />
was also a finalist for the Sundance Lab and the Black List<br />
Feature Lab. Feature thriller, SHOW & TELL, based on the<br />
tragic murder of Laurie Show in Lancaster County, PA in<br />
1991, was accepted to the Stowe Narrative Story Lab in 2021.<br />
She is represented by A3 Artists Agency.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Zoe Mars<br />
Australia<br />
www.zoemars.com<br />
About<br />
I’m an interdisciplinary artist who explores themes of<br />
obsolescence and disappointment, and I’m obsessed with<br />
the outdated, forgotten and failed. My previous projects have<br />
included an audio tour of an abandoned aerospace museum,<br />
a performance as the Ghost of Computers Past, and an<br />
algorithmically-generated animation of an endless subway<br />
escalator.<br />
What ghosts and traces of the past lurk around us? What<br />
happens to our hopes and aspirations—both collective and<br />
individual—when they fail to pass? I like to articulate these<br />
ideas through references and homages to classic sci-fi,<br />
technology and design.<br />
Cassettes, conversations<br />
I arrived at <strong>Arteles</strong> with eight hours of digitised early-90s<br />
self-help cassette tapes and the beginnings of an idea. With<br />
time to dive deeply into this material, space to experiment,<br />
and an interdisciplinary group of peers with whom to share<br />
and discuss work, I was able to develop the outline, first draft<br />
and prototype recordings for a new audio piece in which a<br />
(de)motivational speaker guides the listener along a shared<br />
descent into blissful, metaphysical failure.<br />
My process: feeding strange and diverse raw material into<br />
my brain, patiently letting it percolate, and grabbing what<br />
eventually bubbled up to the surface. I especially appreciated<br />
the collaboration and cross-pollination that naturally took<br />
place through close proximity to others’ practices and<br />
explorations.<br />
While nothing in the audio script directly references <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
or the people I met there, its narrative, topics and sensory<br />
details were shaped by the conversations and experiences we<br />
shared: success and responsibility, what lurks underground<br />
in the forest, body awareness in the sauna, and manipulating<br />
the signals and frequencies of an ancient TV.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Donna Hapac<br />
USA<br />
www.donnahapac.com/wood-sculptures<br />
About<br />
I was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. Three years ago,<br />
I moved with my husband to a small town about fifty miles<br />
from downtown Chicago in northwest Indiana and close to<br />
Lake Michigan. We are much closer to nature here and love<br />
the landscape of forests, wetlands, and dunes.<br />
I am a sculptor who builds forms from repeating elements. I<br />
have worked primarily in reed and wood. In my early career,<br />
I produced paintings and drawings, exhibiting frequently.<br />
In the late 1980s, I discovered contemporary basketry and<br />
its creative possibilities and began to make sculpture. At<br />
first, I used reed and cane, developing my own techniques<br />
for building forms. Since 2015, I have been learning<br />
woodworking. Now, I carve wood elements on a bandsaw,<br />
assembling multiple blocks into active forms. Most of the<br />
wood I use is reclaimed pine from old barns, urban rehabs<br />
and tear-downs. This older wood has much denser grain and<br />
strength than recently harvested pine. The wood often has<br />
interesting grain and knots.<br />
My current series includes bridges and barriers. While at<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong>, I want to create an outdoor sculpture that builds on<br />
that series.<br />
Landscape Notes<br />
The day before my arrival at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I was filled with<br />
anticipation, mixed with some apprehension about facing the<br />
month-long void of my residency. While staying at a hotel,<br />
I had a hard fall that left me bruised and swollen, in a lot of<br />
pain. Fortunately, I had no broken bones or open wounds.<br />
The next day, I arrived at <strong>Arteles</strong> at the peak of autumn colors<br />
with the tall birch trees shimmering with their golden leaves<br />
across the peaceful landscape. It was lovely!<br />
My residency plans were to 1) become reacquainted with<br />
watercolors; 2) make drawings of the landscape and plant<br />
life; and 3) create an outdoor art installation in the woods<br />
at <strong>Arteles</strong>. We were warned that residents’ plans often<br />
change once their residency begins. That happened to me.<br />
My injuries were such that I had a hard time walking on the<br />
uneven and overgrown paths in the forest and kept losing my<br />
balance. I considered alternatives to an outdoor installation<br />
idea. Meanwhile, I painted watercolors.<br />
As my injuries healed, I walked on more easily navigated<br />
paths and became fascinated with the vegetation along the<br />
way. Collecting specimens, I took them back to the studio. I<br />
photocopied and developed drawings from the plants. From<br />
these experiments, I eventually designed and painted a mural<br />
on a wall in my bedroom based on my drawings. I see this<br />
work developing into future 2-D and 3-D artworks.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Wouter van Kelle<br />
Canada / Netherlands<br />
woutervankelle.nl<br />
About<br />
In his life Wouter van Kelle is seeking out a balance.<br />
Balancing different aspects of his life, where desire and<br />
reality are seldom unilateral. He feeds this search by drawing<br />
inspiration from the places he visits, mainly the vastness<br />
and power that nature represents to him. The sum of these<br />
two has shaped a fascination for the way different materials,<br />
shapes and colours react to one another. Through which<br />
he creates a delicate balance between pulling and pushing,<br />
between overwhelming and intriguing.<br />
Haukijärven Metsä<br />
During his residency Wouter submerged himself fully in the<br />
forest, paying attention to the smallest details and grandest<br />
gestures she has to offer. The series of drawings he made<br />
are annotations of the memories and beings from the forests<br />
around the residency. On the last day of the residency<br />
Wouter spent his day letting go of the process, research and<br />
sketches by slowly burning them. In only keeping the final<br />
50 drawings of the series he wanted to put the emphasis on<br />
the time and space in which the work is created, which is<br />
why Haukijärven Metsä (the forest of Haukijärven) became<br />
the name of the series.<br />
The drawings show different traces of lichen, tiny symbiotic<br />
creatures who can be found in plenty in forests. Lichen can<br />
live almost anywhere, and can be an indication for the health<br />
of the forest. Lichen have been around for an astonishing<br />
long time, they play a vital part in our environment, and the<br />
history of the world.<br />
The work speaks about these soft beings and tells their story,<br />
and that of the forests in Finland. It speaks of its past, and it<br />
speaks of the nurturing care both supply.
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Clint Sleeper<br />
USA<br />
www.clintsleeper.com<br />
About<br />
I work as a curator and artist on topics of technology, radical<br />
politics, humor, and the environment. These explorations<br />
arrive to the viewer through thematic exhibitions at<br />
Unrequited Leisure, experimental web platforms, books,<br />
installations, performances, and videos.<br />
Javascripts Nests<br />
Among several personally restorative and creative projects<br />
I worked on while at <strong>Arteles</strong>, these simple sketches remain<br />
the most compelling. Beginning with a number of collected<br />
twigs, digital photographs are further manipulated by a bit<br />
of javascript, which arranges and rearranges the images<br />
endlessly toward some 2D construction that repeatedly fails<br />
to emulate the natural order. Finally, the code generates<br />
PDF’s by the hundreds toward a collection of printed works<br />
for exhibition. (The title of the work is a quiet homage to the<br />
brilliant Stephen Merritt side project, ‘The 6ths.’)
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Marta Carrascosa -<br />
Mtita Bamako<br />
Spain<br />
mtita-bamako.com<br />
About<br />
I am a creative entrepreneur managing three areas of work:<br />
I am the author and illustrator of children’s books. My book<br />
I HAVE A BIG FAMILY was happily published in English and<br />
Spanish by PintarPintar Editorial.<br />
I am the designer of Mtita Bamako, a lifestyle brand creating<br />
since 2003 limited editions of accessories, naïve paintings<br />
and dolls, inspired by diverse cultural references. I also work<br />
as a consultant for the EU in several African countries to<br />
support the development of cultural projects.<br />
Travelling continuously between Africa and Europe for<br />
more than 20 years I combine my professional activity as a<br />
Cultural Consultant for the EU with my work as a designer<br />
and illustrator.<br />
From my current location in Marrakech, I am now finalizing<br />
my third and fourth picture books: FOUR FRIENDS IN A<br />
ROCKET and THE MAN WHO KNITTED WILD PETS.<br />
CRAFTING WILD ANIMALS<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> has been crucial to maintain a very demanding<br />
working rhythm for an entire month. It has allowed me to<br />
reach in a very joyful way the objective of finalising the 28<br />
illustrations of my next children’s book - THE MAN WHO<br />
CRAFTED WILD ANIMALS.<br />
I had a perfect studio full of natural light where I could<br />
concentrate and hide for long intensive painting/drawing<br />
sessions, but also very special moments to step back, relax<br />
my eyes and nourish my soul.<br />
Long bike rides to explore the openness of the landscape,<br />
regular walks in the forest to create that needed silence and<br />
headspace for creative ideas to arise, fantastic talks and<br />
shared moments at the kitchen with my creative mates, full<br />
body and mind detox at the sauna every second day…<br />
And most of all, it has contributed to feel confident, to<br />
share and explore, to be open to ideas, and to experience<br />
that sense of community that the place so much facilitates,<br />
making me feel that as an artist, I am not alone.<br />
The idea of a new book was born there too. Who knows?<br />
Maybe a new residency to write it there soon?
Write & Create program / OCTOBER 2022<br />
Adam Zmith<br />
UK<br />
www.adamzmith.com<br />
About<br />
I’ve been writing and producing short films, stage shows,<br />
podcasts, a non-fiction book, short stories, and several dead<br />
novels. Whatever the form, my work has come to focus on<br />
the experience of having a body in a society; my aim, to help<br />
us all to think about our flesh and live more freely with its<br />
pleasures. I investigate history and dream about the future.<br />
I collaborate openly and work intensively alone. I’m inspired<br />
by performers, especially queer ones who are visiting us from<br />
the future. I’m looking for ways to write prose fiction with the<br />
same entertaining and energetic posture that I have on stage<br />
or in a podcast. I need time to think and talk to myself.<br />
Started new books!<br />
I started two new book projects. First up, I wrote a full proposal<br />
for a non-fiction book because a publisher is interested in<br />
it and gave me some guidance. So I wrote the two sample<br />
chapters and a full breakdown of the book, using research<br />
and thinking done during my time at <strong>Arteles</strong>. I performed<br />
some short sections of the text for other residents, and it<br />
was affirming to get their positive feedback. Second, I began<br />
to work on a novel, with space and time to create strong<br />
characters and plots. I also managed to workshop some of<br />
this work with a small writing group that formed during my<br />
month. I also wrote a short story, which I submitted to an<br />
anthology. Overall it was a very productive month, mostly<br />
because I was far away from my usual obligations and<br />
projects.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Bee Hayes<br />
UK<br />
asthecrowsfly.co.uk<br />
About<br />
Having qualified in both social anthropology and fashion<br />
design, I am currently a ceramicist working with porcelain, a<br />
material I find really satisfying and versatile. In my ceramics<br />
practice I throw or slip cast, and then polish, glaze or<br />
illustrate my vessels. I find I am constantly discovering new<br />
ideas and ways of working, and I am dedicated to design and<br />
functionality: I feel strongly that the things in our lives, that<br />
we use, should enhance the everyday and I want my work to<br />
perform that as a function as much as being usable vessels.<br />
I am also an illustrator and, although I mainly use that as a<br />
tool to push forward my ceramics and design work, I have<br />
recently been studying printmaking. A year of exploring<br />
different techniques and ways to make marks and create<br />
layered and unique new artworks with no end point of<br />
functionality has made me want to explore this further. I feel<br />
quite liberated from my everyday ceramics practice in that<br />
my prints have no ‘reason’. This is a new way of working and<br />
thinking for me, but the spontaneity of ideas comes from the<br />
same place. The dialogue between colour, the natural world<br />
and distinctive elements of design heritage both from the<br />
west and the global south is what gives me my impetus to<br />
keep on interrogating and creating.<br />
Screenprint Metaphors<br />
During my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> I explored the medium of<br />
screenprint for creating abstract symbolist compositions.<br />
The research was designed to round off a year of exploring<br />
print as a new medium to expand my practice in ceramics<br />
and bring textiles/visual art into my remit. A year of learning,<br />
ending with a month of completely open exploration and<br />
spontaneity. I loved living a few steps away from a beautiful<br />
light studio space, always ready for me to work and take<br />
forward ideas that struck me whilst walking or running or<br />
sitting with the natural landscape surrounding us. Such a<br />
valuable time; the ideas and colour work here will inform a<br />
new direction in my practice.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Martine van Bijlert<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.martinevanbijlert.com<br />
About<br />
I’m a poet, novelist and non-fiction writer, who grew up in Iran<br />
and now lives in the Netherlands. In between, I worked as an<br />
aid worker, researcher and diplomat, mostly in Afghanistan.<br />
Last year’s collapse of the Kabul government pulled me back<br />
into a period of intense political reporting, which I’m just<br />
coming out of, while I kept writing poetry and started a series<br />
of hybrid essays.<br />
Lately, I’ve been looking into gender fluidity and storytelling,<br />
documentary poetics, auto-ethnography, the limitations of<br />
empathy, and abstractions like ‘cultures of circulation.’<br />
I’m bringing my notes and my cameras, and am looking<br />
forward to finding out what life looks like without Google.<br />
words / images / thought<br />
The hollow lit-up globe over the kitchen table with the names<br />
of the world in Finnish / makes me want to hold a map / the<br />
ridge of trees / I trace its contours, track its colours as they<br />
change / there’s silence here and I am in it / thoughts come in<br />
the form of questions / finding myself in front of a bookshelf<br />
muttering: I don’t know what to do / missing hard work but<br />
not missing the exhaustion / taking home twenty little books<br />
in different stages of being made / like weathered objects /<br />
like a tahwiz / the first about destruction, the second about<br />
a hanging / a third has turned its writing around / and the<br />
clouds are lit and the rock is covered in a forest of moss /<br />
plant matter determined to belong anywhere / and we’ve<br />
been slowly turning our faces home / emptying, returning,<br />
giving back what we borrowed / ready not ready but ready.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Hilla Spitzer<br />
Israel<br />
www.hillaspitzer.com<br />
About<br />
In a slow, exploratory and intuitive process, I connect the<br />
fragments that make up the pictorial image. In this way, I give<br />
deep meaning and attention to the painting process itself,<br />
and less to the final result, that is, the painting process is<br />
the basis of the work, and not the pursuit of a predetermined<br />
image. In fact, the painting does not begin and does not end<br />
with a complete image, but is built slowly, during the act of<br />
painting.<br />
I came to paint trees<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to paint trees. When I arrived I got a studio<br />
space with a beautiful view, I started a morning routine of<br />
waking up every morning and right away going to my space<br />
to paint the trees. I had a very intense urge to get out of bad<br />
and go paint. I new I had only one month with those trees and<br />
I felt like I had to use every minute I have to study them.<br />
The finished result in the paintings is an expression of pictorial<br />
processes and inventions, “”mistakes””, investigations of<br />
color, texture and movements of an image that is not realistic<br />
and that is not mimetic. At first glance, certain details can be<br />
identified in the painting; A tree trunk, a bench, a building,<br />
a hill, a sunbeam. These are placed on the painting surface<br />
after undergoing an interpretive and abstract process. In this<br />
way, the final image is built - similar to the traditional process<br />
- from pictorial layers, but these do not cover each other in<br />
a patchy-linear manner that hides what was there before,<br />
but rather “”celebrates”” the experiment and questioning<br />
through the expansion of the painting in a linear - infinite<br />
manner while potentially offering The painting to be painted<br />
forever.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Michele Rolstone<br />
South Africa<br />
www.michelerolstone.com<br />
About<br />
South African artist and printmaker, Michele Rolstone, holds<br />
a BAFA from the Michaelis School for Fine Art, University of<br />
Cape Town. Rolstone trained and worked as a professional<br />
printmaker in Cape Town for a number of years before<br />
moving to Johannesburg, joining the artist community of<br />
August House. Although trained in traditional printmaking,<br />
her practice is at its core interdisciplinary and experimental.<br />
Looking to the tradition of storytelling as a form of knowledge<br />
transfer, Rolstone sees her recent works as texts, adapting<br />
mythologies for the contemporary context. She reflects on<br />
the relationship between personal and collective experience<br />
and the process of locating the self within, and in relation<br />
to, the zeitgeist. She uses symbols to write subtexts into her<br />
work, and is deeply fascinated with the way in which meaning<br />
becomes ever more complex and layered over time through<br />
a process of diverse and repetitive interpretation. She hopes<br />
that using familiar symbolic references will serve as visual<br />
cues for interpretive participation and co-creation.<br />
Of obvious profundities<br />
Some experiences are hard to put plainly to words. It is<br />
already a difficult task, conjuring the imaginations of others,<br />
to relate any experience that was not lived alongside you.<br />
Even then it is layered, with each present perception bringing<br />
nuance to that which is perceived.<br />
Perhaps it is because some experiences are not meant<br />
to be well understood. Intellectualised and reduced for<br />
consumption. Perhaps some experiences are meant, rather,<br />
to be well experienced. Embodied and integrated in a way<br />
that needs no explanation.<br />
It seems an obvious thing, in the way obvious things<br />
often aren’t. Even more so when we are too distracted<br />
or overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel like the profundity of<br />
a message, when the lightbulb finally flickers “on”, lies<br />
precisely in the obvious; in finally seeing the thing you were<br />
looking at all along. I think much of my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was<br />
profound in this way. Freed from distraction and coming off<br />
of notable overwhelm prior to arrival, it was liberatory in a<br />
way that I wish I could share. To list the work I ‘made’ or<br />
‘did’ there would be missing the point a bit for me. Instead, I<br />
will marvel at the differences in the shared experiences that<br />
intersecting paths in time and place will produce.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Dora Colquhoun<br />
UK<br />
www.doraviolet.co.uk<br />
About<br />
I am a neurodivergent theatre maker and performer based<br />
in Liverpool. I have a wealth of varied experience as a<br />
performer ranging from children’s theatre, stand up comedy,<br />
to penning my own Musical: ADHD The Musical: Can I have<br />
Your Attention Please? I am interested in making work that<br />
is observant, humorous and examines the world we live in.<br />
I enjoy collaboration and working with artists from different<br />
disciplines. I usually work with musicians to create songs, I<br />
am the lyricist and melody maker.<br />
I am currently focusing on writing, exploring themes around<br />
class in the UK. I am hoping to create a new piece of work<br />
that examines how we got to this burning wreckage that is<br />
British Politics in 2022. Hopefully with some biting wit and<br />
aplomb. I am certainly not an expert in politics, but I do know<br />
a dairy milk chocolate bar has doubled in price...........all is<br />
not well.<br />
Breathe, Write, Reflect<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was spent recalibrating my practice, being<br />
introduced to a calmer listening self. It was an eye-opening<br />
experience being cut off from technology and bathing in<br />
nature. The time I spent alone was precious, the time I spent<br />
with the other artists was generous and meaningful. I spent<br />
a month writing and developing a new theatre show about<br />
home called Jam and Chemicals. I would write daily and<br />
without restriction. I read, researched, walked, ran, rowed,<br />
laughed, cried, sang, recorded, cooked and most importantly<br />
I could breathe.<br />
I became familiar with the landscape; I recognised the twists<br />
the turns in the road. I saw the sunflowers in early September<br />
in bright yellow bloom pointing upwards towards the sky,<br />
by the end of the month they cowered down in shrivelled<br />
chipped brown. I would be greeted by a large white dog who<br />
would bark protectively at my unfamiliar presence as I ran<br />
past the house on my frequents runs. At the end of the month<br />
as the cold set in the dog no longer sat outside. I missed<br />
my canine acknowledgement and the joy I got from his<br />
enthusiastic greeting. I cycled along the smooth road and<br />
became frustrated when it was gritted over for the impending<br />
winter, my bike ride was harder and more furious. I noticed<br />
the hay bales tightly packed in cylinders stacked up high and<br />
then moved a week later. There was constant change that I<br />
bore witness too. And a small change in me.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Kento Yokose<br />
Japan<br />
kento-yokose.com<br />
About<br />
Kento Yokose is an interdisciplinary artist working in various<br />
of fields, including research, installation, photography,<br />
writing, design, and art direction. He focuses on human<br />
nature in COMPOSITION, which consists of the elements<br />
such as material, color, text, sound, and everything that<br />
humans can perceive with the senses, and investigates the<br />
possibilities of CREATION crossing disciplines and media.<br />
His creative activity presents a perspective on the contrasts<br />
or relationships between concepts such as human and<br />
nature, modernity and history, analogue and digital, and<br />
space and time.<br />
Back to basics,<br />
I see myself in nature.<br />
The ‘birth’ of lines become the ‘verse’ of lines.<br />
I am ‘speaking into the air’.<br />
Alone.<br />
See myself
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Tomotsugu Nakamura<br />
Japan<br />
www.tom29gallery.com<br />
About<br />
Born in Amagasaki City, Hyogo.<br />
From an early age, I was familiar with the arts as my father<br />
was a painter and my aunt was a Japanese dance teacher.<br />
As a child, I used to make my own sculptures out of fallen<br />
trees and play with stones, polishing them incessantly. Since<br />
then, nature has been a medium for me to represent the past,<br />
present, and future, and express my way of life.<br />
In 2010, I presented my works at a solo exhibition hazuki<br />
gallery and started my artist activities. Since then, she has<br />
been presenting sculptures, paintings, intarations, and<br />
photographs using natural materials. In the world of the sea,<br />
where there are no flowers, she creates works such as flower<br />
arrangements, painting using flowers and plants as brushes,<br />
and sculptures using stone and wood.<br />
Forget Time<br />
I spent most of my time in the forest. When you are in the<br />
forest, you never feel alone. I never feel fear or anxiety. The<br />
forest was a place that provided me with a sense of peace<br />
of mind.<br />
In Japan, the climate is warmer, so the density of forest<br />
vegetation is higher than in Finland, and it is difficult to step<br />
into an area when the grass and plants are dense. However,<br />
Finland has a lower climate and there is not much tall grass<br />
or bushes. Most of the plants on the ground are short<br />
blueberries and mosses, which make it easy to step into the<br />
forest and walk around.<br />
Taking advantage of this, we collected fallen trees and<br />
created a work of art. Because there are no overgrown areas,<br />
collecting them was very easy. The theme of the work was<br />
“WALL”.<br />
Through discussions with people from all over the world we<br />
met here, we learned that everyone has various barriers. How<br />
do you overcome or break down these barriers? Or do you<br />
give up? It depends on the situation and the problem.<br />
But I believe in them and in myself.
Back to Basics program / SEPTEMBER 2022<br />
Andrew Choate<br />
andrewchoate.us<br />
andrewchoate.us<br />
About<br />
After becoming a passionate admirer of bollards – the<br />
concrete and steel posts that protect buildings, equipment,<br />
and people from moving vehicles – I adopted the persona of<br />
Saint Bollard, wherein I perform with and photograph these<br />
ubiquitous objects.<br />
Bollard Paintings<br />
I made translations from languages I don’t know, paintings<br />
based on my photographic work, and combined writing with<br />
brushstrokes.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Vicki Donkin<br />
Canada<br />
vdonkin.com<br />
About<br />
Born with a heightened sense of curiosity in Prince Edward<br />
Island, Canada, Vicki Donkin tries to find stories in all things<br />
by prompting herself to “Imagine if…” This first took shape<br />
as writing on her father’s DOS computer and evolved into<br />
filmmaking as a young woman. It has since matured into<br />
works of prose fiction, many of which have been published in<br />
various magazines and shortlisted for awards. Most recently,<br />
Vicki has completed her first full-length novel of feminist<br />
literature, Body of Water. Her ritual of storytelling also<br />
extends to learning languages, experimenting with traditional<br />
recipes, and creating narratively structured DJ sets.<br />
Vicki finds comfort in the uncanny and is interested in the (un)<br />
natural ways we contort ourselves to receive acceptance.<br />
Lately, she is curious as to how our individual use of<br />
languages conceals, yet reveals these attempts at contortion<br />
and how this understanding can develop in a characterdriven<br />
narrative.<br />
Sight: All the Names by José Saramago<br />
Sound: Fongola by KOKOKO!<br />
Smell: wet stones<br />
Taste: chimichurri octopus<br />
Touch: ridges on seashells<br />
into the portal<br />
While at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I discovered my connection to mother<br />
energy and the joy of being lost. This gave me the confidence<br />
to locate myself within my fiction and bring the themes of<br />
motherhood and loss to the forefront of my next novel. The<br />
visual representation of the narrative structure came to me<br />
after an experience in the forest and allowed all the abstract<br />
plot points to become chronologically anchored. This<br />
became a framework for the experimental linguistic elements<br />
to mirror the duality of the two main characters and ultimately<br />
create a narrative that examines the humanistic tendency to<br />
code-switch in times of discomfort and shame.<br />
I went into the portal and found the here and now of my work.<br />
Sight: Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Esté<br />
Sound: Funky Järvi<br />
Smell: warm cedar<br />
Taste: babka<br />
Touch: mohair knits
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Faith Johnson<br />
USA<br />
www.faithjohnson.net<br />
About<br />
am an interdisciplinary artist whose current work focuses on<br />
ecological relationship building through a reawakening and<br />
repairing of the emotional and spiritual connection between<br />
humans and the natural world. My work nurtures our innate<br />
ability to understand the subtle languages of the Earth. I<br />
invite a deepening of connection through direct sensory and<br />
extrasensory exploration, and the sharing of dreams and<br />
visions in connection to natural sites. My work encompasses<br />
poetic solo performance videos as well as facilitating<br />
ethereal communal experiences in the form of interactive<br />
installations.<br />
Presently I am immersed in my “Water Keepers’ Library<br />
project - which centers around the expansion of a library of<br />
water samples gathered with gratitude from around the world.<br />
This water is shared through an interactive installation where<br />
I guide metaphysical group communication experiences<br />
exploring the consciousness and language of water together.<br />
North is a Circle (where do I belong to the earth?)<br />
Film stills (work in process)<br />
North is a Circle<br />
This body of video work is a series of subtle interactions<br />
between myself and the natural world. It is a deeply personal<br />
work in which I follow my Nordic roots only to return to myself<br />
and an Earth beyond map lines and human limitations.<br />
Navigating multiple truths of my own cultural history, I move<br />
through cycles of loss, understanding, hope, healing, and<br />
a reconnection to the spiritual world of nature. Opening my<br />
inner and outer senses I journey into the magic that Earth<br />
whispers through all her beings and the elements she holds.<br />
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />
It takes time to find the magic…. to hear the language…..<br />
deep listening, deep seeing….<br />
an opening of senses you didn’t know you had…. dream<br />
thoughts…. a way of sifting through the impulses and thought<br />
tones moving through your mind…. subtle, communal,<br />
connective….. you become more than yourself… a part of<br />
the universe and yet completely terrestrial…
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Stefanie Schaut<br />
Belgium<br />
www.stefanieschaut.me<br />
About<br />
Stefanie Schaut (1990) is a visual artist living and working in<br />
Belgium. She studied at Luca School of Arts with a master<br />
degree in Fine Arts, Photography. She’s part of VONK<br />
Ateliers back in Belgium and has recently been selected<br />
as a ‘Fresh Eyes’-talent 2022 supported by GUP Magazine.<br />
Currently she’s working on a personal project together with<br />
Bieke Depoorter and other photographers, supported by<br />
BREEDBEELD. Her work has been published in magazines<br />
and expos throughout the years.<br />
Stefanie Schaut wants to break taboos through her work.<br />
Nature plays a central role in her photography. She finds<br />
inspiration and frustration in the way we live in the world.<br />
We are overwhelmed by stimuli and forget our identity and<br />
relationship with society.<br />
The aim of her images is to confront the viewer; to let the<br />
viewer turn inwards in order to reflect on their being. In her<br />
photography she creates a distance from reality. The slow<br />
nature of her photography symbolizes the way in which one<br />
should look at the images - intimately and silently. She is<br />
looking for a visualtranslation of the invisible emotional world<br />
of man.<br />
La Que Sabe (working title)<br />
This project seeks to find a common factor between ‘Mother<br />
Earth’ and the oppressed woman in our society. It is a<br />
start-up project in collaboration with Bieke De Poorter and<br />
Breedbeeld Traject 4. Nature has long served man instead of<br />
man serves nature. It is exploited and dominated by man. By<br />
thus, the image in our society is created that we are separate<br />
from nature or even more, stand above nature.<br />
The images in this project are inspired by the book ‘Women<br />
Who Run With the Wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. This is<br />
a book I found and read during my stay in <strong>Arteles</strong> Creative<br />
Center.<br />
Quote book:<br />
“Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species.<br />
Over time, we have seen the feminine instinctive nature<br />
looted, driven back, and overbuilt. For long periods it has<br />
been mismanaged like the wildlife and the wildlands. For<br />
several thousand years, as soon and as often as we turn<br />
our backs, it is relegated to the poorest land in the psyche.<br />
The spiritual lands of Wild Woman have, throughout history,<br />
been plundered or burnt, dens bulldozed, and natural cycles<br />
forced into unnatural rhythms to please others.”<br />
During my stay, I got a chance to photograph the female<br />
artists and women who worked in this center (I now call them<br />
friends, since we bonded quiet a bit). I photographed them in<br />
a natural setting to undertone the importancy of the wildness<br />
in women. Seeing this as a positive thing, rather than a<br />
negative one – it’s a way to break the patriarchy.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Vasarė Krugždaitė<br />
Lithuania<br />
vasarekru.weebly.com<br />
About<br />
I am a visual artist and graphic designer from Lithuania,<br />
currently living in Vilnius.<br />
I create works using various disciplines - cyanotype,<br />
tradicional graphic, digital drawing, drawing with fel-tip<br />
pens, using watercolor, working with instalations.<br />
I love exploring the nature and working in it. During this<br />
precious little time I live, through nature I have been exploring<br />
medicine, microbiology, micology and geology as a creative<br />
material. Nature encouraged me to jump into different<br />
scientific fields, through which I can find connections<br />
between nature and human beings. With my works I seek to<br />
reveal new forms of nature’s beauty and the depth of things,<br />
that seem very simple for us sometimes.<br />
Got stuck between fungi and boulders<br />
During the residency I was exploring mushrooms, stones,<br />
boulders, forests. I was able to become an observer of<br />
myself and see how artworks lied down on a paper while I<br />
was drawing, making watercolor or cyanotype. The time and<br />
space changed for a month - I was able to create my rules.<br />
I was creating maps of the forest, of rhythm of the stones..<br />
One time I was walking in the forest, drawing a map and<br />
honestly trying to understand where to make another few<br />
lines for a correct path in a map drawing... Next time this<br />
map led me away to unexpected places, so apparently the<br />
map wasn’t that realistic and I couldn’t go where I planned.<br />
Does my imagination lead me where I should be or should I<br />
be nervous that I didn’t reach the exact place in a map? Does<br />
my mind show me fictional world which sometimes I should<br />
follow? That sounds attractive...<br />
I started to make spores prints, and tried to recognise as<br />
many mushrooms as possible. Stones and boulders is the<br />
material which let me dig in tutorial textbooks about geology<br />
and mythology of Lithuania and Finland. It’s interesting to<br />
know that we have a lot in common from a long time ago and<br />
that the beautiful and meaningful ground under our feet is<br />
holding us still. I am trying to show and express why stones<br />
are charming in as much ways as possible. Even though I<br />
don’t have enough objective arguments to prove, I just feel<br />
so....
“I am keeping it for myself”, watercolor
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Sara Sonas<br />
UK<br />
www.sarasonas.com<br />
About<br />
Sara Sonas is a visual artist who explores materials in relation<br />
to their physicality and tactility.<br />
When constructing works, she perceives herself as a<br />
receptor; interacting between her environmental and material<br />
surroundings while reflecting on existence, transience and<br />
our relationship to nature.<br />
Observing, analysing and responding to daily life through<br />
dialogue with nature, she reinstates the concept of cyclicity,<br />
aiming to find balance and harmony within her work.<br />
LOST - a feeling…a process, a transition?<br />
The enchanted forest whispered: ‘in order to find yourself,<br />
you have to get lost in the forest every day’,<br />
and so the journey within continued.<br />
Frustrated and tired when unable to find the way out, nothing<br />
else is left to do… but to - let go. Surrender.<br />
Signs appear. Hear. the leaves rustling.<br />
And the way out is there. Just there, in-front of- you.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Carolina Colichio<br />
Brazil<br />
www.instagram.com/carolinacolichio<br />
About<br />
Carolina Colichio (Ribeirão Preto, 1977) lives and works in<br />
São Paulo. She holds a BA in Social Communication from<br />
Mackenzie University (1999). Over the last 5 years, she has<br />
attended several art courses at institutions and also artist’s<br />
studios.<br />
Her work moves between painting, sculpture and installation,<br />
exploring what is real and what is not. The artist experimentally<br />
researches different materials and possibilities from the<br />
objects that she produces herself and also collected.<br />
The conceptual connections between the body and nature<br />
also is an interest for the artist.<br />
Time and life<br />
When I first got to <strong>Arteles</strong>, I was so inspired by the landscape<br />
with all different colors, textures and shapes that my first<br />
impulse was to collect elements from nature during my<br />
everyday walking to the lake. This was a way to settle down<br />
and start recognizing where my perception was guiding<br />
me, so my work began with observation drawings and a<br />
watercolor book.<br />
After a while, silence, walks, meditation and longer daylight<br />
made me look even more deeply into the woods and into<br />
myself. I have started questioned boundaries between time<br />
and life. From that, collected earth, clay, mushrooms and<br />
coal turned into a body of work with different materials.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Liam Cosford<br />
UK<br />
About<br />
I am an interdisciplinary visual artist who draws on personal<br />
and interpersonal narratives to point towards the connection<br />
between all living things. Through research and material<br />
experimentation I create artworks that force the viewer<br />
to become an intrinsic part of the work, through their own<br />
reflection, further heightening the themes of interdependence<br />
and connection.<br />
Searching for Nothing<br />
I spent my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> searching. Searching for something<br />
which I realised, by the end, was with me the whole time.
Back to Basics program / AUGUST 2022<br />
Zoe Hogan<br />
Australia<br />
About<br />
I am a teaching artist, writer and researcher based in Sydney,<br />
Australia. I am interested in collaborative approaches to<br />
creativity and my first love is, and remains, theatre. I love<br />
facilitating spaces for self-expression and most of my work in<br />
recent years has been with refugee and migrant communities.<br />
I recently co-wrote a book, Connecting through Drama, and<br />
am currently undertaking arts-based research with The<br />
University of Sydney and Sydney Theatre Company.<br />
See a moose<br />
At the beginning of the residency, I wrote myself a brief<br />
manifesto. On it was listed, ‘see a moose.’ The next line: ‘don’t<br />
take it too seriously’. I never did see a moose, so I’m not sure<br />
how seriously I would have encountered such a colossal,<br />
strange animal. What I did do was read Mary Oliver poems<br />
every day, collect berries, absorb hours of data recordings,<br />
write a play script, observe insects, write thousands of words<br />
for my PhD, rediscover the pull of the blank page, stare out of<br />
windows. It was a curious mix of productivity and idleness; a<br />
magical and altering time.
Back to Basics program / JUNE-JULY 2022<br />
Tomás Franco<br />
Brazil<br />
tomasfranco.com.br<br />
About<br />
Tomás Franco is a sound designer/recordist and<br />
experimental video artist based in São Paulo, Brazil,<br />
graduated in Film Studies at the University of São Paulo. He<br />
currently works mostly with sound for film and television.<br />
Tomás does experiments with musical sound recordings,<br />
specially interested in the language of noise, electroacustics,<br />
soundscapes and the lo-fi aesthetics (that, also with video).<br />
As a composer, he has made classical guitar pieces in<br />
alternative tunings, film soundtracks, and collaborations with<br />
other artists. One of the sound interactions he explores is the<br />
noise-silence duality and the disrupting of stillness.<br />
“Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no<br />
silence that is not pregnant with sound” - John Cage.<br />
The Library of Imagined Sounds<br />
In The Library of Imagined Sounds, you are invited to add<br />
sounds coming from your mind on a wall and also to share<br />
the experience of imagining the sounds described by others.<br />
There are no limits to imagined sounds: they can be tiny, huge,<br />
absurd, connected to memory, or the subconsciousness.<br />
Time, space, actions, texture, characters and sensations are<br />
translated in a short text, and shared.<br />
By imagining sounds, more and more ideas appeared<br />
and became experiments. In The Whispering Gallery, the<br />
participants are invited to whisper to a device, in a private<br />
room, and their sound is reproduced in speakers hidden<br />
in the woods. Sound is displaced and secrets revealed to/<br />
through speaking trees. By walking around, it is possible to<br />
choose a voice to listen to closer, or just to stay in the center,<br />
surrounded by people in multiple languages telling personal<br />
stories, confessing something, singing or reading.<br />
In Birds of Paradise, the initial input was by the imagined<br />
sound “the song of an extinct bird playing at a mausoleum”.<br />
5 visual artists were then asked to draw 5 different birds,<br />
to be displayed at the entrance of the woods at night, with<br />
an overhead projector. The songs of these 5 species were<br />
edited and played back in high volume from the woods, at a<br />
distance. The images projected in a white sheet, moving with<br />
the wind, made the experience a bit ghost-like. Just at the<br />
end it’s revealed to the audience that the birds they heard<br />
were extinct, when they get a paper that has the name of<br />
the species and info about where and how they lived, next to<br />
each drawing and year they were likely extinct.
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Susan Clarke<br />
UK<br />
susanmerylclarke.squarespace.com<br />
About<br />
I’m a visual artist from Dorset, England. My art is about open<br />
space - visual, physical and mental. I combine drawing,<br />
print and photgraphy, and the fusion of processes is what<br />
interests me.<br />
Being outside is the basis of most of my art. I make imagined<br />
landscapes using disparate forms and methods. Minimal<br />
views, solitude and quiet are frequent starting points.<br />
Remote trees and buildings crop up often to stand for space<br />
and isolation. I like to work without an obvious picture plane,<br />
to allow the composition to suggest a space. A mixture of<br />
chance elements and careful editing is important to me.<br />
In this way, I can blend the buzz of spontaneity with my<br />
inclination to organise.<br />
a heart emerging<br />
The summer days were warm and long. I went out early every<br />
day to sit on the jetty at the lake and draw. My idea was to<br />
sit just with paper and pencil and see what would happen if<br />
I stayed still and present for at least an hour. My eyes were<br />
either closed, or watching the lake – but not the paper. For 24<br />
hours, I drew without looking, and in the drawings I can see<br />
how calm I felt, how much body movement there was, how<br />
much wildlife was active around me. Stoats, otters, ospreys,<br />
cranes and rosefinches all visited. By the end a heart shape<br />
had unexpectedly emerged in the drawing. The finished<br />
8-metre long piece is a record of time spent in a very still<br />
space, with the drawing holding me in place and allowing me<br />
to see things I otherwise wouldn’t. I’m very grateful that the<br />
residency made this long stretch of time possible.<br />
My background is in book design and that definitely influences<br />
my work. I also meditate daily, using drawing as a focus.
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Laura Klinkenberg<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.ritualdesign.nl<br />
About<br />
My studies began at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in<br />
Amsterdam, where I began to research the space between<br />
myself and others. One of the most important questions I<br />
am concerned with in my work is: ‘How do I bring the space<br />
between myself and others – the interspace – into motion?’<br />
I use the body with its physical presence as a tool to examine<br />
the interspace, the social space, which is teeming with<br />
meanings, feelings and habits. My work can be subtle as<br />
well as big, both profound in their consequences. I have<br />
won several art prizes for my work including the GRA Award<br />
for Applied Arts with my graduation work at the Jewellery<br />
department in 2015.<br />
Shall we, Shall I?<br />
Doing only things I want to be doing, reconnecting with<br />
my creativity. — Leafing through a big pile of magazines,<br />
composing appealing images into a new world of collages.<br />
Recording my voice with her improvised songs, creating an<br />
album unknowingly. Enjoying nature’s elements, capturing a<br />
photography series of my body in moments of ecstasy and<br />
surrender. Painting my left hand ultramarine blue, exploring a<br />
relationship with a Finnish teapot I encountered. Finding the<br />
perfect raspberry coloured thread, for my two blue vagina<br />
jackets. Breaking the phoenix’s eye, by a soft calligraphy<br />
brush and three bent spoons. — Nourished by the heat of the<br />
sauna, and the company of fellow artists.<br />
Through my company Ritual Design, I create unique gifts<br />
and tailor-made art. I believe the act of giving and receiving<br />
can reinforce and deepen our relationships. Gifts by Ritual<br />
Design are tactile and meaningful, providing connection and<br />
joy.<br />
Through my work and creations, I intend to encourage people<br />
to slow down, become more aware, and truly experience.
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Mathilde Strijdonk<br />
Belgium<br />
mathildestrijdonk.weebly.com<br />
About<br />
Dear you,<br />
My name is Mathilde. I am a performer and an (amateur)<br />
audiovisual artist. When you meet me in circumstances where<br />
I feel unsure, I will introduce myself as an actress without a<br />
job and a part-time teacher. As the person I want to be, I<br />
will introduce myself as an all-round artist who connects with<br />
other people via the art practice, collaboration, listening or<br />
coaching. I have built up experience in acting, singing/voice<br />
work, dancing, creating, directing, coaching and teaching.<br />
Next to my work in performance arts, I recently started to<br />
organize group exhibitions and create audiovisual work.<br />
Over the last 8 years I’ve been struggling with my health, the<br />
overall tempo of my life slowed down, as did the multitude<br />
of engagements. I have been figuring out how to set my<br />
personal practice in balance, this is a work in progress.<br />
I am very interested in multidisciplinary work, and I look<br />
forward to meeting people to connect and collaborate with.<br />
My work is intuitive, personal and honest, every new project<br />
begins with feelings of responsibility, questions and doubts.<br />
These elements make an important part of my art practice<br />
and are very dear to me.<br />
Feel free to contact me if you like to meet.<br />
Warm regards,<br />
Mathilde Strijdonk<br />
Connecting & underwater dancing<br />
Time slowed down during the “Back to basics” residency<br />
in <strong>Arteles</strong>. This gave me permission to profoundly connect<br />
with the place, the nature and the other artists. The time<br />
spend, was shared with a group of beautiful people. I got the<br />
privilege to meet them, have feedback sessions, work, swim<br />
and walk together.<br />
Also in my artistic work, connection made out the basis.<br />
During the residency, I practised being in the here and now,<br />
listening, opening up to feeling and allowing to submerge.<br />
That last concept became quite literal, I went swimming as<br />
much as possible and created elaborate underwater dances.<br />
I recorded video and audio footage relating to this idea, and<br />
I hunted down beautiful examples of sky reflections in water<br />
with my camera. As time went by, I rediscovered beauty and<br />
wonder, revisiting a way of looking and listening that I was<br />
used to as a child. I welcomed my inner child to became part<br />
of the residency and went in the forest to follow ants, follow<br />
the sound of trees and follow the direction of the wind.<br />
I did not bring home an art piece, a performance or a video.<br />
But I bring home confidence in my personal artistic practice<br />
of listening and connecting. I am very grateful <strong>Arteles</strong> gave<br />
me the time and space to learn and grow.<br />
(Oh yes, and I also brought home lots and lots of video, photo<br />
and audio footage to review, a possible new way to move my<br />
body and some new friends :) )<br />
(Photo’s made with the help of the lovely Audrey Anderson<br />
and Tomás Franco)
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Antonio Caruso<br />
Italy<br />
About<br />
I am an aspiring curator living among Venice, Italy, and<br />
Aarhus, Denmark, but with southern Italian roots.<br />
My main interests are in conceiving and curating<br />
contemporary art, mainly visual arts, and how they relate to<br />
cultural heritage, as well as the very definition of cultural as<br />
everything that comes from the human sense, including the<br />
way the perceptions and interactions with the surroundings.<br />
Art as a practice of transversal relationship and<br />
unconventional investigation is the creation of a hybrid<br />
space where contents find new hierarchies, skills have to<br />
be transformed into practices and thus a context has to be<br />
generated. It is often a matter of finding new questions rather<br />
than giving old answers.<br />
Engaging the community and observers through arts-based<br />
interventions is another relationship practice that interests<br />
me. It helps to constantly redefine the role creativity has for<br />
society and individuals and thus its dynamic transmission as<br />
a vehicle of civilisation.<br />
Inspiring Butterflies<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was extraordinary for the inspirational<br />
quietness it brought me and for the contact I recovered with<br />
myself, paradoxically precisely through interactions with<br />
others. These interactions are ontogenetically based on<br />
original and transversal bonds, the deepest manifestation of<br />
the conflict between Ego and Es that occur both inwardly<br />
and also outwardly. And where for once the role of the artist<br />
in the hic et nunc counts more than that of the art work in the<br />
space of reality.<br />
As social animals, we often forget the importance of returning<br />
to the essential, not in the sense of solitude, but as the<br />
essential of the relationships of affection and understanding<br />
on which the bonds of creativity should be based. The search<br />
for the obsession proper to the contemporary artist never<br />
fails, and so the curator’s eye never ceases to look and really<br />
see what is part of a creative process. The artist, in fact, is<br />
not only a creative person, one who brings creativity and<br />
invective. The artist is above all a creator, those who create,<br />
who have the ability to mould the mind and bind it to matter.<br />
In this period of my life, I have been able to talk, confront,<br />
research, experiment, participate, help and perhaps even<br />
advise. Always aware of my role and what belongs to it, as<br />
well as what does not.<br />
Every young person who works or wants to work in the field<br />
of art, creativity and culture should have such an experience<br />
in a small catalytic universe as <strong>Arteles</strong> Creative Center is.
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Hayun Yoon<br />
South Korea<br />
About<br />
Junior artist from Seoul, studying Oriental painting in Seoul<br />
National University. I adopt a variety of genres including<br />
drawing, painting, installation - by applying Korean traditional<br />
materials.<br />
The main subject of my work is to discover and symbolize the<br />
fundamental narratives of life.<br />
The Deep Summer<br />
It was an excellent opportunity for me to share the unique<br />
aesthetics of Oriental traditional media with artists from<br />
multiple cultural backgrounds. I organized an Oriental Art<br />
workshop at <strong>Arteles</strong> - for two weeks, 12 other artists were<br />
given the opportunity to experience traditional paper, brush,<br />
and ink techniques. They were willing to focus and follow me<br />
in exploring countless ways in which ink could touch paper. In<br />
addition, I introduced the original concepts and perspectives<br />
of Oriental Art theory and fielded questions from participants.<br />
Residents’ great interest in my media and tradition motivated<br />
me to continue with confidence in my artwork.<br />
My name Hayun means ‘deep summer’ in Korean. Maybe<br />
it had been already decided that I would come here. The<br />
July of <strong>Arteles</strong> just past the summer solstice was bright and<br />
transparent. I cherish the days I spent here breathing, talking,<br />
walking, riding a bike, and lighting the sauna firewoods.
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Zoe Grey<br />
Tasmania, Australia<br />
www.zoe-grey.com<br />
About<br />
I am an emerging artist who grew up in Marrawah, a remote<br />
coastal town on the western edge of Tasmania, a small island<br />
off the south of Australia. Marrawah is exposed, with unique<br />
wild weather and a raw, rugged landscape. I grew up there<br />
and developed a love for the natural environment around me.<br />
My intimate lived experience of that landscape informs my<br />
work. I seek to investigate how the practice of painting can<br />
hold, nurture and unpack our relationships to place.<br />
My process explores raw authentic mark making and<br />
responds to the tactile, intimate quality of paint. I work with<br />
memory and familiarity to guid figurative representations,<br />
and I engage distance as a tool of abstraction. I strive to<br />
investigate the complex character of landscape and question<br />
the way we view and re-present the land around us.<br />
I graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2018 and<br />
have since exhibited nationally, with work held in private<br />
collections internationally. I am currently based in nipaluna/<br />
Hobart, Australia, pursuing my practice at the Artist Run<br />
Initiative Good Grief Studios.<br />
Stillness + play<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> with an intention to be open, a determination<br />
to ‘see what happens’. Pretty quickly, I felt a great sense of<br />
space and freedom. I felt deeply creative, with no bounds<br />
to what I could make. I experimented more than I ever have<br />
in my practice, each day making drawings, collages and<br />
paintings different to what I had made before. I played with<br />
new mediums; I made a video work, shot several rolls of film,<br />
wrote extensively everyday and collaborated with the group.<br />
I made work that was un-precious, unfinished, raw and<br />
completely playful. I rediscovered the joy and importance<br />
of valuing process. I moved through my days with a newfound<br />
sense of stillness, focus and thoughtfulness. In my<br />
paintings, I experimented a lot with the idea of space, pairing<br />
things back and leaving the raw beginnings of a picture. This<br />
exploration kick started a major formal shift in my work that<br />
I continue to push today. My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was profoundly<br />
moving. I learnt endlessly about my self, my practice, ways of<br />
existing and ways of creating. I carry these discoveries with<br />
me, and think about my time at that place so often.
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Fenna von Hirschheydt<br />
Switzerland<br />
www.fvhdesign.com<br />
About<br />
Technically I have a Masters Degree in Set and Lighting<br />
Design from the Lir Academy in Dublin, but I currently work<br />
as a lighting technician at the TAK theatre in Liechtenstein<br />
and as a set design assistant, most recently at the National<br />
Opera in Helsinki and for the opera in Zürich.<br />
I was interested in all sorts of visual arts growing up. In<br />
school we got to try out photography (analogue and digital),<br />
screen printing, linocuts, painting and sculpting and I always<br />
found it very difficult to specialise because I seem to like all<br />
techniques equally. In that sense I think designing for theatre<br />
allows me to combine many of them and learn new ones.<br />
These days I mostly draw, sketch, and make models, but in<br />
my free time I also like taking photos.<br />
I want to use my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> to design an opera to the<br />
stage of a model box and maybe also bring some order into<br />
a collection of photographs I took over two years ago. I like<br />
to draw a lot of inspiration from nature and my surroundings,<br />
so I think the location of <strong>Arteles</strong> will be ideal for both these<br />
projects.<br />
Connecting<br />
The journey of my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> could best be described<br />
as starting with the personal, connecting with the natural<br />
environment and ending with a connection to the people I<br />
have met there, shared food, Sauna, walks and workshops<br />
as well as personal conversations with. It has been a time of<br />
discovery as well: discovering my ability to cope, and well,<br />
without the internet and my phone, beginning to discover the<br />
ability to open to other people again, re-discovering a joy in<br />
living of the land by foraging for my own food, re-discovering<br />
a love for cooking for others, and discovering or rather<br />
becoming aware of the desire to try many new things and<br />
be creative outside the scope of what I would describe as<br />
profession. I think I have come away from <strong>Arteles</strong> with a<br />
better understanding of my creative abilities and limitations,<br />
an awareness of my empathy and more generally a better<br />
sense of self. So in that sense, though it did not feel like it<br />
while experiencing it, my month in Finland has been one of<br />
personal recognition and growth.<br />
Profile photo by Karin Grace
Back to Basics program / JULY 2022<br />
Natasha Gilmore<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
Natasha Gilmore is a writer and bookseller from Idaho,<br />
currently based in NYC.<br />
Novel second draft<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> was my first residency, and I came with grand plans<br />
of revising the first draft of my novel into a publishable<br />
final draft to send out. Instead, the time and space allowed<br />
my mind to unspool. No longer in a rush to write in stolen<br />
moments around work and life allowed me to greet the whole<br />
project at once (my wall of post-it notes, helped, too) and<br />
to locate a structural flaw in the book that required some<br />
significant rewriting. This flaw, and the resulting rewriting,<br />
were noticed because of a deep reconnection to the purpose<br />
of the work that inspired me to begin it in the first place. I<br />
started on that rewriting process in my final days at <strong>Arteles</strong><br />
and left with the first few pages and an outline/work plan<br />
for a significantly better book. Mostly, I was surprised by<br />
the other residents. I expected to be holed up in a room by<br />
myself cranking out work. Instead, time in the landscape<br />
and with the other residents inspired my own work and<br />
opened up my imagination. I felt freer and more confident as<br />
an artist because of the encouragement, support, and art I<br />
encountered.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Allison Sommers<br />
Germany / USA<br />
allisonsommers.com<br />
About<br />
I am a mixed media artist, working primarily in drawing and<br />
installation, with a history degree from the University of<br />
Virginia. Raised in a military family, I lived across the US,<br />
eventually settling for a decade in New York City before<br />
moving to Berlin in 2019. Spending those formative years<br />
roaming Cold War-Era Air Force Bases continues to resonate<br />
throughout my work, as does the environment of every place<br />
I’ve lived, particularly that of the Chesapeake Bay.<br />
Digestion<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was spent first in contemplation and then<br />
in commotion; after taking the first week to clear my mind,<br />
I screwed my brain around several different projects that<br />
both fed and elbowed past one another, first in fabric, then in<br />
paper, plastic, and cardboard. I made a point of saving nearly<br />
all the trash I made, an accumulated monument of modern<br />
guilt, and spent the bulk of my work time at the residency<br />
digesting it through the gut of my studio.<br />
My work is preoccupied with self-contained worlds and the<br />
recreation of familiar patterns independent of scale— the<br />
vastness of a solitary room, a monumental civilization in a<br />
pinch of earth.<br />
I have exhibited across the US and Europe since 2007,<br />
including solo shows in Los Angeles, New York, and Portland,<br />
Oregon. My work has been published in several anthologies<br />
and a drawing monograph is currently available from Von<br />
Zos.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Lily Evelyn Taylor<br />
UK<br />
lilyevelyn.co.uk<br />
About<br />
Primarily working with film and installation, my work explores<br />
the intimate relationships people create to a place or a<br />
moment in time. I am fascinated with nature and how the<br />
earth talks to itself, specifically through movement and I<br />
find that through film I am able to translate this movement<br />
into a new visual language. Using memory as a guide for<br />
communication, I use themes of fragmentation, exaggeration<br />
and inaccuracy to manipulate perspectives by adopting<br />
slow cinema as an instrument to create space for thought.<br />
A sincere account of a moment that may have never existed.<br />
Idling in Nature<br />
I arrived at <strong>Arteles</strong> with an extremely open mind on where<br />
the month would lead me. It scared me to have no plan, yet I<br />
understood the importance of the process. I took immediate<br />
inspiration from my surroundings. June felt like a leap from<br />
spring to summer and with every walk through the fields<br />
and forests there was something new in bloom. Everything<br />
changed as seamlessly as breathing, fascinated by natures<br />
pace of change I found myself taking the same routes daily<br />
to observe every even the smallest of shifts in scenery. With<br />
the repetition of my own movement came repetition in my<br />
work as I began to explore through printmaking, in both lino<br />
and with found objects I filled up pages with similar prints,<br />
only differing in the details caused through pressure and the<br />
amount of ink I used. The rhythmic motion of printmaking<br />
provided me with mental clarity and an unspeakable calm.<br />
Alongside my prints I explored ideas through moving image<br />
and merged poetry with film. Slowness became a theme<br />
throughout as I worked to capture the dreamy qualities of an<br />
idle landscape. Disconnecting from the outside world gave<br />
me space to reflect and be present, a chance to understand<br />
what I was actually distracting myself from. Overall it was<br />
an incredible experience shared with truly inspiring people,<br />
filled with lots of laughing, cooking and exploring!
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Tobias Wray<br />
USA<br />
tobiaswray.com<br />
About<br />
Tobias Wray’s No Doubt I Will Return a Different Man won the<br />
CSU Poetry Center’s Lighthouse Poetry Series Competition.<br />
His work has found homes in Blackbird, Hunger Mountain,<br />
Meridian, and The Georgia Review. Poems also appear in<br />
Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology (Autumn House Press) and<br />
Poetry Is Bread (Nirala Press). After some years directing the<br />
University of Idaho’s Creative Writing Programs, he now lives<br />
in Los Angeles.<br />
All There Was<br />
Coming from Los Angeles County, I had a rough time adjusting<br />
to the 11-hour time difference and to the near-perpetual light<br />
of northern summer. I woke most days hours before anyone<br />
else and found solace in a quiet routine. Mostly, I drank a<br />
lot of coffee and meditated on love, on why we need to love,<br />
what love is all about. One morning around 4 a.m., I saw a<br />
large, red fox hunting mice on the front lawn. He jumped on<br />
a boulder in the center of the yard for a better look. A pair of<br />
magpies swooped down on him hoping to frighten him off,<br />
their white wings flashing. But he took his time. I watched<br />
him for maybe an hour surveying the perimeter. I wrote in my<br />
journal (and on our communal board in Timber House): “All of<br />
his gestures are orphaned moonlight; everything about him<br />
seems hungry.” When he saw me, I understood that he saw<br />
all that there was to see, a kind of infinity in his gaze.<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, I was reminded how seeing plainly is a kind of<br />
love, and healing. I remain grateful for the minds I fell in love<br />
with there, for the times that we so clearly saw each other.<br />
Together, we expanded. I am still working from that, the<br />
ripples of those possibilities.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Faiza Hasan<br />
UK<br />
About<br />
My novel, The Ties that Bind Us, examines relationships<br />
through the lens of trauma. It looks at how the choices and<br />
decisions you make regarding your own body can impact<br />
your loved ones, so that the very love that should bind you<br />
together, instead tears you apart.<br />
The idea for this novel came to me as I was sitting in<br />
a hospital waiting room, worrying that I was losing my<br />
eyesight. I kept thinking about what it would mean to lose<br />
something that was so precious, so essential to my mental<br />
and physical wellbeing. This experience, on top of a chronic<br />
pain condition, Fibromyalgia, has made me recognize how<br />
suffering in all its myriad forms impacts relationships, and<br />
how it fundamentally alters the way you think about yourself,<br />
your quality of life and even the quality of your death.<br />
I have an MA in Journalism from Stanford University, and<br />
an MA in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, as<br />
well as a degree from Cordon Bleu in French cuisine. I write<br />
short stories, which have been shortlisted and longlisted for<br />
awards internationally and am currently working on my first<br />
book.<br />
The Ties that Bind Us<br />
I came into the residency with the very specific goal of<br />
rewriting the last ten chapters and possibly even beginning<br />
and finishing a second draft. I ended up writing three drafts<br />
and burning the first one in a Midsommer fire.<br />
I have been working on this novel on and off for the past<br />
four years, chipping away at it a millimetre at a time, feeling<br />
overwhelmed and unsure of the project and my own ability as<br />
a writer. I’d been struggling with the book, with finding that<br />
intangible something that would give it the poignancy and<br />
depth that I knew was missing from it.<br />
Each morning I’d wake up, make myself a carafe of excellent<br />
Finnish coffee, sit down at my desk in the studio and<br />
work. As the other artists would trickle in, I’d listen to their<br />
conversations about life and art, the joys and struggles<br />
of creating and began to understand that giving myself<br />
permission to call myself an artist and enjoying the process<br />
of creating rather than focussing on the end product, was<br />
what was holding me back.<br />
I am grateful to <strong>Arteles</strong> for giving me the gift of time without<br />
distractions and demands, and to the group of amazingly<br />
talented and generous artists, now friends, who inspired me<br />
to let go and immerse myself in my work. My month at the<br />
residency gave me the freedom to delve underneath the meat<br />
and gristle and finally hold the beating heart of the novel.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Nesto Yero<br />
USA<br />
www.nestoyero.com<br />
About<br />
Moments in between,<br />
I have held them here somehow. Just here.<br />
Vulnerable spaces hold malleable memories.<br />
I make manifest<br />
the stillness<br />
of the mind.<br />
The image is<br />
the reinterpretation of experience,<br />
interlaced with transparency<br />
to my current state.<br />
Unavoidable.<br />
My work narrates my own vivid experiences into<br />
reconstructed actualities. The unreliability of my own<br />
memory allows for components of the experience itself to<br />
be inflated, influenced, invented, or removed. The imagery<br />
expresses the emotional landscape that is left behind after<br />
an experience, while the process is my navigation through<br />
such landscape to better understand my own feelings. In<br />
navigating, I bring awareness towards the latent memories of<br />
my own intermediate conditions, now understanding them to<br />
be pivotal moments that have led to the construction of my<br />
identity today.<br />
Finlandia June<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> allows soft life; clarity. Its seasons, joy, nurturance,<br />
and recurrence happen silently. Its space, you can move<br />
under, over, between, and through. Its caprices and the<br />
surety of renewal and adaptation will come to you, as they<br />
did to me, and they will swallow you whole. My practice took<br />
unprecedented direction in June. I found interest in new<br />
materials, language and writing, and less organized pursuits.<br />
I thought about the grandness of impermanence, behaviors<br />
of articulation, and how I will choose to arrive at myself come<br />
the next few years. I could not have found more elsewhere<br />
and I hold close to my heart all that I was able to share with<br />
each one of you I have fallen in love with.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Sharone Halevy<br />
USA<br />
www.artbysharone.com<br />
About<br />
I am an abstract expressionist painter. I create works based<br />
on memories or smaller specific inspirations that deserve a<br />
moment to feel big and beautiful. I also move to sound, so am<br />
deeply influenced by the music or environment I am creating<br />
in. I have been lucky to have a strong commission base<br />
getting to interpret others stories. I am now creating work for<br />
clients all over the world: from New York to LA, Israel, London,<br />
Canada, South Africa, and Australia. My work has been<br />
created live for audiences during my original performance<br />
piece UNTITLED ’54 about the life of Helen Frankenthaler<br />
which was in residence at The New Ohio Theater as well as<br />
various weddings in which I captured the heart and energy of<br />
the day at venues such as Handsome Hollow and The Kester<br />
Homestead. WOMXN IN POWER, my original sketch series,<br />
was exhibited at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan, as well as<br />
in the New York Art Fair, Teal Canvas, Gallery 104 in SoHo. I<br />
also create murals and collaborations for locations like Joe’s<br />
Coffee, Brooklyn Grange, Playwrights Horizons Downtown,<br />
Hosh Yoga, West Elm and more.<br />
Paintings / Photography<br />
At first, I was creating a 30x40” painting a day. it was work<br />
that felt more like a diary, something to capture my day to<br />
day experiences as well a way to let go of perfection; a way<br />
to challenge my self to take that extra step or to not be afraid<br />
of creating simpler works, too. After 15 works, I switched over<br />
to a photography project, photographing my body up close,<br />
using a 45mm lens and tried to see how I could capture my<br />
body as a landscape.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
So Mayer<br />
UK<br />
linktr.ee/somayer<br />
About<br />
In the introduction to UNREAL SEX, the 2021 collection of<br />
short LGBTIQ+ erotic science fiction & fantasy that I co-edited<br />
with Adam Zmith, I appear in the guise of a ghost librarian, a<br />
happy phantom, narrating my finds from the etherial archive.<br />
It was intended as playful but – as play often does – revealed<br />
something profound about how and why I write, whether in<br />
non-fiction modes as a scholar, critic, essayist and podcaster<br />
with a particular focus on queer and feminist film and<br />
literature, or across poetry, fiction and screenwriting, where<br />
I am often making what I feel is missing, or erased, from the<br />
archives, including my own personal archives, with a strong<br />
attraction to speculative genres (which for me includes the<br />
essay and poetry, as well as SFF). For me, writing is recovery<br />
work in multiple senses and on multiple levels, a conduit<br />
between self and world that is immersive and inciting, a<br />
process of uncovering and regarding; above all, of listening.<br />
betweensongs & contes<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> offered me a time and space of gathering: pulling<br />
together work-in-progress from across a decade. What<br />
felt like my failure and neglect was composted into a rich<br />
archive of possibility. Fragments and first drafts of poetry,<br />
fiction and personal essays that arrived carried in my head<br />
and interleaved in notebooks, found a space to come out.<br />
They were pinned to the walls, talked through in the kitchen,<br />
walked to the lake, sweated in the sauna, and even – returning<br />
to my body after a very long time – danced.<br />
In practical terms, I found myself editing two poetry<br />
manuscripts. The first brought two previous chapbooks<br />
together with, and through the appearance of, a sequence<br />
of 11 poems and two essays. ‘betweensongs’ is a highly<br />
personal response to Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Written in the<br />
liminal times of late and early light, it emerged in a cry of<br />
grieving. Stunned, I was supported by other residents to find<br />
ways to make the work survivable for myself, including a turn<br />
to movement language, not to narrate but to keep safe. Its<br />
protective circle also opened up the space to edit a decadelong<br />
incremental poetry project called turning, and write its<br />
final few poems of reconciliation, which feature <strong>Arteles</strong> in<br />
various guises.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> also showed up architecturally in an experimental<br />
short story, or conte, part of a book project called Truth and<br />
Dare. After three years of rewriting, ‘House of Change’ is<br />
done. Its title describes what the residency gave me.
Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022<br />
Antje von Stemm<br />
Germany<br />
www.vonstemm.com<br />
About<br />
Hello, my name is Antje von Stemm. I am a childrenbook<br />
artist based in Hamburg, Germany. I hold a diploma in design<br />
and illustration (Department of Design / HAW Hamburg) and<br />
additionally trained as a paper engineer in Santa Fe, USA.<br />
For my projects I often combine different artfields:<br />
I am switching between writing, drawing, painting,<br />
paperengineering, tinkering, photographing, filming and<br />
performing. Especially the areas where different art fields<br />
meet and intersect hold a great attraction for me.<br />
Meanwhile my experiments resulted in a bunch of creative<br />
craft books, pop-up books and video tutorials, mostly for<br />
children. I also teach and inspire: I hold creative workshops<br />
for children and adults in schools, libraries and at festivals.<br />
Some of my book projects have won some nice awards,<br />
including the German Youth Literature Award and the LUCHS.<br />
I work with ten other creative humans in the Freudenhammer<br />
studios, Hamburg.<br />
Diving into forest microcosm<br />
I tried to use my time in ARTELES as loosely and playfully as<br />
possible and not to take on too much pressure. I started with<br />
a “seeing-and-collecting” phase: for a few days I wandered<br />
in the woods around the ARTELES houses and collected<br />
pencil drawings of natural structures on small blank cards -<br />
buds, leaves, moss, stones, branches. Then I selected two of<br />
these cards at a time and combined the structures in colored<br />
pencil drawings. The result - without my having intended<br />
to do so beforehand - was a series of fantastic natural<br />
creatures. In the next phase I transferred the ideas of these<br />
drawings into small 3D figures - five small nature creatures<br />
were created from wire, colored paper and adhesive tape.<br />
With these little wild beasts under my arm, I then wandered<br />
back into the forests, looked for good, magical places and<br />
then photographed the creatures there. While wandering<br />
for hours around with these little figures, stories and scenes<br />
arose in my head, which I am now writing down piece by<br />
piece - I’m curious what will become of it!<br />
You can find out more about me and my work on my website<br />
WWW.VONSTEMM.COM or my Instagram channel @<br />
antjevonstemm
New Course program / MAY 2022<br />
Jac Seifert<br />
UK<br />
www.orakelworkshop.co.uk<br />
About<br />
I am a Brighton based graphic artist and designer producing<br />
artwork and surface designs across a range of materials and<br />
mediums, through my studio Orakel Workshop.<br />
My practice has a number of different focusses, one of which<br />
is public art, in which I create large-scale, site-specific<br />
artwork. The work takes inspiration and details from the<br />
site’s history and the present-day locality. This is further<br />
enriched through dialogue with the local community and<br />
the themes and stories created and identified through these<br />
conversations inform the designs further.<br />
My artwork can be both two dimensional or sculptural,<br />
produced in any material and incorporate bespoke pattern,<br />
imagery, typography and illustration.<br />
Alongside my large-scale works, I am also a surface designer<br />
creating bespoke patterns for products and a graphic<br />
designer, working with organisations to deliver creative<br />
content.<br />
Finland: Work in progress<br />
Having grown up in a secluded rural environment in Southern<br />
England, followed by living in a small city for over a decade; I<br />
had missed the solace that being in nature provides.<br />
After the protracted challenges presented by the pandemic,<br />
spending time in the Finnish countryside offered a much<br />
needed and welcome return to nature and an opportunity for<br />
respite and a space to create.<br />
As the season turned from Winter to Spring, watching and<br />
spending time in the landscape as it changed, alongside<br />
a fantastic group of like-minded people, provided an<br />
opportunity for growth and connection and helped to inspire<br />
and nurture my creative practice.<br />
During my stay at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I started a body of work in the form<br />
of illustrations using colour, texture and imagery taken from<br />
the forest and local landscape. They incorporate collage,<br />
printed and painted elements produced during the residency<br />
and I will continue to evolve the series in the form of further<br />
illustrations and a surface pattern design.
New Course program / MAY 2022<br />
Jacqueline Kumer<br />
Hong Kong, China<br />
www.jacquelinekumer.com<br />
About<br />
I often see the act of drawing as my attempt to retrace<br />
fragmented memories and a way to process information. I<br />
believe human imagination and designs in nature are two<br />
of the most important and infinite resources that we can<br />
apply in anything we create. I don’t know where my world<br />
will eventually take me, but I hope to share my fascination for<br />
the surrealistic world as a glimpse or window for others that<br />
might connect and resonate as well.<br />
A Flightless Dream<br />
At the last week of the residency, I discovered a huge nest<br />
in the back forest built by past residents - Agnieszka Foltyn<br />
and Per Stian Monsås titled ‘Nest, 2019’. When I saw the<br />
nest my immediate thought was wanting to create giant eggs<br />
to put into the empty nest. As someone who had always<br />
admired birds’ ability to soar in the sky, I envisioned myself<br />
as part of the imagery. I saw the eggs as visual metaphors<br />
of anticipation and fear between hopes and the unknowns.<br />
Inspired by Angel’s Egg, a Japanese art film directed by<br />
Mamoru Oshii in 1985 that uses very minimal dialogues and<br />
many surrealistic symbolism, theme, metaphor as its visual<br />
storytelling, I pictured myself as the guardian of the egg<br />
like the little girl in the film, who protects the egg by hiding<br />
underneath her dress wherever she wandered.<br />
I learned something very different by allowing myself to<br />
procrastinate and socialize during my month at <strong>Arteles</strong>. I<br />
rediscovered the experience of art in play, in being with my<br />
surrounding, and what it feels to be in a spontaneous flow.<br />
Special thanks to Therese and Ditte for being the wonderful<br />
photographers to document the project.
New Course program / MAY 2022<br />
Therese Lynch<br />
Scotland<br />
www.thereselynch.com<br />
About<br />
Unfettered process<br />
I’m a film maker and multi-disciplinary artist who lives and<br />
works in Glasgow, Scotland.<br />
So far, I’ve spent most of my professional life working as an<br />
editor, cutting documentaries and dramas, for audiences<br />
young and old. I specialise in storytelling, finding and<br />
constructing narrative from the material provided. A<br />
challenging, collaborative and commission driven creative<br />
practice, it complements and supports my work as a visual<br />
artist.<br />
risk<br />
respond<br />
reflect<br />
form<br />
document<br />
reposition<br />
repeat<br />
I use my art practice to explore how we, the human animal,<br />
navigates reality. I’m curious about why we interpret and<br />
respond the way we do and how this reflects our temporary<br />
and fragile nature. Primarily an installation artist, the works<br />
that occupy my spaces are made from a variety of materials;<br />
paint, wax, plaster and metal. Carefully curated, I pare back<br />
their display to a few bare elements, their shared features<br />
inferring an inter-relationship, a connection. Intentionally<br />
designed to arrest the attention as if arriving in an alien<br />
land, I invite the viewer to engage in interpretation, to<br />
seek understanding; an inquiry for a dialogue more than a<br />
commentary.<br />
And so, the audience experience is fundamental to my<br />
practice as an artist and a filmmaker.
New Course program / MAY 2022<br />
Deborah Whitney<br />
USA<br />
deborahwhitney.com<br />
About<br />
Deb has worked for forty years as an art handler and curator.<br />
The amalgamation of these experiences has materially<br />
informed her art. Often the only woman on the job in the early<br />
days, the one sent for coffee and always expected to go with<br />
the flow. Deb found herself in the position of having her tools<br />
taken out of her hands, along with working to stay on the<br />
good side of both co-workers and clients.<br />
Drawing through embroidery<br />
“Looking at the World through Rose Colored Glasses” is a<br />
drawing/embroidery project that projects the hope of women<br />
through the many ways that they work.<br />
Charting misogynistic seas has been a life filled with<br />
creative material of identity. Lines, incisions, clear and<br />
iconic figures truly embodied, and disrupted, by culture.<br />
Bleeding, screaming, laughing/crying, cringing and fighting –<br />
referencing and reviewing the complexities of the female life.<br />
Mary Reufle writes, “[youth] which is thankfully behind you as<br />
you would never want to be a girl again for any reason at all,<br />
you have discovered that being invisible is the biggest secret<br />
on earth, the most wondrous gift anyone could ever have<br />
given you.” Erasure may obliterate, but it may also augment<br />
those who understand that to be effaced is an opportunity<br />
for evolution.<br />
Deb has degrees from Mass College of Art, Boston, BFA, and<br />
Wimbledon College of Art, London, MA.
New Course program / APRL 2022<br />
Danielle Wright<br />
UK<br />
www.daniellewright.co.uk<br />
About<br />
Danielle Wright is a fine artist, graphic design and visual<br />
communicator, and occasional philosopher. Working in<br />
whatever media seems most appropriate at the time,<br />
Danielle’s current practice includes drawing, print, collage,<br />
photography both with and without a camera, creative code<br />
and motion design. What ties these works together is a near<br />
pathological avoidance of making all the decisions, combined<br />
with a rejection of what is usually expected, instead exploring<br />
the potential of the process of creation.<br />
Drawings are guided by rules and structure, working with<br />
modular forms and iterative, minor alterations. Prints<br />
are one-of-a-kind, with a focus on producing intriguing<br />
accidental patterns and texture. Photographic experiments<br />
including deliberate but largely uncontrolled distortion of the<br />
visual field, and photograms, made in the darkroom, using<br />
the qualities of found materials mixed with time and light.<br />
In her digital work it is rare to find a piece of creative code<br />
or motion graphics that doesn’t rely heavily on ‘random’,<br />
‘wiggle’, or ‘turbulent displace’.<br />
Danielle has postgraduate qualifications in Philosophy<br />
(MA), and Design for Visual Communication (PGCert), and<br />
undergraduate degrees in Fine Art, and Politics, Philosophy<br />
and History (PPH, not PPE!). This mixed education of<br />
academic and creative pursuits has left Danielle perpetually<br />
sceptical of the stated intentions usually accompanying<br />
creative work, yet continuing to search for meaning in her<br />
own collaborations which chaos and chance.<br />
Choice vs. Chance: Discuss<br />
I applied to <strong>Arteles</strong> with an open goal: to find a way to join<br />
up all the art things I do and make sense of them as a single<br />
creative practice. I looked forward to finding time to work<br />
without distractions, without computers and equipment; just<br />
me and too many art supplies, and friendly new eyes to help<br />
me see more clearly.<br />
Being at <strong>Arteles</strong>, watching the winter shoot straight through<br />
spring, into what in England would be the most glorious<br />
summer, the landscape took a magical form, became a<br />
metaphor for my emotional state as I dug deep into my art.<br />
As the melting snow flowed along spontaneous streams,<br />
passing the still half-buried stone circle, down the driveway<br />
and into the fields below, I found painting. Large painting.<br />
Painting using great streams of acrylic and water. Painting<br />
taking real physical effort to create, which caused terrible<br />
back pain until I discovered dancing-while-painting, to shake<br />
out the sediment in my bones.<br />
I found what I was looking for and more. Not only focus and<br />
direction in the work I came with, and beyond my renewed<br />
love of paint; I found poetry in the landscape, metaphor<br />
in nature, writing as a meditative practice, walking as a<br />
reflective exercise. And I found friends, I hope, for life.<br />
Since <strong>Arteles</strong> I have been appreciating all the shades of<br />
green spring has to offer and trying to hold on to the magic<br />
of the Finnish countryside. But it is not easy, being back at<br />
home. Home is not the same now.
New Course program / APRL 2022<br />
Amber Phelps Bondaroff<br />
Canada<br />
www.amberpb.com<br />
About<br />
I am an interdisciplinary visual artist, performer and arts<br />
organizer, living on Treaty 4 Territory in Saskatchewan,<br />
Canada. I craft situations that encourage people to make and<br />
be together. Through these spaces, my work strives to soften<br />
the rigidities of conventional social interaction. I work across<br />
many mediums, including; performance, video, drawing,<br />
music and film.<br />
Born in Calgary Alberta, I have lived and traveled to many<br />
places before settling in Saskatchewan in 2012. I continue to<br />
be influenced by and learn from my relationships with those<br />
around me - the animate and inanimate alike. I am a founder<br />
and co-artistic director of Swamp Fest, a small music and<br />
arts festival and have worked as Programming Director<br />
at Neutral Ground, Artist-Run Centre since 2017 (both in<br />
Regina, Canada). I am a life-long student of yoga and am<br />
currently in training to be a yoga therapist. I received an MFA<br />
in Intermedia Arts from the University of Regina, in 2014 and<br />
a BFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from NSCAD University,<br />
Halifax in 2007.<br />
Rest, reflect, renew (& rock!)<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to carve renewed and intentional space<br />
for both my artistic and meditative practices. Feeling the<br />
administrative burn out of running a busy non-profit art<br />
space, a month to focus on my own practice was a very<br />
much needed luxury. I was 4 months pregnant when arriving<br />
in Finland, so I also had the goal of establishing practices<br />
that I could sustain (and that would sustain me) through this<br />
new phase of life.<br />
I moved slowly, especially over the first week. Morning<br />
asana and writing practices were consistent, in addition to<br />
daily walks in the forest. Over the month I wrote and recorded<br />
a collection of songs combining field recordings with voice<br />
and synthesizer, inspired by, and written amongst, the trees,<br />
moss and rocks. This process included deep listening to<br />
the woods and close observation of the surrounding flora<br />
as I witnessed the slow spring thaw. Much of what was<br />
first revealed were the lichens, clinging to rocks, sticks and<br />
bark. Their resilience fascinated me, with many hours spent<br />
peering at their tiny complexities. What started as close<br />
looking at bark and early buds, turned into a small series of<br />
ink, pencil and watercolour drawings of lichens and other<br />
specimens, gathered on my walks in the woods. Some of<br />
these drawings may accompany the album of music, when<br />
ready to be released into the world.
New Course program / APRL 2022<br />
Goele Van Dijck<br />
Belgium<br />
www.natgras.be<br />
About<br />
My work has a specific sensorial quality and the interaction<br />
with the audience is always an important part of the working<br />
process. In addition to dance performances, this focus also<br />
brought me to sensory installations and interactive exhibitions<br />
led by dancers. Nature is never far away in my work. I am<br />
looking for a more diverse dance scene: both on stage and<br />
in the audience. This way I like to work with dancers with a<br />
special way of moving or thinking. I have special interests in<br />
a young audience and became one of the pioneers of dance<br />
for an audience from 2,5 years old in Belgium. I am happy I<br />
can share this knolledge as a coach….<br />
Relationship nature / performer / audience<br />
The first 2 weeks I was mainly busy connecting myself with<br />
nature. By meditating, experimenting with my voice and<br />
exploring nature in different sensory ways, I came closer to<br />
my own nature through nature. As a dancer, this voyage of<br />
discovery quickly turned into a very physical and sensory<br />
quest… I stayed at the singing tree, admired the icicles in the<br />
mystical forest, danced with the shadow of the flower, visited<br />
the forest library and discovered Brooke in the coffee machine.<br />
I was looking how I could translate these new ‘concepts’<br />
into performances. This gave me more knowledge into the<br />
relationship performer/nature/spectator. Can nature become<br />
a performer? Can the public be absorbed in the nature?<br />
Can the performer blend in with the audience? With these<br />
new insights I can give my current work more depth and<br />
grow further in the relationship dance-movement / nature.
New Course program / APRL 2022<br />
Julia Higgs<br />
Australia<br />
juliashiggs.wixsite.com/artbyjuliahiggs<br />
About<br />
I like drawing, performance art, performative drawing and<br />
creating body extensions that explore how my body relates<br />
and connects to spaces around me. My performative<br />
drawing practice responds to specific environments and<br />
uses the body and movement to generate a drawing that is<br />
focused on process. It uses action to create a final result<br />
through a temporal live event. I aim to keep exploring new<br />
dynamics through drawing, while also using both traditional<br />
and contemporary drawing methodologies. My work has<br />
elements of play and more reflective responsive elements<br />
that draw on different techniques and ways of expressing the<br />
self, governed through an inter-disciplinary practice.<br />
Drawing & performance<br />
I worked with the body and the environment to generate a<br />
series of experimental drawing pieces. I made a support<br />
structure that was placed on the grass between the house<br />
and the forest. A piece of charcoal from the fire was hung<br />
with string from its centre point and a bench placed beneath.<br />
Artists at the residency were invited to place paper on their<br />
body and lay on the bench beneath the structure. As they<br />
lay there, the charcoal moved in the wind and generated a<br />
drawing on the paper laying on the body.
New Course program / APRL 2022<br />
Natalie Johnson<br />
USA<br />
www.nataliejohnsondance.com<br />
About<br />
I am a choreographer working primarily in the vocabulary of<br />
modern and contemporary dance, created for the concert<br />
stage. I am interested in the intersection of language and<br />
movement, and use text and words to inspire much of my<br />
personal initiation points. My work is done collaboratively<br />
with a group of dancers, each of us providing ideas and<br />
material that I craft into a fully formed dance that is uniquely<br />
personal. I am most dedicated to presenting movement<br />
that is emotionally accessible by digging into my own story<br />
and history, finding the universal quality, and bringing that<br />
experience to the fore. The movement I create navigates<br />
between contrasts of athletic and quiet, harsh and tender,<br />
joyful and mournful, always with a human element of<br />
presence and honesty.<br />
Choreography and improvisation<br />
While at <strong>Arteles</strong> I gathered research around the physical<br />
manifestations of certain emotions connected with<br />
experiences of sexism by conducting workshops with artists<br />
of other mediums. In these workshops we had structured<br />
conversations discussing the bodily and mental symptoms<br />
and reactions that occur during while enduring aspects of<br />
sexism, including violation, self-assertion, and discomfort.<br />
Concurrently and separately, I had an individual practice<br />
of improvisational dance along with improvised music in<br />
collaboration with a fellow resident which culminated in a live<br />
performance of improvised sound and movement together.<br />
In collaboration with.another artist with a musical practice, I<br />
choreographed the rough-draft of a dance work to their new<br />
and unfinished musical composition, both created entirely<br />
while at <strong>Arteles</strong>. This, too, culminated in a performance of<br />
music and dance, shared with the other residents. Finally,<br />
I created a series of short dance films centering around<br />
the hands and wrists. This series explored the versatility<br />
and emotional range of my hands in a simple video format,<br />
drawing the eye towards small detail, recognizable gesture,<br />
and new, unfamiliar form.
New Course program / APRL 2022<br />
Bert Bernaerts<br />
Belgium<br />
About<br />
As a sociologist and a musician I am fascinated by the<br />
vague zone where music and theatre blend. I play, improvise<br />
and compose music in many different contexts. As a child<br />
I became interested in and familiar with wind instruments<br />
through my experiences in local brass bands. During my<br />
studies in sociology in Leuven, I studied upright bass<br />
and – as a trumpet player - got in touch with jazz and free<br />
improvisation. In my work I constantly investigate the balance<br />
between tradition and experiment. The result is often a crossover<br />
where music gets affected by other artforms : dance,<br />
puppetry, music theatre, sound art.<br />
Scoring for conchells<br />
I’ve been creating/recording a solo-album titled ‘Maa’ (for<br />
conchells, trumpet and electronics). The recorded music<br />
reflects the spacious landscapes around <strong>Arteles</strong> and is a<br />
tribute to the wonderfull textures that can be found in nature.<br />
The conchells and their spiral shape (Fibonacci sequence)<br />
create a unique timbre.<br />
Alongside my artistic aspirations I developed a particular<br />
feeling for cummunity-art projects and music-pedagogy. In<br />
my neighborhood I initiated two community projects : ‘Fanfare<br />
‘t Akkoord’, an alternative brassband witch integrates<br />
guitars and experimental instruments and ‘Tarmacadam’ an<br />
orchestra for children. In my educational approach I focuse on<br />
- the body and movement as a compass for playing music<br />
- playing and improvising music without traditional scores<br />
- Soundpainting (universal multidisciplinary live composing<br />
sign language for musicians, actors, dancers, and visual<br />
Artists)
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
I-Chi Lin<br />
Taiwan<br />
ichilin.org<br />
About<br />
My artistic interest lies in our fundamental existence as<br />
human beings. The curiosity about “human” guides me<br />
to look deeper into our own body, soul and spirit. Artistic<br />
expressions are ways for me to connect to the source of<br />
creativity, be it in the forms of visual arts, body movement or<br />
performances.<br />
Manipulating body, space and time, the intention of my<br />
work is to create entrances and openings for people to<br />
enter deferent levels of consciousness and I hope that by<br />
embodying the experience that the environment and we are<br />
one, eventually it will lead to the initiation of a healthier being<br />
together and co-existence with the world.<br />
Influenced by my conceptual art education in Europe as well<br />
as inspired by the nature and culture in Taiwan. With the<br />
background study of Anthroposophy, Zen Buddhism and<br />
Improvisation art, I expand my explorations into different<br />
areas between art and life, shifting my role between being<br />
an artist, an art teacher, and an art-space facilitator, to share<br />
and engage with people.<br />
< AM I ><br />
The project < AM I > is a series of exploration in which I-Chi,<br />
Lin inquires the fundamental nature of human being and the<br />
environment. The artist her”self” is the first medium and tool<br />
that she started with. By looking into multiple personalities<br />
she plays consciously and subconsciously in life, they cover<br />
the spectrum from natural being to cultural being, from<br />
unaware of the “self” to ideas and images the mind projects<br />
onto the ”self”. Bringing all these observations into body<br />
movements, drawings, and natural surroundings. The artist<br />
moves from day to night, in snow and fire. The rhythm how<br />
nature breathes reflects in the artist’s being and eventually<br />
reveals a wider comprehension—the world is a unity, which<br />
means light and darkness are two sides of one body, and the<br />
physical and spiritual are depending on each other.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Annette Wijdeveld<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.instagram.com/annette_wijdeveld<br />
About<br />
I’m a Dutch photographer based in Wapenveld, a small village<br />
in the north east of the Netherlands where I’m surrounded by<br />
nature. With my photography, either traditional or alternative,<br />
I explore philosophical and spiritual themes that aid me<br />
within my own process individual and spiritual growth in<br />
life. Themes like stillness, acceptance, gratitude or light<br />
can always be found in my work. Within my practice of<br />
photography I find meditation. A deceleration of time and a<br />
profound sense of true connection to the entire world; always<br />
unexpected, but certainly leaving an indelible memory.<br />
With silence and objectivity in mind and leaving behind the<br />
preconceived concepts of how the world should look like, I<br />
photograph the beauty and wonder of the moment. I create<br />
images in which time and space are irrelevant, there is only<br />
one moment - the moment of ‘being<br />
(alternative) Photography<br />
During my month in <strong>Arteles</strong> I have worked on my cyanotype<br />
project called ‘Genius Loci’. Genius Loci means the spirit of<br />
the place. In this project I work together with the universal<br />
elements to create cyanotypes of the place where I stay.<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> gave me the opportunity to fully drown myself<br />
in the place and the art and let the spirit of the place and<br />
the elementals guide me. I see myself as a facilitator in<br />
this process. To capture the frosty atmospheres in my<br />
cyanotypes felt like a little miracle every time they appeared.<br />
Frost flowers shaped as feathers and roses, the rock surface<br />
of the earth, the wind shapes of the air.. I was able to take the<br />
spirit of <strong>Arteles</strong> back home with me in my art.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Yev Kazannik<br />
UK / Russia<br />
kazannik.com<br />
About<br />
Yev Kazannik - is an experimental photographer based in<br />
London and Berlin. He studied photography at The London<br />
College of Communication (University of the Arts London)<br />
and worked as a commercial photographer for over 15<br />
years, with work published in The Guardian, Wire, NME, Wax<br />
Poetics, XLR8R, Electronic Beats and others. He moved<br />
away from working with traditional camera techniques in<br />
2019 and developing a new analogue process, such as<br />
Lumen Printing and Photogram among others. Evgeniy’s<br />
work engages with themes of time and timelessness, identity,<br />
the human mind and its constructions. His work has been<br />
exhibited internationally and is a part of private and museum<br />
collections.<br />
Lumen Printing<br />
It was very special to have a period of “uninterrupted” time<br />
to work on my artistic projects while at Artless. I’ve managed<br />
to take it slow at the beginning arriving and allowing myself<br />
to become hypnotised by the landscape. Then I found<br />
myself diving into experimentation with various materials<br />
and techniques, some of which I was fascinated for a period<br />
of time, old (and forgotten) and new. My intention for the<br />
residency was to stay connected to the seance of wonder<br />
and appreciation of the nature around me. Most of the work<br />
is about space and time, the human mind and interaction<br />
between.<br />
Below are some projects I worked on with no particular<br />
order (which is rather emblematic of the way my work<br />
was evolving): Lumen printing with the use of cyanotype<br />
developer, collaging with electrical and masking tape, video<br />
installation, painting, working with cymatics. And of<br />
course, I’ve I photographed surrounding of the residency<br />
extensively. I’m including a few Lumen prints I’ve made<br />
at <strong>Arteles</strong>. There are also an image form a new series of<br />
Cymatics that is a continuation of the project I am working<br />
on in various lands surrounding the Baltic Sea.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Jill Borremans<br />
Belgium<br />
About<br />
As an emerging cultural practitioner, narrative worlds take a<br />
centre place in my interests. Such worlds that are increasingly<br />
becoming more technological and digital in nature require<br />
a new architectural (thought) framework. By basing these<br />
digitally entrenched symbolisms within a philosophy of AI,<br />
and submerging myself into the world of visual aesthetics,<br />
am I able to comprehend our cultural narratives. It is<br />
precisely through the means of philosophy, whereby the<br />
position of “the” human within its (natural) environment is<br />
continuously put in question, that I can see the technological<br />
and cosmological order collide once more—that collision<br />
being; a work of art.<br />
Research into AI/creativity<br />
The work experience <strong>Arteles</strong> provides played into the creative<br />
writing process I aimed to open up. Being surrounded by<br />
both a natural environment and a lovely group of determined<br />
individuals made it possible to work on a creative process<br />
within a safe space. A space where there is freedom to<br />
think, to reflect, to work, and to fundamentally develop these<br />
reflections. My work experience started out by continuing<br />
to do research for my master dissertation. Gradually was I<br />
able to transform that research experience into a research<br />
practice. I have learned to see both creative writing as well<br />
as forming grounded conceptualisations as art forms. And<br />
therefore skills to be mastered. It has been precisely this<br />
acknowledgement that allowed me to grow within my writing<br />
practice.<br />
My experience at the residency consisted mostly out of<br />
taking time to read; to read outside, to read in the shared<br />
spaces, to read in silence, to read physical books, to read<br />
PDFs. Reading as much as the internal thought experiments<br />
that arise out of the continuous reading, became a form<br />
of meditation. Loose concepts and reflections about my<br />
research topic were formed into sentences, which turned into<br />
longer structured paragraphs. That eventually turned into a<br />
finished chapter that I incorporated into my dissertation. In<br />
conclusion, forming a research topic into a research practice<br />
has been the process that I was able to develop thanks to the<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> residency experience.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Weihui Lu<br />
USA<br />
www.weihuilu.com<br />
About<br />
In my work, I’m interested in exploring themes of mental<br />
health, climate change, and the ways in which identities - both<br />
cultural and personal - are created through the narratives we<br />
imagine and retell. I was born in Shanghai, China and grew<br />
up in Queens, NY.<br />
My paintings have been exhibited at the Venice Architecture<br />
Biennale, Trestle Gallery, and Site:Brooklyn, among others,<br />
and I have been awarded residencies at <strong>Arteles</strong>, Arts, Letters<br />
and Numbers, and Trestle Art Space. In 2021, I was a recipient<br />
of the Queens Council on the Arts New Work Grant. I hold a<br />
B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University.<br />
Altar<br />
The month at the <strong>Arteles</strong> came at a necessary time, when<br />
I was deep in a crisis of faith in the studio. Each day, as I<br />
wandered through the forest, I would come across new,<br />
small gifts: the way the snow glowed, melting in the sunlight,<br />
or a piece of fungi growing on tree bark, resembling a dash<br />
of paint. These simple beauties were a reminder of what I<br />
had lost sight of; they were a visual embodiment of hope.<br />
Building this altar was borne of both desperation and that<br />
sense of quiet restoration, as I immersed myself in the<br />
ancient beauty of the Finnish landscape, relieved from the<br />
incessant negative news of the media by a lack of internet<br />
access, and buoyed by the companionship of the artists I<br />
met at the residency. As I began working in the studio again,<br />
I thought about invisible labor as a mode of devotion, versus<br />
the overt labor of capitalism and art as product; of the value<br />
of living over the value of production. For the final offering,<br />
I cut my braid, which had remained untouched through the<br />
past four years, and laid it on the altar.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Dora Lionstone<br />
Germany<br />
doralionstone.com<br />
About<br />
Dora Lionstone is a visual artist based in Amsterdam who<br />
holds a BA in Photography and an Msc in Media Informatics.<br />
Her work is driven by a fascination for ambiguity, logic and<br />
the surreal. She challenges the clear-cut perception of reality<br />
with multiple coexisting and often contradicting perspectives<br />
while searching for deeper layers beyond the surface.<br />
Influenced by her background in software engineering,<br />
Lionstone sees the image as a system that is waiting to<br />
be cracked, taken apart and reassembled differently. This<br />
continuous (re-)construction of reality is explored by the<br />
artist’s use of collages and other image transformations. Her<br />
process involves a combination of various techniques such<br />
as analog photography, digital manipulation and animation<br />
next to the creation of objects, drawings and text. By using<br />
multiple methods and points of view, she aims to extend the<br />
boundaries of the rigid binary world, merging fact and fiction,<br />
science and art.<br />
Nachtluftschlösser<br />
“One should not turn night into day,” my mother used to tell<br />
me whenever I wanted to stay up late when I was younger. Her<br />
words echoed in my mind as I spent countless long nights in<br />
the Finnish landscape, photographing constructions I had<br />
built during the day.<br />
Prior to my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> I had a vivid dream about a<br />
holographic house, in which I questioned the very existence<br />
of reality. This served as a starting point for my project<br />
‘Nachtluftschlösser’ (‘Castles in the night air’): I wanted to<br />
recreate this haunting vision and its ephemeral quality. I built<br />
sculptures out of transparent cubes, constructed various<br />
temporary installations in the forest, and experimented with<br />
projections and long exposures at night. The peaceful and<br />
focussed atmosphere of <strong>Arteles</strong> and the mysterious darkness<br />
of the countryside at night provided the ideal playground for<br />
me to try out countless ideas that unfolded during my time<br />
there. Cube by cube and night by night, my project developed<br />
into a complex system of continuous reconstruction while<br />
the vision from my dream became more and more elusive.<br />
Maybe I was chasing the impossible dream of constructing<br />
a non-existent house, but the experience within such an<br />
inspiring environment and group of people has taught me<br />
a lot about the appreciation for the process itself, about<br />
thinking by making, testing my limits while accepting the<br />
possibility of failing, and the beauty of the attempt.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Yukari Suematsu<br />
Japan<br />
yukarisuematsu.wixsite.com/mysite<br />
About<br />
My work stems from my interest in the contradiction that we<br />
as individuals and as a society can be both deeply virtuous<br />
and brutally prejudiced and discriminatory at the same time.<br />
Through painting, I attempt to understand who we are<br />
through examining the discrepancy between reality and what<br />
are presented as ideals we hold as a society. The motifs in<br />
my paintings are created through a method of processing<br />
my personal experiences to transform them into something<br />
universal that can resonate with other people in various<br />
walks of life.<br />
The titles are also the result of taking specific, personal<br />
descriptions and putting it into language that the viewer can<br />
empathize with as their own experience. I then experiment with<br />
scale, format, colors, and compositions through numerous<br />
preparatory sketches. While there is meticulous prep work<br />
involved, I believe the theme is only completed upon the<br />
viewer’s experience of self-reflection and questioning.<br />
Visions of a Torn World<br />
During my stay, I used my own body to get a sense of the<br />
place where I stayed and to create artwork. Therefore, I<br />
walked an average of 15,000 steps a day to explore the area,<br />
and when I returned from my walks, I would draw sketches<br />
from memory.<br />
When I first arrived, I was overwhelmed by the snowy<br />
landscape as far as the eye could see, and I worried whether<br />
I would be able to continue working for as long as a month.<br />
However, the season changed step by step, showing us<br />
different expressions.<br />
I feel that this change is sometimes cruel and sometimes<br />
hopeful.<br />
The abstract or figurative form of the work combined with the<br />
descriptive titles, as well as the large scale of work and their<br />
placement in the exhibition space are all elements that I work<br />
with to create an experiential space for the viewer.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Leanne Rockliff<br />
Canada<br />
leannerockliff.wordpress.com<br />
About<br />
Born and raised in a Canadian rural farming community, I<br />
was keen to explore the world after completing a Bachelor of<br />
Arts. I spent 3 years living in London and Melbourne soaking<br />
up culture and history. These travels are now a source of<br />
inspiration for my paintings. After a successful career in<br />
finance, being the art enthusiast – I made the purposeful<br />
decision to follow my passion to paint and create full time.<br />
Based in Vancouver now, I am tossing myself between<br />
photo realism cityscapes and mixed media abstracts. I<br />
want to capture fleeting moments in time that to someone,<br />
somewhere it’s poignant or impactful. My work is fully self<br />
serving and at the same time very much for the viewer, it’s a<br />
joint joyful sensation that connects us.<br />
Screaming Out<br />
While at <strong>Arteles</strong> I worked on a body of work that I intend on<br />
exhibiting back home in Vancouver, Canada as an ode to the<br />
place I love to live.<br />
I prepared 9 canvases before arriving so that I could hit the<br />
ground running when I at <strong>Arteles</strong>. I had a plan A and B and<br />
wanted to let the vibe and feeling of Finland determine which<br />
direction of take for my work while in residence. I decided<br />
to use photographs of favorite views in Vancouver and used<br />
the Finnish sunset as the colour palette inspiration. I worked<br />
on all canvases simultaneously and that helped keep the<br />
works coordinated. It was as though I was building one large<br />
building and each level of each painting was complete before<br />
moving on to the next step. I wouldn’t be able to work this<br />
way at home as I don’t have enough room, so I really wanted<br />
to take advantage of the space here.<br />
My process began organically, applying blocks of colour<br />
without any thought to placement. I then went back in with<br />
collage to work on shape defined mainly by colour. I then<br />
went back and forth adding realistic detail and then removing<br />
portions to come to a point where there’s a good balance of<br />
abstract and photo realism. My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> allowed me<br />
the atmosphere to immerse myself fully into what was asking<br />
to be put onto canvas.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
Josiane Roberge<br />
Canada<br />
www.josianeroberge.com<br />
About<br />
My practice lies between video, performance and relational<br />
art. My creative process takes its source in the human<br />
relations and explores more particularly the impalpable<br />
of the encounter between oneself and the other. I seek to<br />
find strong symbols within simple actions - walking (Les<br />
marcheurs), kissing (La prière), rowing (Passagère) - from<br />
which I can bring out the essential. The medium of video<br />
allows me to translate a myriad of emotions by emphasizing<br />
the presence, the slowness and the unfolding of truths.<br />
I took care<br />
In <strong>Arteles</strong>, I took care. I took care of my tense body, it relaxed.<br />
I took care of my concerned mind, it cleared up. I took care of<br />
being a good listener, I improved. I also took care of my joy<br />
which has returned. I relearned to stroll, to create with ease,<br />
to eat with attention. Among this healing, I have collaborated<br />
with my fellow friends artists and started a listening portrait<br />
project dear to my heart which will continue in the years to<br />
come.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022<br />
R.A. Fedde<br />
USA<br />
www.supersplice.com/art<br />
About<br />
R.A. Fedde is a filmmaker, visual artist, and yoga teacher who<br />
is endlessly fascinated by the magic of the mundane. In any<br />
medium, she’s seeking to tell a story along with, rather than<br />
to, the viewer. She has spent the past six months painting a<br />
series of Quarantine Cats, but more typically creates abstract<br />
mixed media works that invite viewers into pattern recognition.<br />
Some see maps, alien terrain, cells under a microscope,<br />
distant galaxies — and all of these interpretations are spot<br />
on. Her documentary work has shown at SxSW, Slamdance,<br />
Telluride, and many other film festivals, as well as broadcast<br />
on HBO, PBS, and others. Her 2018 feature, Five Faces of<br />
Shiva, has played to audiences around the world. The film<br />
combines her interests in mythology, fine art, mass media,<br />
and travel. Her drawings and paintings have shown at various<br />
New York City galleries and elsewhere but she’s still looking<br />
for that solo show of her fluorescent cat paintings. She is<br />
a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and also<br />
enjoys travel, competitive fencing, and poetry.<br />
Spells for Connection<br />
At <strong>Arteles</strong>, I found myself asking, how do we make meaning?<br />
Is it tradition, unspoken cultural consensus, or can it become<br />
a thoughtful, conscious choice? Can we intuit meaning from<br />
a language without being able to read it? A “spell” implies<br />
ritual with a purpose, as “prayer” or “hope” might not. In this<br />
series, Spells for Connection, each work began with drawing<br />
a protective circle, defining the boundary of the work with no<br />
beginning and no end. Each circle grew through the rendering<br />
of previously—but generally no longer—meaningful symbols<br />
associated with arcane power: runes, alchemy, and the like.<br />
As the series progressed, I also layered in contemporary<br />
symbolic languages that are understood only by a select<br />
few, the wizards of modern science: meteorology symbols,<br />
binary code, chemical diagrams. The primary subject matter<br />
invites contemplation of the connectedness of our universe,<br />
including mycelial networks which allow entire forests to<br />
communicate (top image), connective tissue (lower left:<br />
bone), and planetary orbits (lower right: earliest identified<br />
asteroids). Other works invoke quantum mechanics, cycles<br />
of continental drift, tide pools, bioluminescence, river deltas.<br />
My hope is that the deliberate symbology draws close<br />
contemplation and curiosity to connect the viewer with the<br />
work, the natural world, and, perhaps, themselves. I remain<br />
deeply, abidingly grateful to <strong>Arteles</strong> for the opportunity to<br />
truly immerse myself in this exploration.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Jill Mueller<br />
UK<br />
www.jillmueller.com<br />
About<br />
I make art that explores what it means to be human – the<br />
inner and outer stories that make us. I have a specific interest<br />
in health, identity and our relationship to nature.<br />
The materials and techniques I use change with each<br />
project, responding to whatever the work calls for: from<br />
hands-on approaches that include printmaking, alternative<br />
photographic techniques, embroidery, painting and<br />
installation to digitally based work with archive imagery,<br />
creative writing and book design. I have several long-term<br />
projects in development that engage with personal stories<br />
from ordinary lives. These begin with interviews, writing, and<br />
building visual archives. The work takes shape slowly as a<br />
story unfolds, and these projects take years to evolve.<br />
I believe in the power of art to connect people – to each other<br />
and the world around them – and transform lives. The creative<br />
process and the viewer’s experience are as important to me<br />
as any finished artwork.<br />
I’m a London-based artist who was born in the US and lived<br />
across the globe. London has been my home since 2010.<br />
Finding my voice<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> with a documentary archive about a<br />
1954 mountain rescue co-led by my grandfather. I hoped<br />
to engage the material within a quiet environment where<br />
I could also have my own experience with cold, snow and<br />
long periods in nature. Each day I spent a few hours walking<br />
the forest, noting the qualities of snow in different light and<br />
temperatures, how it felt, the sounds it made under my feet.<br />
I spent my time observing the natural world around me while<br />
also revisiting a very different nature experience through<br />
70-year-old writings and photographs. Over an extended<br />
period of silence in my third week, I drew on everything I’d<br />
taken in to explore an imagined winter experience through<br />
a short story. Something cracked open within me in that<br />
process—as if my body knew that I needed to live my own<br />
(even imagined) story before telling someone else’s. Through<br />
this experience and conversations with fellow residents, I<br />
found a new way into the mountain rescue project and began<br />
to strengthen my voice within it. I became more playful with<br />
the material, stitching and gold-leafing over archive images<br />
and writing short creative texts based in my research. I left<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> with many beginnings, threads of experience that I<br />
am weaving together in new ways as I continue to work with<br />
the material back in my studio in London.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Kourtney Jackson<br />
Canada<br />
kourtneyjackson.net<br />
About<br />
I am an emerging writer and filmmaker interested in<br />
experimental forms of storytelling that exist within and<br />
transcend the physical body, particularly in its relation to<br />
societal norms and religious dogma. Centred in the sociocultural<br />
collisions of subjectivity, surveillance, and societal<br />
prescriptions of identity, my films 1 versus 1 (2018) and<br />
Wash Day (<strong>2020</strong>) have screened locally and internationally at<br />
festivals including TIFF Next Wave, BlackStar Film Festival,<br />
Sundance Film Festival (Ignite x Adobe), Breakthroughs Film<br />
Festival, and Columbus Black International Film Festival. I’ve<br />
most recently understood that the content of my previous<br />
work, and that which I am currently developing, is grounded<br />
in the metaphysical. I’m interested in how I may encounter<br />
and refine broad, abstract, philosophical or spiritual ideas<br />
to its more granular parts, and combine them to create<br />
a narrative. I have also learned there’s an inherent autotheoretical<br />
aspect to my emerging filmmaking practice. I<br />
suspect that I can only fulfil the needs of the work as best as<br />
I know myself, as best as I can articulate why I’m here, and<br />
why I make the work that I do.<br />
Creation Story Research<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> with the intention of creating a robust<br />
thematic encyclopedia (if you will) for a short film I was<br />
developing. This work was in preparation for a somatic<br />
workshop I would coordinate with actors when I returned<br />
home. I brought my own texts to burrow in throughout<br />
the month, but when I got to <strong>Arteles</strong>, the landscape that<br />
surrounded me—the snow-covered fields, the trees, the<br />
breathtaking sunsets, the starry night skies—proved to be<br />
more inspirational in my creative process than the small<br />
stack of books I brought. The landscape invited me to be still<br />
and tune in, and the questions I had about my work became<br />
more about the cosmos and my place in it. Although I couldn’t<br />
quite articulate it until the very end of my stay, through my<br />
work at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I was investigating the intersection of human<br />
evolution and the origins of spirituality, to better understand<br />
what it meant to be an “artist” or “creator”. Much of these<br />
investigations manifested in quiet rumination and allowing<br />
myself to settle in the atmosphere of artistic creation without<br />
the frenzied energy of “productivity”. That time of stillness is<br />
still influential in how I show up in my artistic practice.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Lindi Barnard<br />
South Africa<br />
www.instagram.com/linpin17<br />
About<br />
I am an artist/creative living in South Africa with my husband,<br />
two boys and two furry friends. My interest and subject is<br />
nature and the conversation between the ecological and<br />
psychological aspect of the lived human experience. Always<br />
accompanied by music, poetry, spending time with people<br />
and surrounding myself with the natural beauty of the earth.<br />
I believe that art is lived, its not only represented in images<br />
and objects. Creating is a natural way for me to ask and<br />
answer question about my life. Emotional. Intimate.<br />
Homecoming<br />
I once saw a National Geographic clip about a Wood frog in<br />
the Alaskan winter. The Wood frog sits under a heap of leaves.<br />
It is frozen, no breath detectable, no heartbeat, seemingly<br />
dead. But as the warmth of spring arrives, the creature starts<br />
to thaw from the inside out. Its heart starts beating, its brain<br />
lights up and it begins to move. In the fall, the frog’s liver<br />
had pumped a natural antifreeze into its cells which kept its<br />
organs from freezing, only the water surrounding the cells<br />
froze. After being frozen for months, it seeks out the nearest<br />
pond and leaps in, undamaged.<br />
Metaphorically, I was thawing in the middle of the Finnish<br />
winter, and coming home to previously frozen parts of myself<br />
was by no means a comfortable experience. Sometimes it<br />
was accompanied by grief, anger, and frustration, but also<br />
abundant amounts of laughter, connection, grace, and<br />
gratitude.<br />
“It is a journey in which we resist the many distractions that<br />
pull us away from the center with an endless number of things<br />
that quite literally ‘occupy’ us. And it is a journey of prayer<br />
in which we stand in the presence of God with a listening<br />
heart.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen<br />
The <strong>Arteles</strong> residency gave me the space and time to come<br />
home to the self as a creative force, a serene temple, an<br />
intrinsically connected being.<br />
The art that flowed out of this thawing/spiritual homecoming<br />
is the story of my time at <strong>Arteles</strong>.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Krzysztof Figielski<br />
Poland<br />
kfigielski.art.pl/en<br />
About<br />
I am visual artist, designer and illustrator. From time to time<br />
below the surface of everyday hustle and bustle, I manage<br />
to discover a small secret and silence. I open myself to what<br />
appears. I am an inner traveler. Art is for me a kind of journey<br />
to sources. I feel the world extends both outside and within<br />
us. By means of symbols and images I pass on the discovered<br />
beauty and energy of life. I am inspired by cultures that stay<br />
connected with the Earth, fairy tales and myths, symbolic<br />
and surrealistic art, Jung’s psychology.<br />
My HandBook<br />
When I looked in the wardrobe in my room I saw a tiny sticker<br />
there with the words “Answers are everywhere”. It was like<br />
that. I started with looking around, sketching and reading.<br />
A simple day and week schedule was a great help for me as<br />
well as the presence of other residents and the wild snowy<br />
nature in Hämeenkyrö. I found inspiration in the book “The<br />
Thinking Hand“ by the finish architect and thinker Juhani<br />
Pallasmaa. He emphasizes the value of the multi-sensory<br />
approach to the creative process. His book is like a primer<br />
not only to architecture and art, but life as well. After a period<br />
of uncertainty I turned my sketchbook into “My Handbook”.<br />
I started to watch my hands, listened to them, played with<br />
them. It was like bringing my mind more into the hands and<br />
body, establishing the tool-hand union. I was playing with<br />
different tools and with the materiality of the paper. We<br />
usually treat drawing and painting as just visual arts but<br />
that is not the whole truth. Juhani Pallasmaa writes about<br />
the tactile connection through the hand with imagination: “I<br />
have also had chance to observe that the hand and the body<br />
produce distinctly different ideas than the head”. Walking in<br />
the woods is a multi-sensory experience and this can also be<br />
the creative process. I would like to stay with this approach.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Andalyn Young<br />
USA<br />
www.andalynyoung.info<br />
About<br />
I experiment with various combinations of movement,<br />
language, and design. My work has taken the shape of live<br />
performance, writing, photo, video, and radio broadcast.<br />
I aim to blur the line between artistic and spiritual practices<br />
in an evolving exploration of devotion, resiliency, and awe.<br />
Originally trained as a clown, my work and life is an ongoing<br />
attempt to locate the funny in the tragic and the tragic in the<br />
funny.<br />
Other long-standing interests include deep winter, waterbased<br />
ritual, and dark skies--- all of which <strong>Arteles</strong> offers in<br />
abundance!<br />
water - heart - rinse<br />
The process went like this, though not in a straight line:<br />
Notice, name, notice, refresh. On walks, while dancing,<br />
clicking the pen, lying in bed. Hang out with the books but<br />
don’t read the books. Consider beauty, live the sublime.<br />
Watch K eat eggs. Devotion not passion. One word then<br />
another. A poem, a bird. Give everything up if the moon<br />
is out. Give everything over if the lights come to dance.<br />
Sometimes you’ll understand and then you’ll forget. You have<br />
a responsibility to wonder.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Patrice Hapke<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
My artistic expression is inspired by nature, intimacy,<br />
mystery, magic.I feel a deep connection to my ancestors<br />
and am moved by the sacrifices people make for family, to<br />
maintain a sense of integrity, or to achieve a heart’s desire.<br />
I am writing a book about women in the Viking era, to honor<br />
my ancestors with these themes.<br />
The Viking Girl<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to begin the editing process on my 97K<br />
word count manuscript, The Viking Girl, a work of women’s<br />
historical fiction set in the pagan Viking era. Finland/<strong>Arteles</strong><br />
was the perfect place for me to submerge myself in the Nordic<br />
winter, far away from my usual life, and really focus on the<br />
big picture of my project and begin the editing process. The<br />
gorgeous winter landscape was inspiring and helped me get<br />
into the setting of my novel. I hope to come back to Finland<br />
to do more research for the sequel to this project. Thank you<br />
to Teemu and his wonderfully helpful staff, Franzi, Essi, Kerriand<br />
others for making <strong>Arteles</strong> such a magical place.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Jo Clifford<br />
Scotland<br />
www.queenjesusproductions.com<br />
About<br />
I’m a playwright and a performer, a proud father and<br />
grandmother.<br />
I’ve written about 114 plays in most dramatic mediums. A<br />
lot of my work has been performed all over the world. Last<br />
year we filmed and broadcast a live performance of my<br />
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN from<br />
an Edinburgh church, and broadcast 5 new short pieces from<br />
an Edinburgh cathedral.<br />
Sister Death<br />
I wanted to confront my own fear of death in a community of<br />
artists; and to create a theatre/performance/ritual/happening<br />
that would help me and help my audience look death in the<br />
eye, acknowledge and overcome our fear of death. So as to<br />
find more joy in life.<br />
And with the help of meditation, of blundering about in the<br />
snow, sharing love and affection and the sauna with my fellow<br />
artists, I did that. And shared the result. And it felt good.<br />
I wrote and performed my radio play SLUG LOVE in January<br />
and performed it live in July as part of Trans Vegas in a<br />
Manchester car park.<br />
I also wrote and performed “Leith” for BBC Radio 4 as part of<br />
their “United Kingdoms” series.<br />
I wrote and performed a poem for the “LGBTI Coming Back<br />
Out Ball” at the National Theatre of Scotland, and another<br />
for the unveiling of the Hope Statue in Glasgow (and it’s<br />
engraved at the base of the statue in stone).<br />
With my co-writer and performer I rehearsed and developed<br />
our THE NOT SO UGLY DUCKLING for performance later this<br />
year.<br />
I co-wrote and performed THE COVID REQUIEM in the<br />
woods behind Pitlochry Theatre in the Scottish Highlands.<br />
The Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh re-opened after lockdown<br />
with a beautiful and highly successful production of my<br />
translation of Calderon’s LIFE IS A DREAM.<br />
I’ve come to <strong>Arteles</strong> to devise a performance/ritual to<br />
empower its public to confront our fear of death.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Manon Leneveu<br />
Belgium<br />
About<br />
Manon Leneveu (°1998) is a multidisciplinary artist working<br />
and living in Ghent, Belgium. Her work includes drawings,<br />
paintings, installations, and photographs along many other<br />
media. In her drawings; small creatures exist both in both<br />
figurative and abstract forms, alternating between positive<br />
and inverted styles of drawing. In all her work, she tries to<br />
generate a certain intimacy. Some works physically require<br />
taking a closer look (like nose-rubbing or opening a fortune<br />
cookie and eating it afterwards). She processes personal<br />
experiences and emotions by enlarging symbols or creating<br />
a metaphor she finds to represent them - combining elements<br />
from literature, tactile materials, etymologic descriptions,<br />
existential cinema, literature, humour and found objects For<br />
Manon, a simple sentence can inspire a myriad of objects<br />
and drawings after studying the endless web any one thing<br />
carries. Her visual language is inspired by resting her head<br />
on soft objects, dreaming, Astro Boy (1980), the witching<br />
hour and her punk boyfriend.<br />
Crayola beeswax bonanza<br />
It feels like I did nothing but try to let go - or maybe the ice just<br />
wobbled over me as I did on her. I walked in the forest and<br />
cried, read too much Thomas Bernhard which made me sad<br />
and cried a few times more alone, other times with people<br />
just met. A squirrel passed by my tiny room window and lakes<br />
leaked from my blood-shot snow painted eyes. Trees grew<br />
black and sometimes grey. I wanted to bark at the forest - or<br />
spit - to make it spill more than thaw. I thought about burning<br />
the sauna - but other people were already doing that. One<br />
night I cried over the stars with my back towards the Northern<br />
Lights. Rolled over in bed and bumped against its intimate<br />
nook. Scars on trees; like fishbones and moss and soupy<br />
legs. Wiggling on ice felt like an overall exercise in attuning<br />
to slow silver winter. And my room heater lent itself very well<br />
to beeswax molding. My stove room carries my Bernhard<br />
sadness - that is someone else’s now.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022<br />
Kerri Ann Foweraker<br />
Australia<br />
www.imdb.com/name/nm8090767<br />
About<br />
I am a director and writer from Australia. I create large-scale,<br />
ambitious work in the period drama, adventure and war film<br />
genres. My ideal bio would say that I split my time between<br />
(insert glamorous locations here), and that yes, I’ve directed<br />
lots of films you would have seen.<br />
I seek to create subversive, unexpected work which<br />
challenges audiences through political subtext. I am inspired<br />
by history and political science and use allegory to explore<br />
concepts of power on a global scale, especially on the<br />
fringes of large-scale conflict. I am currently in development<br />
of my debut feature film, a geopolitical adventure epic set in<br />
the Arctic, and an 8-part TV drama set in Stalinist Eastern<br />
Europe.<br />
I graduated with a BFA in Film and Television from the<br />
Victorian College of the Arts in 2017. I am an alumna of the<br />
Reykjavik International Film Festival’s Transatlantic Talent<br />
Lab for Directors, an Australian Broadcasting Company Top<br />
5 Artist and a member of the Australian Directors’ Guild.<br />
My work has achieved success internationally, especially in<br />
Europe. My latest film received accolades at numerous film<br />
festivals, premiering as Best Student Film at the BAFTAqualifying<br />
Manchester International Film Festival 2018. It was<br />
the only Australian film in competition at the 28th Euroshorts<br />
2019 and Reykjavik IFF 2019.<br />
Other than directing, I enjoy dogs, drinking coffee, travelling<br />
and learning languages. I speak Dutch, German, French and<br />
Australian Sign Language and am currently trying to master<br />
Danish and Finnish.<br />
“It was the best of times, the season of darkness”<br />
I arrived in a hurry. A hurry to finish projects that had been<br />
put off too long, a hurry to accelerate along an imagined<br />
personal timeline.<br />
But life could not be hurried here.<br />
Slowing Down<br />
It started as the 8 of us – a huddle of artists in the cold. We<br />
laughed, we cried, we baked. My favourite days were -18,<br />
when the trees stood silver like frozen ghosts. Lone walks<br />
led me to the yellow dog, known only as söpö koira. It was<br />
a time of full moons, deep connections, long conversations,<br />
Mionetto. After a month of waiting, I saw the Northern Lights<br />
– not the only magic I experienced here.<br />
It was an epiphany of space – my post-it notes slowly took<br />
over the entire studio wall as ideas grew and expanded<br />
for the first time unrestricted. Valiojogurtti banaani fuelled<br />
my late-night power hours – once every few days, always<br />
between 9 and 10pm, when all the apparent nothingness and<br />
wandering converged into an intense creativity. Handwritten<br />
only, soundtrack integral. This collection of untidy, streamof-consciousness<br />
pages now a sacred text, easily mistaken<br />
for trash, holding more ideas than I could possibly realise in<br />
my lifetime.<br />
It was the dawning that my creative work was part of my<br />
life, not my whole life. That inspiration could be created<br />
and harnessed at will. That slowness was not nothing, but<br />
everything.<br />
I left reluctantly, not in a hurry to get anywhere at all.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY 2022<br />
Kelly Van Looveren<br />
Belgium<br />
About<br />
Kelly Van Looveren’s (site-specific) work orientates the<br />
viewer through the sharing of experiences. By making the<br />
relationship with ourselves and our surroundings tangible,<br />
she creates a deeper understanding of perception and our<br />
relationship within space and time. Through creating an<br />
awareness of point of view, perspective and position, she<br />
anchors the viewer in the here and now.<br />
Her work functions as thought-experiments that take shape<br />
in the mind of the viewer. By showing our known reality in<br />
a new light, she creates new ways of perceiving. Driven by<br />
an ecological awareness and a desire to reconnect with<br />
ourselves, others and nature she hopes to break from what<br />
Yoko Ono calls the irrational rationality.<br />
Antipode (2022, 0,65x0,2m, vinyl sticker)<br />
Kelly Van Looveren is a visual artist, based in the Hague. In<br />
2021 she gained her Masters at KASK & Conservatorium,<br />
Ghent. In her practice she shares experiences with the viewer<br />
by orientating them within space and time. By making the<br />
relationship with ourselves and our surroundings tangible,<br />
she creates a deeper understanding of perception, point of<br />
view, and position. In this way she anchors the viewer in the<br />
here and now.<br />
Her work functions as thought-experiments that take shape<br />
in the mind of the viewer. By showing our known reality in<br />
a new light, she creates new ways of perceiving. Driven by<br />
an ecological awareness and a desire to reconnect with<br />
ourselves, others and nature she hopes to break with the<br />
concept of irrational rationality.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY 2022<br />
Sonya Berry<br />
USA<br />
www.instagram.com/berry.sonya<br />
About<br />
Sonya Berry works predominantly in the medium of largescale<br />
acrylic paintings. Her art has been exhibited in art<br />
fairs, solo and group shows in New York, New Jersey, Rhode<br />
Island, and Arizona. After completing a BFA at Pratt Institute<br />
in New York, she remained in the city to purse her career as<br />
a studio artist. She has taught art at undergraduate and high<br />
school levels. Currently living in Portsmouth, R.I., Sonya is<br />
focused on the exploration of video, sound, performance and<br />
land art to accompany her painting practice. Her multimedia<br />
projects, are a representation of the awakening of the mind<br />
and body, a transformation through retiring the old self, and<br />
aspiring to a more enlightened and purposeful path.humanity.<br />
The Spoiler of the Present<br />
During my time at the <strong>Arteles</strong> residency, I explored silence<br />
through meditation, nature, and art. My project, “”The Spoiler<br />
of the Present””, is a short experimental film, diving into the<br />
thin line of conjunction between the real and the imagined. I<br />
was able to gain clarity and insight into my creative process,<br />
like no other time before.<br />
Link to video: https://vimeo.com/697755256
Residents 2021<br />
Summer<br />
June, July, August, Semtember<br />
Enter text - Theme program<br />
October, November, December<br />
Finland<br />
Mika Matikainen<br />
Marika Ahonen<br />
Sara Rantanen<br />
Nemo Koski<br />
USA<br />
Will Connally<br />
CV Peterson<br />
Brian Patterson<br />
Carter Horton<br />
Zoey Hart<br />
Jessica Anderson<br />
Brooke Honeybone<br />
Rukmini Callimachi<br />
Canada<br />
Amanda Merritt // Poetry<br />
Chile<br />
Carolina Brown // Fiction, narrative<br />
Germany<br />
Franziska Walther // Illustrator, designer, writer<br />
Cagla Aribal // Literature<br />
Ireland<br />
Jimi McDonnell // Poetry<br />
Aoife Herrity // Photography, writing, video<br />
UK<br />
Lucy Dawes Durneen // Text, Hybrid Narratives, Video Poetry<br />
USA<br />
Erik Daniel White // Sculpture, painting<br />
Jessica Brooke Anderson // Interdisciplinary Art<br />
Brooke Larson // Text, sound, ecology<br />
Elizabeth Stine // Narrative<br />
Philip Edward King // Writing, Comics, Illustration<br />
Harry Newman // Poetry, theater, photography<br />
Eddie Sarfaty // Fiction, Fiber Art<br />
Gina Gil // Fiction, poetry<br />
Eugenie Cha // Interdisciplinary<br />
Lila Rachel Becker // Theater, live performance
Residents <strong>2020</strong><br />
Silence Awareness Existence - Theme program<br />
January, February, March<br />
Argentina<br />
Solange Baqués // Photography, site specific<br />
Ana Engelman // Drawing, painting<br />
Australia<br />
Julie Barratt // Artist books, works on paper, installation<br />
Grace De Morgan // Writing<br />
Maria Takolander // Creative writing<br />
Luna Mrozik Gawler // Multidisciplinary, writer<br />
Christian Bishop // Sculpture, sound, printmaking<br />
Ana Tiquia // Transdisciplinary art<br />
Amanda Page // Drawing, printmaking, sculpture<br />
Isabel Rumble // Multidisciplinary<br />
Kate Koivisto Wheeler // Painting, drawing, objects<br />
Belgium<br />
Elise Guillaume // Video, photography<br />
Brazil<br />
Julia Anadam // Performance, installation<br />
Canada<br />
Joëlle Anthony (aka J.M. Kelly) // Writing, acting<br />
Melanie Furtado // Sculpture<br />
India<br />
Katharina Kakar // Literature, visual arts<br />
Italy<br />
Giulia Mattera // Performance art<br />
Netherlands<br />
Sophie de Vos // Photography<br />
New Zealand<br />
Gaylene Anne Barnes // Filmmaking, visual art, writing<br />
Norway<br />
Hanne Dahl Geving // Visual & performing arts<br />
Poland<br />
Martyna Gryko // Book arts, watercolor, painting<br />
South Africa<br />
Stephanie Fichardt // Multimedia<br />
Karolina Rupp // Sculpture, installation, video<br />
Spain<br />
Ayesha L. Rubio // Writing, illustration, animation<br />
Turkey<br />
Asli Sonceley // Multimedia poetry / science<br />
UK<br />
Lorraine Hamilton // Sculpture, immersive installation<br />
Joshua Legallienne // Sonic art<br />
Rachel Pursglove // Poetry, painting, performance<br />
Rebecca Wyn Kelly // Sculpture, site-specific, installation<br />
Sophie Molins // Film, photography and ritual<br />
USA<br />
Erik Daniel White // Painting<br />
Robert Fowler // Design, poetry, music<br />
Christina Cucurullo // Sound, writing, performance art<br />
Shana Kohnstamm // Sculpture, visual art<br />
Kit S. Carlton // New/Mixed Media<br />
Matt Shaw // Filmmaker<br />
Kate Speranza // Painting, sculpture, jewelry<br />
Dove Hays // Painting, sculpture<br />
Phil Harris // Photography<br />
Jeremy Billauer // Digital fabrication, speculative tech, installation
Enter Text program / DECEMBER 2021<br />
Amanda Merritt<br />
Canada<br />
amandamerritt.ca<br />
About<br />
I am a poet and creative writing instructor from the West<br />
coast of Canada. At the <strong>Arteles</strong> Centre I will be working on<br />
my second collection of poetry, which builds on the themes<br />
of my debut collection The Divining Pool (2017). This book<br />
was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial award.<br />
Presently, my work is concerned with the relationship between<br />
shame, (self)belonging, and embodiment. It emerges from an<br />
imperative to heal a collective legacy of intergenerational<br />
trauma and social inequity that circumscribe our connection<br />
to self, land, and one another. Guiding this work is a curiosity<br />
about the dualistic nature of human perception—a function of<br />
language, biology, and inherited cultural beliefs—specifically<br />
as it concerns the concepts of Self and Other, mind and<br />
body, the spiritual and the material. When false dichotomies<br />
such as these are internalised over generations, they play a<br />
significant role in fomenting populist attitudes and reifying<br />
polarised discourses, which, in turn, are exploited in the<br />
suppression and exclusion of ‘others.’<br />
Poetry<br />
At 8 a.m. I joined in on the morning meditation, then shared<br />
coffee and breakfast with the others. The rest of the day<br />
was spent revising the poetry in my second book-length<br />
collection. I was grateful to have a room with a view, as I was<br />
able to watch the sun arc above the horizon and tame the<br />
day. Before it set I would walk the back roads and explore the<br />
woods, crusted in snow. The evenings spent with the others,<br />
making dinner, preparing the sauna, and gathering for a movie<br />
or a discussion, are among my most cherished memories of<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong>. These grounds inspired in me a renewed sense of<br />
peace, and for that I truly grateful.<br />
My creative work is thus guided by an imperative to uncover<br />
the roots of systemic shame, as it relates to both recent<br />
and formative experiences of trauma in my own life, and<br />
my matrilineal line. My belief is that if shame entrenches<br />
calcified world views, then acts of creation generate<br />
paradigmatic shifts. These shifts can disrupt pernicious<br />
cycles of disconnection and exclusion within and across<br />
communities, creating space to re-imagine a civic society<br />
that fosters equity and celebrates diversity, that honours our<br />
shared humanity.
Enter Text program / DECEMBER 2021<br />
Aoife Herrity<br />
Ireland<br />
www.aoifeherrity.com<br />
About<br />
I am an Irish visual artist and writer based in Dublin. In <strong>2020</strong><br />
I obtained an MFA in Photography from the Belfast School<br />
of Art at Ulster University. This is where I developed a<br />
photographic series titled Sleeping Dogs Lie. This ongoing<br />
body of work relates to developmental and interpersonal<br />
trauma, specifically implicit memory and the freeze response.<br />
Much of the series is brought about by research into<br />
psychology theory, memory and personal histories. Based<br />
on this research, I am currently developing a manuscript that<br />
explores the visualisation of interpersonal, gender based<br />
and developmental trauma in contemporary photographic<br />
practice.<br />
Meanwhile, my artistic practice is shifting toward video,<br />
installation and soundscape. Working with time and sound<br />
based media allows for further investigation of implicit<br />
memory and exploring the intersection of local oral history<br />
and intergenerational trauma. I am a recent recipient of an<br />
Irish Arts Council Award which will assist in funding the<br />
development of this work.<br />
Writing, Research & Photography<br />
While at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I planned to spend my time writing. I am<br />
working on a text that considers how trauma is visualised in<br />
contemporary photography. I spent some time researching<br />
how best to approach this work and how to make it accessible<br />
to readers. I read texts that held similar questions and some<br />
that felt unconnected yet sparked ideas later in the month. I<br />
used corporeal writing exercises which began to bridge the<br />
themes of my photographic practice to my written work.<br />
As an antidote to these heavy writing themes, I spent time<br />
walking alone in the woods every day. I took photographs<br />
freely and without agenda and spent a lot of time listening<br />
to various bird calls and following tracks in the snow. Mostly<br />
the chance to walk and be silent in the woods was greatly<br />
beneficial in digesting my morning’s writing.<br />
In the evenings we would gather to share and discuss our<br />
work or simply spend time together. Best of all was our<br />
time spent in the sauna, having lively discussions, sharing<br />
ideas and thoughts. I also had the pleasure of celebrating an<br />
unconventional Christmas with some truly wonderful people.<br />
I look forward to returning soon.
Enter Text prograrm / NOVEMBER 2021<br />
Gina Gil<br />
USA<br />
ginagilwrites.com<br />
About<br />
Gina Gil writes novels, poetry and short stories. She aims to<br />
tell stories which allow the reader to feel curious, connected<br />
and inspired. She loves bicycles, coffee and exploring nature.<br />
Her background in science and education come through in<br />
the themes of her work. She is currently working on a YA<br />
science fiction novel.<br />
Connecting to Creativity<br />
My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> was filled with revelation, rejuvenation,<br />
and creativity.<br />
I focused on a daily practice of meditation, journaling,<br />
reading, movement and time in nature. The result was like<br />
opening a portal to allow creativity to flow in and from me.<br />
I also had realizations about my writing process that have<br />
helped me take a new, gentler approach to editing my own<br />
work.<br />
The writing I did included daily journaling, letter writing,<br />
poetry, revising my current YA science fiction novel, and<br />
writing a short story inspired by my daily walks in the forest.<br />
The collages pictured were created during my stay and are<br />
a part of a process I use for opening creative channels. It<br />
is a method I learned from a dear friend and teacher, which<br />
I adapted to be part of my creative process. Each piece<br />
includes a focus, which could be an intention, a vision,<br />
investigating a question, or working out the plot of a story.<br />
It is a way for me to have a conversation with myself without<br />
being limited to words.<br />
My November at <strong>Arteles</strong> was spent creating habits of<br />
connection, to myself, to my creative source and to the other<br />
artists and writers at the Enter Text Residency. I was so<br />
inspired by the works of my fellow residents and the warmth<br />
of their friendship nourished my soul.
Enter Text program / NOVEMBER 2021<br />
Carolina Brown<br />
Chile<br />
www.carolinabrown.cl<br />
About<br />
I am a Chilean writer currently based in Barcelona with a<br />
BA Honours degree in Spanish Language and Literature<br />
from Universidad de Chile and a MA in Creative Writing from<br />
Universidad Pompeu Fabra Barcelona. The focus of my<br />
fiction explores the complexity of human relationships and<br />
focuses on modern female characters that face personal<br />
and social challenges and do not wish to conform to the<br />
models imposed by society. I have published the short<br />
story collections ”En el agua” (2015) and ”Rudas” (2019) and<br />
the novels “”El Final del Sendero”” (2018), and ”Nostalgia<br />
del desierto” (2021). I teach at several writing and reading<br />
workshops in Santiago and Barcelona and have an inherent<br />
interest in the natural world and its conservation. I also work<br />
part-time for a UK registered charity Rainforest Concern to<br />
help manage their wildlife reserves in Chile.<br />
Tregua<br />
My project was a full length feature film that explores the<br />
relationship of two sisters in their mid 30’s after the death<br />
of their mother. It is set in the south of Chile in <strong>2020</strong>. At the<br />
beginning of the film, the sisters are in non speaking terms,<br />
but they are forced to work together in renovating the family<br />
home before selling, it because they are both struggling<br />
financially after their mother’s illness. The movie deals with<br />
issues such as family, illness, loss and career expectations<br />
that haven’t been met.
Enter Text program / OCTOBER 2021<br />
Elizabeth Stine<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
I’m interested in the stories people tell about themselves and<br />
others, individually and in groups, fact or fiction. How do<br />
our stories change as they migrate across media, language,<br />
space? How do our identities change with these narratives?<br />
I have an academic background in the study of foreign<br />
languages, literatures and cultural history, and have come<br />
to <strong>Arteles</strong> to see where the next stage of my journey will take<br />
me and my stories.<br />
Exploration<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> to immerse myself in the materials for<br />
two non-fiction projects, and to find time for solitude and<br />
reflection — a break from my routines.<br />
I spent many happy hours at my desk reading and taking<br />
notes, allowing my imagination to wander over the landscapes<br />
that emerged from my materials and, often, to inhabit the<br />
beautiful view from my window over the lake and fields. I<br />
also spent hours every day out of doors, exploring the local<br />
area on foot and on one of the <strong>Arteles</strong> bicycles, watching<br />
the colors of the landscape change as the autumn advanced<br />
and listening to the swans as they gathered for migration.<br />
Somewhere in all of this, I began to see how I could order<br />
the narrative of events I was reconstructing, where to begin<br />
writing.<br />
Being able to return from these solitary adventures to the<br />
community of fellow residents was a real privilege, especially<br />
after the isolation of the past couple years. Getting to know<br />
everyone, their work, their backgrounds, was inspiring, and<br />
our conversations will stay with me in my writing and in daily<br />
life. The supportive community was <strong>Arteles</strong>’ greatest gift,<br />
and I’m grateful to have been able to share in it.
Non thematic program / JULY 2021<br />
Will Connally<br />
USA<br />
www.willconnally.com<br />
About<br />
Will Connally is a photo-based artist whose practice<br />
encompasses fiction writing, set design, performance, and<br />
installation. In addition to drawing inspiration from personal<br />
narratives, his original work is influenced by literary sources,<br />
film noir, and amateur theater productions.<br />
Connally received his MFA in Photography from Cranbrook<br />
Academy of Art and his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth<br />
University. He was a resident at Banff Centre for the Arts in<br />
Alberta, Canada, and was awarded a Professional Fellowship<br />
from The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He has presented<br />
his work in exhibitions and artist lectures internationally,<br />
has artwork in the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art<br />
Museum.<br />
Lake Elster Series<br />
I spent the residency at <strong>Arteles</strong> reading, drawing, painting,<br />
and searching for locations for my photographic series.<br />
I read the folklore of Finland in comparison to Abenaki<br />
Native American legends, delved into ghost stories, and<br />
also researched memory loss. My afternoons were spent<br />
surveying the local environs by foot, bicycle, and car, with<br />
a few general locations already in mind. I was alone for twothirds<br />
of my time there, due to the pandemic, which took<br />
some adjustment. It was an otherworldly experience, having<br />
so much time to myself in a foreign location.<br />
My aim was to find new visual terrain for my photographic<br />
scenes, which are set in the northeastern United States,<br />
specifically in New Hampshire, but have been photographed<br />
across the U.S. and Canada. I scouted the lakes and forests<br />
of Finland to find locations that could resemble my mental<br />
image of Lake Elster, the primary location in the series. The<br />
Nordic woods offered a new sense of scale and otherness<br />
to the series, along with the extended summer evening light,<br />
and I found myself reshooting/ restaging the same scene<br />
in various locations. The photographs embrace the elusive,<br />
ever-changing quality of fiction, especially when retold by a<br />
narrator in his nineties.
1. Will Connally- Studio Portrait 2. Notes and Sketches from Lake Elster 3. “Green Flame”, 2021 4. “Greta’s View of Elster (Magpie)”, 2021
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Joshua Legallienne<br />
UK<br />
About<br />
I am an artist exploring the sonic qualities of everyday<br />
materials. For many years I have been working on Action<br />
Without Action, a collection of sculptural works and<br />
performances that produce acoustic sound without the<br />
use of loudspeakers, electronics, or conventional sources<br />
of energy. My works are constructed from materials not<br />
usually associated with sonic creation, instead relying on<br />
the interaction of natural phenomena and kinetic actions to<br />
produce sound. I believe committing to the act of listening<br />
and giving one’s full attention is a political act, awareness<br />
gives us agency. In line with this, my work exists only when it<br />
is experienced live – it is predominantly undocumented and I<br />
have no website or accessible online presence.<br />
Action Without Action<br />
During my time in Hämeenkyrö I worked on a collection of<br />
text-based sound works. I conducted experiments in the<br />
environment and the studio, producing a number of new<br />
texts. The residency offered the space – both physically<br />
and mentally – to consider and critically examine my artistic<br />
processes on a fundamental level. I spent a lot of time outside<br />
in the snowy landscape, listening and observing changes<br />
in the natural environment. I experienced visceral groans<br />
from the frozen lake, cedar trees squeaking in the wind,<br />
finches singing outside my window, and many variations of<br />
snow under foot. I miss the daily group meditations, shared<br />
silences, conversations in 110º heat, stargazing in the snow,<br />
but most of all, my fellow residents whom I found much<br />
inspiration in. It was very sad to leave the residency earlier<br />
than expected due to the development of the pandemic but<br />
I will look back fondly on this time as one that was peaceful<br />
and productive.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Elise Guillaume<br />
Belgium<br />
www.eliseguillaumeart.com<br />
About<br />
Deeply concerned with the current state of the environment,<br />
I explore and document industries which exploit Naturesuch<br />
as the mining or the fishing industry. My process<br />
involves visiting, sometimes infiltrating sites for research<br />
and development. As a young woman, I notice similarities<br />
between the treatment of Nature and women, leading me<br />
to explore this strong relationship between body and Earth.<br />
Through photography and audiovisual mediums, I find links<br />
in between these places to create contrasting narratives.<br />
I studied Fine Art in London at Central Saint Martins, a<br />
BA at Goldsmiths University and will next begin an MA in<br />
Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art.<br />
Film and photography<br />
During my residency at arteles, I spent a lot of time<br />
meditating, reading and being out in nature. I walked long<br />
hours; documenting the environment through film, sound<br />
recording and photography. The first steps of my practice<br />
are always very instinctive and so its important to give myself<br />
permission to be drawn to whatever feels right without<br />
thinking about it too much. The silence gave me time and<br />
space to really see, observe and listen to things I wouldn’t<br />
usually notice as much. My senses became more aware.<br />
Being back home now, I am working towards a series of<br />
abstract photography as well as a new video using the<br />
recordings I made during the residency. <strong>Arteles</strong> is an<br />
incredible place for both spiritual and creative practices. I’m<br />
so grateful I was able to join and hope to be back some day.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Grace De Morgan<br />
Australia<br />
www.gracedemorgan.com<br />
About<br />
Born in Hong Kong, Grace is a Sydney-based writer<br />
and playwright who is interested in exploring faith and<br />
ambivalence through comic drama. She has written for<br />
the Australian Theatre for Young People, The Big Issue,<br />
Canberra Youth Theatre, Channel Ten’s Good News Week,<br />
Junkee, Melbourne Fringe, news.com.au, Penguin Random<br />
House, Playwriting Australia, ABC’s The Roast, SBS Life,<br />
Seizure, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Wheeler Centre,<br />
and VICE. Her non-fiction wine book ‘Everything Happens<br />
For A Riesling’ is available in stores and online.<br />
Mostly Ugly Crying<br />
When I applied for the residency, my hope was to finish a<br />
play about sex robots and start a screenplay about rhythmic<br />
gymnastics. I did neither of these things. At the end of<br />
February, I had wound up my job and had my heart broken.<br />
This meant I came into the March residency with a lot of<br />
grief and heaviness. I had to learn to let go of my soaring<br />
expectations of myself and surrender to the situation. I ended<br />
up finding great solace in being with the other residents,<br />
reading apocalyptic novels, walking in the woods, listening<br />
to Lana Del Ray on repeat, taking saunas, cooking chicken,<br />
meditating badly, and ugly crying. Then COVID happened.<br />
It was brutal and within days I had to return to Australia. It<br />
was surreal to leave the safe bubble we had built at <strong>Arteles</strong>.<br />
Honestly, I’m still in shock about how it ended and I miss the<br />
other residents and staff more than I can say.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Robert Fowler<br />
USA<br />
www.whaltho.com<br />
About<br />
Out of Chicago, USA, Robert is a designer, writer, and<br />
musician. His influences come from a curiosity of the natural<br />
world–working with colors and shapes, resembling scientific<br />
diagrams and information. Ending up with results that are<br />
absurd, yet familiar and organic. Whaltho is the identity<br />
which he assumes while working, finding that a separation<br />
from his birth face exposes a philosophy of creation inspired<br />
by an interaction with the source of his life long ingenuity<br />
and observations. He has played in a band in Chicago for<br />
three years called Faintlife, and performs solo experimental<br />
electronic music. His work has been shown in multiple<br />
independent gallery shows in Chicago.<br />
The space between each moment is connected by a line–a<br />
line with a particular color, and each moment of a particular<br />
shape. What shape has no line before it, and what color could<br />
it possibly be? The cold woods may know.<br />
Continuing simplicity<br />
Moving myself to Finland and escaping from the life I’ve<br />
been connected to turned out to be realization that the<br />
simplicity in existing remains active in all circumstances.<br />
Looking out of my window into the snowy forest strangely<br />
reminded me of looking through my home studio’s window<br />
at the brick wall of the apartment next to my own, two<br />
feet away. The self, in varying environments, is still the<br />
self. Only the reactions, and being sensitive to the effects<br />
thereof, alter as your surroundings change by physically<br />
relocating. I found myself, my self, using identical methods<br />
to manipulate my surroundings into artistic expression as I<br />
always have. However, the output changed, and such change<br />
was welcomed. Because I needed to feel change to be<br />
encouraged by a new habitat to warp my sense of creation<br />
into something fresh–into something I could have never<br />
created in any other situation. This conformity to space and<br />
elevation from attachments is something I will hold dear in<br />
my memory.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Solange Baqués<br />
Argentina<br />
www.solangebaques.com<br />
About<br />
Solange Baqués was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She<br />
has a Degree in Political Science and Foreign Affairs. She<br />
studied Photography with Ángela Copello, Adriana Lestido<br />
and contemporary art with Fabiana Barreda and Lorena<br />
Ferández. Participated in Proyecto Imaginario 1 & 2.<br />
Solange explores identities through memories and family<br />
albums. She builds small altars and plays constantly with<br />
the idea of emptiness, life and death, remembrance and<br />
forgetfulness and invites the viewer to complete her pictures.<br />
During “Art in Origin” ,residence in Santander - Spain with<br />
Andrea Juan, Solange started to link these same ideas<br />
with the environment, her last work “Quietness” shows our<br />
emptiness and reflections.<br />
Selected to be part of Yumi Goto’s workshop in Buenos Aires<br />
2019, “The Photobook as an Object” , gave form to her book<br />
“Memoria Imaginaria”.<br />
Through the Window<br />
This project born silently as the Corona Virus spread madly<br />
around the world. As people were suggested to stay at home,<br />
Argentina was one of the first country to close all borders.<br />
I could not return home as of April 15th. <strong>2020</strong>. Thanks to<br />
the continous support of Ida, Franziska and Teemu in this<br />
complicated worldwide situation. I can assure that this was<br />
by far one of the best experiences I ever had, KIITOS.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Christina Cucurullo<br />
USA<br />
www.spookstina.com<br />
About<br />
Christina Cucurullo is an experimental and experiential artist<br />
whose work is an exploration of impermanence. Creating<br />
textural loops from an array of pedals, toys, bass, vocals,<br />
synth and found sounds, her performances are intense<br />
and haunting. Since 2016, Cucurullo has played festivals<br />
and venues across the US and Mexico under the moniker,<br />
Spookstina. Her tour history includes performances inside<br />
of a giant Wayne White puppet exhibit (Chattanooga, TN),<br />
the Museo del Metro during rush hour (Mexico City, MX), an<br />
hour-long set at a 48-hour non-stop drone festival inside of<br />
an old shopping mall (Miami, FL), and many more.<br />
For nearly 20 years, Cucurullo has been heavily involved in<br />
all aspects of North Carolina’s DIY music community. She<br />
is co-founder and co-director of All Data Lost (Raleigh, NC);<br />
an annual DIY music festival in its third year, dedicated to<br />
highlighting and connecting experimental musicians and<br />
performance artists across NC and the US. She is passionate<br />
about providing artists with new and positive opportunities<br />
for personal and artistic growth.<br />
When she’s not immersed in music, Cucurullo works full-time<br />
for the Exhibits & Digital Media section in the basement of<br />
one of the largest natural science museums in the southeast<br />
USA (1mil+ visitors per year).<br />
During her residency at <strong>Arteles</strong>, Cucurullo will be both<br />
working on material for an upcoming album and enhancing<br />
the conceptualization of her live performances.<br />
Dreams & Nightmares<br />
I began my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> working on some field recordings<br />
and textural-based sound recordings inspired by the wintry<br />
world around me, encapsulated in ice and snow. Wanting<br />
to get closer to the human and environmental conditions of<br />
darkness and fear, I began taking walks through the forest<br />
in the middle of the night, armed with a meat hammer and<br />
heavy metal flashlight. During these walks, I followed leftbehind<br />
footprints in the snow through the tunnel of the<br />
flashlight’s beam, and experienced a heightened sense of<br />
sound through the darkness. Over the following weeks,<br />
the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic set in and created<br />
a roller coaster of emotional chaos. Many of us needed to<br />
leave <strong>Arteles</strong> immediately, or become stranded indefinitely.<br />
While being in the midst of this panic and anxiety, I began to<br />
explore surreal themes of dreams and nightmares and how<br />
they are separated from waking life by a thin veil between<br />
consciousness and the subconscious. Likewise, how mirrors<br />
create portals between life and death, and how it is through<br />
them that we see a true reflection of how we’ve moved<br />
through time. I wanted to see where and how light came into<br />
play during dark moments in our life and how they could give<br />
way to a new experience. My work continues, as traveling<br />
home brought me into a world different from that which I had<br />
left; a changed reality.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Julie Barratt<br />
Australia<br />
juliembarratt.wordpress.com<br />
About<br />
Julie Barratt is an Australian artist who lives and works on<br />
Darumbal country in the tiny remote community of Zilzie on<br />
the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. Julie is a visual<br />
artist, curator and arts industry professional whose practise<br />
encompasses printmaking, photography, artist books, works<br />
on paper and installation. In addition to her solo practise, she<br />
collaborates with other printmakers, book artists, writers,<br />
sound and performance artists.<br />
Julie is passionate about community arts and artists,<br />
inclusion and accessibility and this is apparent in her work<br />
as an arts industry professional who has worked for many<br />
years in the sector as a curator, regional manager and<br />
producer. She is regionally located and globally connected,<br />
and has worked in places as far flung as as New York, Seoul,<br />
Wilcannia, Bristol, and Kathmandu, where she set up art<br />
studios for young deaf Nepali women as a stepping stone<br />
into employment.<br />
Predominant themes in Julie’s work lie in narrative explorations<br />
of the human condition, personal, family and place histories,<br />
and the consciousness of objects. Her works are often sitespecific,<br />
responding to environmental energetics and often<br />
include elements that are labour intensive and contemplative.<br />
Living in close proximity to the ocean and the elements has<br />
provoked a renewed awareness of our fragile environment<br />
and the subtle dependencies between water, life and nature<br />
in our eco-system. Julie’s most recent works on paper are a<br />
collaboration with the tide pools at the bottom of her garden.<br />
The Isolation Files<br />
Borders were closing, and all the while the smell of fresh<br />
bread baking in the kitchen and snow softly falling, rendering<br />
the landscape soft and dreamy, added to the very surreal<br />
feeling of being in some sort of a dream! I was handed a<br />
sheath of papers with the latest updates from Australia and I<br />
continued to focus on my creative work as a diversion to the<br />
ever escalating feelings of panic, of being ‘stuck’, of fear of<br />
family members becoming sick. In this mindset my creative<br />
work gradually developed over the following weeks into a<br />
Unique Artist Book titled ‘The Isolation Files’.<br />
The Isolation Files Artist Book is a visual diary of my thoughts<br />
and feelings during a month of turbulence and escalating<br />
world fear, rendered through the mediums of photographs,<br />
screen and stencil printing, stitching and mixed media. I<br />
began the month of my <strong>Arteles</strong> residency reading the sublime<br />
poetry of Mary Oliver, by the end of the month I was reading<br />
constant ABC updates on COVID 19.<br />
With all flights currently suspended to Australia at the time of<br />
writing , I contemplate life in the Finnish woods and how best<br />
to utilize this unforeseen gift of time...<br />
breathe in breathe out.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Joelle Anthony<br />
Canada<br />
www.joelleanthony.com<br />
About<br />
J. M. Kelly is the occasional pen name for the writer, actress,<br />
and playwright, Joëlle Anthony. Born in Portland, Oregon,<br />
she makes her home in British Columbia, Canada. However,<br />
she has spent the last year, traveling around the US, Canada,<br />
and Europe cat-sitting for people while they go on holiday,<br />
and intends to continue doing that indefinitely.<br />
She spent her childhood with her nose in a book, often in<br />
the backseat of whatever antique car her dad had at the<br />
time. She’s worked as an actress, a Minor League Baseball<br />
souvenir hawker, the Easter Bunny, and various other notso-odd<br />
jobs. Now she mostly writes novels, but she still<br />
dabbles in sketch comedy, nonfiction, and teaching writing<br />
to both kids and adults (www.thewritepotential.com). With<br />
a developing interest in stand-up comedy and a love of<br />
theatre, a return to acting seems to be inevitable, and while<br />
she intends to work on fiction at <strong>Arteles</strong>, she suspects there<br />
will be some comedy written as well. She hopes so!<br />
Her first four books are for children and teens. Speed of<br />
Life, Joëlle’s third novel, was a White Pine nominee, hailed<br />
by Publisher’s Weekly as: a believable portrait of blue-collar<br />
teens struggling to make it work against tough odds. She’s<br />
also the author of the 2017 Middle Grade novel, A Month of<br />
Mondays, which was an OLA Forest Kid Committee Summer<br />
Reading List pick, a VOYA Top Shelf Award winner, and a 2019<br />
Chocolate Lily Nominee. She is currently finishing her first<br />
novel for adults, an historical novel set in 1962 Vancouver, BC<br />
called Between Over and Next.<br />
Xenia<br />
While I was here at Areteles, I read Stephen Fry’s latest book,<br />
MYTHOS, a retelling of Greek mythology. It was my formal<br />
introduction to “xenia”, the Greek gods’ idea of hospitality,<br />
which Zeus prized above all else. For my entire adult life, even<br />
without a name for it, xenia had naturally been “”my thing””<br />
and I’d done it well. When I saw the kitchen at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I knew<br />
why I was here. I’d come to write, but I happily laid down my<br />
pen in exchange for a knife and cutting board.<br />
While here, instead of working on my novel, I made food for the<br />
other artists, first as they settled in, and then to comfort and<br />
nourish them as Coronavirus ravaged the world, and sent us<br />
all spinning. The kitchen became a place for hasty midnight<br />
goodbyes, breakfast sandwiches tucked into a carry-on bags<br />
for long flights, and drinking Salmiakki together in hopes of<br />
Finland leaving a good taste in our mouths to remember it by.<br />
On one of our last nights, which was right in the middle of our<br />
residency, the kitchen was a place to make pizza together,<br />
while we pretended for one night, everything was okay...<br />
I didn’t do much writing, and the fact is, fifteen days after the<br />
residency officially ended, I’m still here, still cooking for (and<br />
with) the others who are also stranded here. Now I’m writing,<br />
too, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens with that.<br />
This residency was partially funded by a generous grant from<br />
Canada Council for the Arts.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Shana Kohnstamm<br />
USA<br />
www.shanakohnstamm.com<br />
About<br />
Blurring the boundaries between fine art and high craft,<br />
I create soft sculptures that are both familiar and strange,<br />
whimsical and dangerous, utilitarian and decorative. My<br />
fascination with wool as a medium drives me to push the<br />
boundaries of what is expected of textile and fiber art, and<br />
my joy of experimentation translates to the artwork I create.<br />
In the Bubble<br />
One of the most stimulating and transformational experiences<br />
of my adult life, the Silence Awareness Existence residency<br />
provided me with a rich entry point into global empathy,<br />
a renewed mindfulness practice, and elevated studio<br />
productivity... all tools needed for this shift in our fragile<br />
reality.<br />
My studio practice was surprisingly fruitful, with the easy<br />
camaraderie of shared workspace and a joyousness for the<br />
exploration of my medium. Utilizing local Finnish wool for<br />
my projects made the work even more poignant, as I took<br />
inspiration from the forest floor as well as meditational<br />
imagery.<br />
The lack of “everyday distractions” gave me room not only<br />
to explore and experiment in my studio, but also to read<br />
and ingest some hefty spiritual guidance, strengthen my<br />
meditation practice, and ultimately bask in the sweet silence<br />
of a like-minded community.<br />
Although cut short due to the pandemic, the time spent in<br />
our peaceful forest bubble (while the rest of the world was<br />
ramping up in panic) was ultimately a bountiful present/<br />
presence, which I’m certain to be unpacking for years to<br />
come.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Ayesha L. Rubio<br />
Spain<br />
www.ayeshalrubio.com<br />
About<br />
Ayesha L. Rubio is a visual artist and writer.<br />
She works mainly in creating children’s books for the<br />
international market. Still, her Fine Arts background and her<br />
love for film and literature keep her curiosity alive to expand<br />
her creativity into different practices and fields in the artistic<br />
realm.<br />
She has a particular interest in exploring emotions, the<br />
language of the dormant mind, and the relationship between<br />
humans and nature. One of her recurrent scenarios is the<br />
woods as the symbolic space to step into subconsciousness<br />
and inner exploration where fears, dreams, and desires, are<br />
always mirrored by the wilderness’ symbolism.<br />
A window with a view<br />
It was snowing when we drove from the bus station to <strong>Arteles</strong>.<br />
As the landscape cleared from buildings and traffic lights<br />
to give space to the white planes and trees, I knew I was<br />
exactly where I needed to be. Everything that followed was<br />
an immersive journey into the unknown wilderness of the<br />
surroundings I instantly merged with.<br />
Every day I sat at my desk, and I could spend hours just<br />
looking through my window. The window I became obsessed<br />
with. The light through its uneven glass, painted the wall with<br />
brush strokes changing colors, depending on the weather:<br />
snow, sun, rain. It framed the tree in front of me, where<br />
the jackdaws perched all day long, busy with their musical<br />
chatter. Or the flight of the geese back and forth over the<br />
frozen lake. My window presented me with a landscape of<br />
silence and beauty that made me wish I could put wheels to<br />
it and just carry it with me forever.<br />
That window was the lighthouse keeping my focus on the<br />
writing process, providing a constant flow of creativity.<br />
The silent weekends and the daily meditation cleared all the<br />
noise in my head, and I felt at peace. I discovered the quiet<br />
joy the sauna ritual gave me. Carrying the logs, starting the<br />
fires, filling the water tank, feeding the hungry flames until<br />
everything was wrapped in that unique steam. The crackle of<br />
the fire, the white wilderness, and my window was everything<br />
I could ask for.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Sophie de Vos<br />
Netherlands<br />
www.sophiedevos.work<br />
About<br />
Sophie’s work consists of her fascination for what it means<br />
to be human. Human nature, dealing with the passing of time,<br />
transience, decay and loss are returning subjects in her work.<br />
For human beings, these subjects are often emotionally<br />
charged, while in nature they’re the most common thing<br />
in the world. Sophie shows and questions this contrast in<br />
her work by creating images in which the human body is<br />
combined with natural materials. Words are an important<br />
part of Sophie’s work as well, and this shows in her use of<br />
titles. Her photographic series tell a story both visually and<br />
through language.<br />
Sophie’s artistic practice revolves mostly around photography<br />
and works on paper, in which Sophie uses minimal visuals to<br />
get to the essence of the subjects and issues at hand.<br />
It feels like falling<br />
During her residency Sophie created a series called ‘It feels<br />
like falling’. The title is about both silence and existence,<br />
referring to the question: If a tree falls in the forest and no<br />
one is there to hear it, did it actually make a sound?<br />
The images show fragile flowers, enclosed and therefore<br />
preserved by ice. By touching and cherishing them, you will<br />
simultaneously undo the preserving and thereby alter or<br />
damage them.<br />
The project refers to what trauma-specialists call ‘frozen<br />
thoughts’ that cause traumatized people unable to access a<br />
certain memory. This frozen quality complicates verbalization<br />
and so the trauma remains to exist in silence.
Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH <strong>2020</strong><br />
Lorraine Hamilton<br />
Scotland<br />
www.lorrainehamilton.co.uk<br />
About<br />
I have been working with sculpture, collaborative performance<br />
and installation since graduating from Glasgow School of Art<br />
in 2011. My work oscillates around the contradiction of the<br />
highly personal and the collective; that which is expressed<br />
privately, deeply, emotionally and that which is shared and<br />
impressed upon by others.<br />
Ephemeral and non-traditional materials are often the<br />
bridge through which I articulate these opposing desires. I<br />
have previously used tactile and absorptive materials such<br />
as powders, jelly, sugar, plaster and cloth which invite<br />
audiences and participants to touch and interact with<br />
them, but which also prompt ethical decisions around one’s<br />
actions, as a reflection of how we all shape one another and<br />
our environments. I aim to enable a deeply personal and<br />
embodied experience for those that interact personally with<br />
my work, whilst prompting reflection on collective and social<br />
activity. My work is deeply rooted in feminist practice and<br />
those which are considered domestic, drawing out subtle<br />
power balances and questions of agency.<br />
”...but does it melt?”<br />
During my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> I became friends with silence.<br />
Apprehensive about what this new experience might reveal,<br />
I was surprised to find joy in the quiet; a lightness in myself<br />
and a new way of being around others.<br />
My work is often rooted in impermanence; things are ever<br />
changing. No material stays the same, and there is beauty<br />
in that uncertainty. The daily shift in the landscape was<br />
matched by our ever-changing circumstances.<br />
The biggest lesson was to not trust in what tomorrow brings,<br />
but focus on what today has to offer. Take that walk, laugh<br />
loudly with people, go to the public sauna, share in the<br />
salon, do what you want in this moment because next week<br />
may not bring the same opportunities. The daily meditation<br />
practice also served this change in perspective; a focus on<br />
experiencing the moment was an important lesson.<br />
What I created in my residency reflects this learning as well as<br />
contradicting it. I started the month creating works in ice and<br />
soap, materials I contrived to be worn away by the elements<br />
and the viewers touch. I ended it creating paintings that are<br />
like time capsules, setting transient moments in a clear resin,<br />
like leaves suspended in amber. I wanted to freeze these<br />
moments of impermanence and capture them forever.<br />
This residency has given me so much; my time was sadly<br />
cut short due to the global pandemic but the 18 days I had<br />
revealed unexpected things about myself and my work.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Stephanie Fichardt<br />
South Africa<br />
www.stephfichardt.com<br />
About<br />
Born in Johannesburg a year after south africa’s transition<br />
into democracy, Stephanie has always found herself<br />
contemplating if that which is ought to be. this contemplation<br />
comes in many forms but the most prevalent would be<br />
through socially engaging events as well as her meditative,<br />
repetitive art-making process.<br />
Meditation on parts of the whole<br />
This drawing forms part of an ongoing meditation on parts of<br />
the whole, connection and the context of individuality. Within<br />
the context of current events, the drawings shape looks<br />
somewhat viral. This was not the intention when creating the<br />
piece but it perhaps speaks to the universal forms of Things.<br />
Either way, the month that produced this piece was a fruitful<br />
invitation into self-isolation.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Rebecca Wyn Kelly<br />
UK<br />
www.rebeccawynkelly.com<br />
About<br />
I was raised on the West Coast of Wales in a village called<br />
Aberarth. My upbringing has had a profound influence on the<br />
things I value and hold dear. I am passionate about the land<br />
and being in nature because I grew up surrounded by it.<br />
In wales we have a term called ‘Hiraeth’. There is no direct<br />
translation, but the closest word is longing. I long for the land<br />
and feel placed when I am in it.<br />
My artistic practice is rooted in the genre of Eco-Art. The<br />
land is my studio, and I thrive on installing work in remote<br />
locations. By choosing to commit to the land, I challenge<br />
what a studio or a gallery can be.<br />
The landscape is the foundation of my artistic practice, and<br />
the elemental materials I gather are a catalyst for the work<br />
I produce. Natural materials are enchanting. To me, they<br />
are magical and unimaginable. I don’t wish to destroy or<br />
dramatically change the self-contained quality of the articles<br />
I find. Instead, I want to preserve their beauty and become<br />
part of their journey by displacing or reworking them in some<br />
way.<br />
As an Eco artist, the environment is at the forefront of what<br />
I do. With climate change and the severe consequences of<br />
this, I feel that there is an urgency in the Art world to produce<br />
work that doesn’t feed the pressing planetary problems.<br />
Silence awareness existence<br />
Nothing likes to be filled more than silence. In the absence<br />
of communication, the sounds of others activate your<br />
conscious. The raucous symphony of voices in your head<br />
summons you to greet the past. It’s a private invitation to tell<br />
the untold and to unsay things said.<br />
These mute calls are a source of comfort, an assurance that<br />
you are not alone in your reticence.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Ana Tiquia<br />
Australia<br />
workplaceproject.net<br />
About<br />
I am a transdisciplinary artist who was born and lives in<br />
Melbourne, Australia on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri<br />
People of the Kulin Nation. My work encompasses a range<br />
of practices: curation, producing, futures research and<br />
strategy, visual and participatory arts practices. I am also a<br />
trained yoga practitioner and teacher. My current research<br />
explores energy futures, futures of labour, the role of arts<br />
practice in socio-ecological transition, and the power<br />
dynamics encoded in algorithmic systems. I am also one half<br />
of artist duo EXOGAMY.<br />
I began with a moving image practice, but over the past decade<br />
my mediums and artistic strategies, and the conversations I<br />
seek to have with audiences have transformed. Collaborative<br />
and participatory practice has become an important part of<br />
my work, whether I’m curating, producing or in the artist role.<br />
I recently completed my Master in Strategic Foresight – a<br />
degree that merges futures studies with strategy. This has<br />
led me to explore the interplay between arts and futures;<br />
exploring the role of arts and culture practice in relation to<br />
future inquiry, imagining, and social change. My most recent<br />
projects are public interventions; participatory, performancebased<br />
installations that invite audiences into dialogue with<br />
‘The Future’.<br />
Acts of attention<br />
Asking “what is one’s ‘practice’?” has parallels to the<br />
question “what does one do with one’s life?”. What to do with<br />
the time we have at this residency? What to do with the time<br />
we have with each other? What to do with the time we share<br />
on our planet? The easy answer in our neoliberal capitalist<br />
times would be: “to be productive”. For me, following the<br />
‘productivity line’ to dictate my own practice has become too<br />
easy and too problematic, equally.<br />
I began my residency at <strong>Arteles</strong> by asking “how do I<br />
‘de-capitalize’ my practice, and the way I approach and<br />
appreciate my work? How do I embrace other forms of<br />
value, and reframe ‘productivity’ in my work and action?”.<br />
I was curious about the other rhythms of work and rest that<br />
might emerge in a month of cultivating silence, awareness<br />
and contemplating existence. I was keen to know where<br />
my attention would go, once a focus on ‘productivity’ was<br />
put aside. I turned my attention towards intuitive impulses<br />
to make, play, research, contemplate, and rest; both in<br />
my practice with Christian Bishop as Exogamy and in my<br />
individual explorations. We embraced spontaneity and<br />
worked with whatever materials we had at hand.<br />
A playful project that began with daily painting of icicles using<br />
blackcurrant ink became an act of attention to phenomena<br />
in the landscape we worked in. As temperatures rose the<br />
reddened icicles would pale, eventually disappearing all<br />
together as we entered above-zero temperatures. In an alltoo-hot<br />
winter for Southern Finland, this playful gesture<br />
rendered each icicle as a barometer: an amplifier of attention<br />
that revealed in the microcosm of <strong>Arteles</strong> the macrocosmic<br />
realities of global warming and our changing planet.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Christian Bishop<br />
Australia<br />
www.christianbishop.art<br />
About<br />
I am a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Naarm,<br />
Melbourne, Australia. I work broadly across many mediums<br />
including sculpture, photography, printmaking video<br />
and sound. My art practice materialises as immersive<br />
installations, interventions and site activations exploring<br />
feeling and place, landscape and human connection. I am<br />
passionate about being immersed in the landscape, whether<br />
that be rural or urban. My practice involves attuning to<br />
energy present in these places – to me the landscape is<br />
about something deeper than just a visual cue. I am also<br />
facinated by boundaries and this translates from spaces<br />
around me into culture, subcultures and socially isolated<br />
peoples and their blurring of boundaries though creative<br />
outputs. For many years I ran experimental arts and music<br />
collectives and explored rave culture as a form of cultural<br />
and social resistance, performing under the name Xian. I am<br />
half of artist duo EXOGAMY.<br />
Melancology<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> provided a unique opportunity to step back from the<br />
commitments of daily life to explore themes of collaboration,<br />
place and community. I drifted between working on solo<br />
projects to collaborating with Ana Tiquia as Exogamy.<br />
The Nordic winter landscape provided a sharp contrast to the<br />
Australian summer of bushfires and floods. Even on opposite<br />
sides of the globe it is evident the world is experiencing<br />
unprecedented environmental changes from human impact.<br />
This extreme global weather provided a backdrop to explore<br />
notions of place and ecology with underlying themes of<br />
landscape as collaborator.<br />
The initial process was fluid and began by reading, thinking<br />
and discussing ideas around how one would collaborate<br />
directly with the landscape itself. The local landscape was<br />
explored daily, by walking, looking, listening and feeling.<br />
These explorations led to contact recordings of ice melting<br />
and cracking, the sonic properties of trees and their root<br />
systems, the creation of feedback loops between objects<br />
and a mobile sound source. There were also the embossing<br />
and printing of birch trees with natural inks, weavings of<br />
reeds and branches, video recordings of strobing night<br />
footage, and the collecting and assembling of branches as<br />
rudimentary structures.<br />
All these explorations culminated as impromptu<br />
performances; the ritual planting and raising of three<br />
flags (birch, lichen and sapling) as a reclamation to stolen<br />
landscapes, a site specific birch and water intervention in<br />
a sauna space and a performance playing back a recorded<br />
storm resembling a blackened noisy dirge.<br />
All in all what was set out to be achieved was far beyond<br />
expectation and has provided new and exciting material and<br />
ideas for many future projects.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Luna Mrozik Gawler<br />
Australia<br />
www.lunamrozikgawler.com<br />
About<br />
Luna Mrozik Gawler is a multidisciplinary artist and writer<br />
who lives and works upon the unceded lands of the Kulin<br />
Nation, in Narrm/Melbourne, Australia. Her research-led<br />
practice seeks to queer expectations of human supremacy<br />
and separatism while examining the ideological foundations<br />
and ramifications of Anthropocentric paradigms through<br />
installation, performance, media, and text. This work is<br />
often generated through direct collaboration with locations<br />
and multispecies participation. It is commonly durational,<br />
immersive and/or interactive, and considers alternative<br />
knowledge productions as well as embodied processes to<br />
expand upon post-human and new materialist frameworks.<br />
Lost in the woods and (re)composition<br />
The questions that <strong>Arteles</strong>, its silence and its complex<br />
ecologies, brought forward for me orbited knowledge<br />
production. How can method and outcome seek alternative<br />
pathways to knowing, and displace the anthropocentric<br />
inclinations of artist and audience in the meantime? How<br />
can we come to distrust the normalised and befriend the<br />
undulating discomfort of the uncanny? How do we extend<br />
sensory experience, change our sense of personhood or enter<br />
into multispecies and elemental conversation? In traversing<br />
the dark and knotty spaces of these questions I worked with<br />
the various inhabitants of landscape and the weather around<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong>. Disrupting my expectations and welcoming the<br />
trouble of new practices and impossible tasks, I attempted<br />
to not just deeply listen to the biosphere but identify the<br />
areas of exchange in which I participated, bodies on bodies<br />
co-authoring an inclusive conversation. I attempted to work<br />
with, and be guided by the material and agency of the site,<br />
attempting communication and translation with snow, soil,<br />
rain and wind in the process. Amongst the often odd and<br />
sometimes failing experiments I ended my time with several<br />
short video works, an installation, a performance for video,<br />
a new sensory tool for an on-going project and also began<br />
the theoretical work on an inclusive, material methodology<br />
for the composition of performance work. I also briefly got<br />
misplaced, and rediscovered in the woods, which really only<br />
helped in the long run.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Kit S Carlton<br />
USA<br />
www.kitscarlton.com<br />
About<br />
Ostensibly, Kit Carlton’s path to a studio practice<br />
appears divergent & sidewinding: she holds a dual BA in<br />
Anthropology/English from TXST, briefly studied nonhuman<br />
primates at Texas Biomed and has held various positions<br />
across industries. However, in 2016 she walked the Camino<br />
de Santiago to discover her raison d’être and upon return<br />
earnestly pursued the call to Art. She has since steadily<br />
exhibited her work locally & nationally. Most recently on a<br />
syndicated t.v program & through a collaboration with the<br />
nationally recognized nonprofit, NWNoggin.<br />
Themes naturally blended in her work include myth,<br />
symbolism, space (outer/inner/multidimensional), epigenetics<br />
& perception.<br />
As a New/Mixed Media artist, her process starts by employing<br />
traditional methods and once a satisfactory result emerges,<br />
the work is transferred into the digital realm for further<br />
exploration. Often this process reciprocates whereby results<br />
yielding from digital processing are incorporated back into<br />
the original/analog work. Consequently, Carlton considers<br />
her work a bridge between these two mediums/realms—<br />
each one influencing the varying fields of perception created<br />
by its own particular time, space & place.<br />
She also regards each piece as its own authentic,<br />
metaphysical inquiry into the connection between the<br />
physical & immaterial. Carlton believes that once a viewer<br />
internalizes an emotional response to the work in another<br />
specific time, space & place the work then becomes by sheer<br />
experience a further preservation and transmutation of the<br />
work—perhaps this is because of her deep-seated belief that<br />
Art is the study of Spirit and it is Spirit that evolves us.<br />
Eigenzeit, own time<br />
The chaos of modern day life leaves very little time or space<br />
to retreat into silence. The incessant bombardment of noise<br />
encroaches into every facet of life forcing us to live in an<br />
acute stress soup markedly designed by the technocratic.<br />
Being gifted with time and space to reacquaint myself with<br />
silence, being and locating the loci of the here and now invited<br />
a whole new angle from which to investigate my practice,<br />
rediscover the Self behind the self and reclaim my eigenzeit.<br />
To ease myself into the residency, I began by revisiting<br />
Agnes Martin’s ‘Writings’. A large part of Martin’s philosophy<br />
surrounding her practice was the dogged stripping back our<br />
socio-cultural programing to pure presence and creating<br />
from this place. I used her Writings to create cut-up poems<br />
to more easily access my subconscious and followed the<br />
symbols, inklings, nudgings. This practice invariably led me<br />
to study the concepts of light, spacetime,<br />
??elsewhere??, c, and special relativity. It is through light we<br />
receive spatial and temporal information. At c the present<br />
condenses all of the past and all of the future so that all<br />
of time exists in one still moment of the here and now. The<br />
works depicted are the genesis of a new understanding and<br />
fascination with eigenzeit.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Rachel Pursglove<br />
UK<br />
www.rachelpursglove.co.uk<br />
About<br />
I have an MA in Fine Art from the University of Central<br />
Lancashire. I’m interested in painting, poetry, literature,<br />
language and conversation. I like to run, I like to read and<br />
watch films and I am currently taking singing lessons.<br />
My aim is to strip back the conventions of being an artist,<br />
beginning with this very honest statement, to re-evaluate<br />
what art means to me.<br />
I’m 30 years old, I have a dog called Alfie and I’ve just quit<br />
my job to go on a residency to Finland for a month. I struggle<br />
with depression and anxiety and have done for many years.<br />
Making art has drifted away from me and has left me feeling<br />
discontented with life. So I’ve made an impulsive decision to<br />
travel to a new country, meet new people and reside myself<br />
to a month of solitude. I’ve had little experience of meditation<br />
and mindfulness but I’m ready to see where the programme<br />
takes me. I hope this experience will help to determine where<br />
my artistic practices lie.<br />
Am I still an artist if I’m not making any art? Is my running my<br />
art? Is my singing my art?<br />
Between sun and moon<br />
I experienced a simpler way to live life, a way of life that I<br />
have been craving too long. My time at <strong>Arteles</strong> has taught<br />
me how to live each day with purpose and I will be forever<br />
grateful, the residency has given me a voice, it provided me<br />
an environment in which to grow. I have reconnected with<br />
myself and found a community of unified individuals. Before<br />
I started this residency I asked myself, what does art mean<br />
to me?<br />
It’s the things that fill my everyday, sounds, time, place, light,<br />
taste, conversation, the present, actions, stillness, breath,<br />
nothing.<br />
I meditated, reflected, ran around the meditation circle 50<br />
times, exposed myself, immersed myself in silence, liberated<br />
myself, pushed the boundaries of repetition & boredom,<br />
explored the confines of my own mind. I stopped and looked<br />
at myself and the world around me. Found solace in solitude.<br />
Questioned the need for simplicity in art. What does it mean<br />
to be human? My connection to nature. Resilience. Simple<br />
gestures. How body and mind can respond to its environment.<br />
Hold to my own convictions. Ritualistic.<br />
Photographs by Matt Shaw
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Karolina Rupp<br />
South Africa / Germany<br />
www.karolinarupp.com<br />
About<br />
Karolina Rupp (b. 1988, Germany) grew up in Pretoria,<br />
South Africa. With a background in sociology, anthropology<br />
and photography, Karolina worked in a Pretoria-based art<br />
studio and as of early 2016 is living in The Netherlands.<br />
Currently in her final year of the BFA at the Royal Academy<br />
of Arts (The Hague), Karolina’s work has shifted from relying<br />
entirely on lens-based media to an artistic practice rooted<br />
in sculpture and installation. Imbued with phenomenological<br />
undercurrents as well as the elements of chance and<br />
surprise, her interest lies in the intuitive artistic process<br />
itself as a potential catalyst to discover and make sense of<br />
the unknown. Her work has been shown in various group<br />
exhibitions both in South Africa and The Hague.<br />
Seeing what comes<br />
Travelling to <strong>Arteles</strong> without a plan or specific project felt<br />
liberating but also a little daunting. The first two weeks I<br />
was experimenting with different materials and techniques<br />
that fall outside of my usual artistic practice while<br />
simultaneously diving into shadow psychology, dreams<br />
and texts on reconnecting with the natural environment. I<br />
felt safe, understood and curious during this special time<br />
which allowed me to work without pressure and expectation<br />
in an artistic community that left nothing to be desired. I<br />
contemplated my working process, my relation to art and<br />
how work and maker are paradoxically always interlinked but<br />
still separate(d) and how this tension moves continuously.<br />
Also, for the first time I was able to test some of my work<br />
in nature rather than an indoor setting which was incredibly<br />
interesting and insightful. Most importantly though, I started<br />
trusting the unknown, the mystery again.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Hanne Dahl Geving<br />
Norway<br />
About<br />
Hanne Dahl Geving is a Norwegian artist based in Trondheim,<br />
Norway. As an artist, Geving is interested in topics that affect<br />
humans mental health, such as loss, depression, loneliness<br />
and eating disorders. In her latest work, Den som sover,<br />
synder ikke, Geving looks closer at how emotions are been<br />
dealt with when experiencing loss. Den som sover, synder<br />
ikke was in 2019 presented as an installation at Teaterhuset<br />
Avant Garden in Trondheim, Norway. Geving´s work is often<br />
drawn from personal experiences and she has worked with<br />
photography, installation, sound, performance, artist book<br />
and video. She has a Bachelor in Photography from The<br />
University for the Creative Arts in England and a Master in<br />
Photojournalism from Mitt University in Sweden. Geving has<br />
had exhibitions in Norway, Sweden and England.<br />
Food, body and such torment<br />
For the last year I have been working on, MAT, KROPP OG<br />
FAENSKAP (FOOD, BODY AND SUCH TORMENT). The<br />
project focuses on eating disorders and aims to create a<br />
more complex image of the disease. By making an installation<br />
and using sound from five different woman, overlapping and<br />
repeating each other in a constant loop of inner thoughts and<br />
feelings, the intent is to create a sense of chaos. Entering<br />
the installation will invite the audience into the inner thoughts<br />
and feelings of five woman with an eating disorder.<br />
During my time at <strong>Arteles</strong> I spent the month working intensely<br />
on the project, going through transcripts and producing a<br />
sketch that gave me an idea of how the final work would feel<br />
and sound like. The space, people and the silent days gave<br />
me a chance to concentrate on my artistic practice without<br />
any form of distractions and really giving me the time to<br />
evolve as an artist and individual.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Matt Shaw<br />
USA<br />
mattshaw.me<br />
About<br />
From an interest in histories of place that recognize the<br />
relationship between humans and other species, Matt<br />
Shaw’s work stands at the intersection of experimental and<br />
documentary filmmaking to combine research, conversation,<br />
and observation to read the landscape as archive. Born in<br />
New York’s Hudson Valley, he received his BA in Human<br />
Ecology from College of the Atlantic and his MFA in Moving<br />
Image from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives and<br />
works on the coast of Maine.<br />
Wind / Rain / Snow<br />
As weather patterns change, the body responds. Rain<br />
melts a brief accumulation of snow and we reassess our<br />
expectations of Winter. Days of cold rain meant recording<br />
radio waves from the studio, propping microphones in the<br />
window, and photographing the still effervescent light from<br />
inside.<br />
A good number of days allowed for walks. Images of humans’<br />
mark on the land and the response of fellow species in<br />
Haukijärvi came together on slide film and movie film. Audio<br />
was collected of song birds, ice on the lake, wind in the<br />
spruce trees, cars and trucks in the distance. New ideas of<br />
working with the land emerged and have been brought home<br />
to facilitate the necessary looking and listening.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Maria Takolander<br />
Australia<br />
www.mariatakolander.com<br />
About<br />
Maria Takolander was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1973<br />
to Finnish parents. She is a fiction writer, poet, essayist,<br />
reviewer, scholar and interviewer. She is the author of two<br />
books of poetry, The End of the World (Giramondo 2014)<br />
and Ghostly Subjects (Salt 2009), with a third, Trigger<br />
Warning, forthcoming with UQP. Her poems were selected<br />
for The Best Australian Poems and/or The Best Australian<br />
Poetry every year from 2005, and are anthologised in<br />
Motherlode: Australian Women’s Poetry 1986-2008 (2009),<br />
Thirty Australian Poets (2011), the Turnrow Anthology of<br />
Contemporary Australian Poetry (2014), Contemporary<br />
Australian Poetry (2016) and #MeToo: Stories from the<br />
Australian Movement (2019). Her poems are also represented<br />
internationally in special Australian-poetry issues of Agenda<br />
(UK), Chicago Quarterly Review (US), Kenyon Review (US),<br />
Lichtungen (Austria) and Michigan Quarterly Review (US).<br />
Radio National Australia aired a program about her poetry<br />
in 2015, and she has performed her poetry on TV and at the<br />
2017 International Poetry Festival of Medellín, Colombia.<br />
Maria is also a prize-winning fiction writer and the author of<br />
The Double (and Other Stories) (Text 2013), which was named<br />
one of the best books of the year by The Australian and other<br />
forums. Maria is now finishing a novel about climate change,<br />
the most urgent issue of our time.<br />
A cli-fi novel<br />
When I left Australia, the country was in the grip of an<br />
unprecedented environmental crisis, with an area twice<br />
the size of Belgium having been burnt by bushfires after<br />
years of record-breaking heat. Sydney, Melbourne and<br />
Canberra were blanketed by hazardous smoke for weeks<br />
on end, making life in the major cities as catastrophic as<br />
life in the bush. I arrived in Finland in February, in the last<br />
month of the northern winter, when the land should have<br />
been blanketed by snow and the lakes frozen. Instead, cars<br />
were stirring up dust as they passed down country roads,<br />
and lakes were slushy and unstable. My grief and anxiety<br />
were profound. So too, though, was my sense of the aching<br />
beauty of the world. Each day, from my studio window in<br />
the ‘yellow house’ at <strong>Arteles</strong> Creative Centre in Haukijärvi,<br />
I observed an environment that presented to me subtle but<br />
nevertheless exquisite variations of sky and water and land.<br />
As the sun moved along the horizon, casting its gradations<br />
and patterns of light and shade, these silent visions of the<br />
world moved through me, setting the pace and mood of my<br />
days. My month at <strong>Arteles</strong> was an extraordinarily nourishing<br />
and generative one. I couldn’t think of a better place from<br />
which to have worked on my cli-fi novel.
Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Melanie Furtado<br />
Canada<br />
www.melaniefurtado.com<br />
About<br />
Melanie Furtado is a sculptor from the west coast of<br />
Canada. Her sculptures revolve around the representation<br />
of the human body through portraits, solitary individuals or<br />
groups of figures. Each sculpture is shaped by hand from<br />
direct observation using the earthy malleability of clay. Once<br />
this modeling is complete, the piece is transformed into<br />
elemental materials such as cast glass, lost-wax bronze or<br />
fired clay. Melanie involves individuals from all walks of life to<br />
collaborate as models for her sculptures. Her work explores<br />
the human experience and our relationships to each other<br />
and to ourselves through the use of body position, volume<br />
and space.<br />
Sculpting<br />
My month at <strong>Arteles</strong> was a time of re-connection with nature,<br />
stillness and silence in the excellent company of a community<br />
of artists.<br />
I had the joy of creating a new figure sculpture in my current<br />
series of Women in collaboration with performance artist and<br />
previous resident Giulia Mattera. This sculpture was created<br />
from direct observation, slowly building up the forms in clay<br />
over 9 days to create a representation of her body. This clay<br />
piece was then molded and cast into plaster.<br />
Each of the artists in residence inspired me with their various<br />
practices and creative approaches. They all kindly agreed to<br />
participate in a drawing project, wherein they sat completely<br />
still gazing out my bedroom window for 15 min while I created<br />
a small portrait sketch of their profile.<br />
The month also afforded the opportunity to develop a sauna<br />
addiction, to enter deep reflection during the silent days, and<br />
to be inspired by the Finnish landscape.<br />
I leave <strong>Arteles</strong> with both a greater sense of clarity and with<br />
new questions.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Julia Anadam<br />
Brazil<br />
www.instagram.com/julia.anadam<br />
About<br />
I’m a journalist that wanted to go further with words, so I<br />
started to dance. But the words never left — and I still find<br />
myself writing through gestures and movement. My work<br />
is deeply connected to silence, presence, embodiment.<br />
And also to the mystic ways of the Tarot and other Oracles.<br />
Through this mix, somehow, I aim to walk the way to develop<br />
a language of the invisible through symbolic gestures —<br />
knowing that is the process that matters most.<br />
Between sun and moon<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> is a magical place. After a few days (specially without<br />
internet), you go to the forrest and you start to hear the words<br />
of the wind, the wings of the faeries and the silent presence<br />
of the life around. One of my projects involved this presence:<br />
two sheets with words attached to a rock on the ground,<br />
crossed by a red wool string. On the right side I wrote words<br />
related to the feeling of being in a cocoon - nest, feathers,<br />
comfort, bedlinen. On the left side, words that would reflect<br />
the loss of innocence, of not being a kid anymore, or losing<br />
contact with the magical world - small, tears, closed. As the<br />
days went by it snowed, rained, and then it snowed again<br />
to the point that the work couldn’t be seen. The sheets face<br />
the forrest — and they are faced back, by everything and<br />
the sun and the moon. I realized that the forrest is watching<br />
what we do and they witness our healing, laughing, crying<br />
and loving. I love the idea that I won’t be around to see how<br />
the work will be doing in other seasons — or or if it will leave<br />
some memories or words. It is a great metaphor for what we<br />
do in life…<br />
This presence involved all other themes I researched -<br />
shadow-light, flowers, the sun and the moon. As a final gift<br />
to myself I could make music in a small blue piano found in<br />
the corridor.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Asli Sonceley<br />
Turkey / USA<br />
www.aslisonceley.com<br />
About<br />
My work is in reaction to climate change and to review<br />
my identity as a first generation immigrant. I am currently<br />
investigating the links between mental health and<br />
planet’s health via artistic compulsions vs chosen form of<br />
communications.<br />
Solastalgic Diaries<br />
I came to <strong>Arteles</strong> for the silence. To listen to my body and to<br />
the forest’s body. To mold my climate anxiety into something<br />
serviceable.<br />
In the forest I felt sheltered from the news and the noise. But<br />
when weeks passed with a nervous long wait for the snow, I<br />
heard climate change roar louder than before. Clarity set in.<br />
Out of fragmented strains of essays, poetry and audiovisual<br />
pieces, I began to form a coherent narrative: My Solastalgic<br />
Diaries*.<br />
Earth is a body in distress.<br />
She is sending messages, captured as data, reaching human<br />
minds in familiar formats: text, images, news. But our content<br />
feed is condensed. Her voice becomes diluted.<br />
If we ignore her cues, Earth will us feel them in our bodies.<br />
Growing evidence links environmental damage to pandemics.<br />
Modern society can be vaccinated. We are however intensely<br />
vulnerable to widespread mental disorder. Because we no<br />
longer speak Her language. We have forgotten our mother<br />
tongue.<br />
The spiritually turbulent artist archetype plays a rational role<br />
as patient zero. Her body receives the distress calls of the<br />
Planet body. She becomes so riddled with psychic imbalance<br />
that she must dance it off. Sing it off. Paint it off.<br />
Artist is a translator. She alone can trap Earth’s abstract cues<br />
into language. Solastalgic Diaries imagines the possibility of<br />
speaking our mother tongue again. My<br />
wish is to inspire emotional stamina and to restore healthy<br />
intra-planetary dialogue.<br />
------<br />
*Solastalgia: “A form of homesickness one gets when one is still at<br />
home.” Glenn Albrecht. Resource discovered thanks to generous<br />
artist Giulia Mattera.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Kate Koivisto Wheeler<br />
Australia<br />
www.gothamstudios.org/kate-koivisto-wheeler.html<br />
About<br />
Kate Koivisto Wheeler’s experimental practice is founded in<br />
drawing and painting, and extends across different media<br />
including objects, installation, jewellery, textiles and found<br />
materials. Her work incorporates connectivity and an organic<br />
process of ‘layers’ that develop over time and crystallise<br />
into form, distilling an essence. She combines the abstract<br />
and the figurative, material and conceptual, interior and<br />
exterior, nature and culture. Her work includes both solo and<br />
collaborative projects. Of Nordic and northern heritage, she<br />
currently lives on the south west coast of a large island in the<br />
southern hemisphere.<br />
Snow, stars, sunstones<br />
I arrived with 3 drawings I’d worked on for months, “Edda”<br />
(Old Norse term given to the medieval Icelandic texts<br />
containing Old Norse lore), directly laid them on the slab of<br />
ice outside the yellow house. They were soon rained onto,<br />
then frozen under ice, then snowed onto. I wondered if they<br />
would stay under ice or be released by the end of the month.<br />
Two weeks later they were exposed again, and I took them<br />
back inside and dried them by the heater. They are “Silver”<br />
(begun first), “Gold” (next) and “Diamond” (begun last):<br />
respectively “Past”, “Present” and “Future”, as the 3 Norns.<br />
There is a relationship to human lives, the cosmos, eternity<br />
and infinity.<br />
I made many small drawings (A5) continuing a series in<br />
between abstract and figurative - feeling: and 48 paintings<br />
on small panels the same size. Snow falling on the ground<br />
outside was echoed in the paintings on my desk. And the<br />
view from my window connected with my drawings on the<br />
wall.<br />
At my desk one sunny day, I had an impulse to go outside,<br />
gather 12 stones and bring them inside. I wrapped them in<br />
aluminium, in a way sealing in the light and heat of the sun.<br />
They later led to an outdoor performance, “Sunstones”, in<br />
the snowy stone circle on the last day of the month when<br />
January’s final residents departed. As the North Star is<br />
used for navigation, research says sunstones were used by<br />
ancient Norse to guide them over the ocean when the sun or<br />
stars were covered by cloud.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Martyna Gryko<br />
USA<br />
About<br />
As a child, I was surrounded by nature. My earliest memories<br />
are of my grandparent’s farm in Zdroje, Poland where I grew<br />
up. Today, I find that reconnecting with nature brings me<br />
closer to my true self. Through the practice of mindfulness, I<br />
began to notice the cycles of life, death, and rebirth that are a<br />
constant of our universe. Moments strolling in the park, taking<br />
photographs, and time spent observing the natural world,<br />
are my primary sources of inspiration and the driving force<br />
of my artistic practice. I obtained a BFA at the College for<br />
Creative Studies in 2017. This allowed me to study various art<br />
mediums and philosophies. I’ve always been conscientious<br />
of sustainable art making practices due to my interest in<br />
eco-philosophy and nature. I found that printmaking and<br />
book arts most aligned with this method of art practice. This<br />
led me to work with natural and found materials to create<br />
a body of work using paper-making as a metaphor for the<br />
life and death cycles present in nature. The work documents<br />
several layers of process: interaction with my environment,<br />
collecting scrap wood and building it into an assemblage,<br />
accumulating paper material and plants, shredding, soaking,<br />
blending the material into pulp, and finally restructuring the<br />
pulp to cover the underlying structure, pressing the water out<br />
with my hands. I am very passionate about how handmade<br />
paper can be used as an expressive medium to create works<br />
of art, not just in codex format. I also explore the theme of<br />
nature through watercolor painting, printmaking, and poetry.<br />
Painting and Poetry<br />
While in residency at <strong>Arteles</strong>, I had the chance to reconnect to<br />
my artistic practice. During the Silence Awareness program,<br />
I participated in daily meditation sessions and silent days. I<br />
explored my surroundings by taking long walks around the<br />
lake and observed the beautiful Finnish landscapes. This<br />
allowed me to tune in to my inner world and unlocked new<br />
channels of creativity. In the beginning, I decided to continue<br />
working on a currently ongoing series of watercolor paintings<br />
featuring mushrooms and trees. After two weeks in the<br />
program, I felt myself become more receptive and emotionally<br />
open. I noticed that after meditation my ideas flowed more<br />
easily. I was inspired by my day to day interactions with other<br />
residents and time spent in the sauna and began to write<br />
poetry. This month has made it possible for me to commit<br />
to my artistic practice and create paintings and a series of<br />
poetry about my time spent in residence.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Ana Engelman<br />
Argentina<br />
www.anaengelman.com<br />
About<br />
My name is Ana Engelman. I was born in Buenos Aires in<br />
1976. I am a Visual Artist and graduated in Sociology. The<br />
painting appears as a necessity. I am interested in the<br />
practice of painting itself. Observe the reaction between<br />
the materials and the support. Painting is an investigation, a<br />
report that I do. Find out what the Memory Record is. I look<br />
in the answers for some evocative detail that allows me to<br />
reconstruct part of my ancestral history that I don’t know.<br />
Certain questions cover my purpose: in relation to Space, my<br />
intention to catch the essential. I look for the permanent that<br />
lacks variables. What is the territory I am exploring like? Is it<br />
a territory anchored in another time? In relation to Time, Is it a<br />
stopped time? What is the past? I am creating drawings and<br />
paintings on different paper and unprepared fabrics, using<br />
fatty media and water such as graphite and ink. Series work.<br />
The palette is black and white, achieving a range of values<br />
with different vanishes. Work in layers considering the white<br />
of the paper. Achieving a temperature according to the base<br />
color of the hot or cold paper. I intend to create a stripped<br />
space that enables the observer the possibility of abstracting<br />
from his time, experiencing loneliness, distancing himself<br />
from the tangible and real.<br />
How does nature freeze?<br />
The experience in <strong>Arteles</strong> produced an expansion and a<br />
strengthening of my bond with painting. In the creative<br />
process it was the ideal place to be able to concentrate<br />
and work on my work in a calm way, to be able to explore<br />
freely and deepen the development of work. My intention<br />
of approaching these beautiful landscapes was to explore<br />
the territory that appears in my work, in my research it was<br />
very relevant to get in direct contact with the snow and<br />
the cold. And so it was that the experience paid off with<br />
several rethinking about some questions and new forms of<br />
answers. The walks, the meditation, the intense dreams,<br />
the silence were sources of inspiration for the daily work. It<br />
was an expansion work where I used some new techniques<br />
and deepened others already worked, I could experience<br />
releasing some patterns (for example in the brushstroke) and<br />
from there creating new ones, beginning to form a proper<br />
language of expression. They were intense days, shared<br />
with beautiful souls and experiences that fed my being as a<br />
painter and as a person.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Phil Harris<br />
USA<br />
www.pharris.art<br />
About<br />
I’ve spent about two-thirds of my life working primarily in<br />
photography, with some detours into other media. My major<br />
preoccupations over the years have ranged from history,<br />
memory and narrative handmade photo processes to the<br />
spiritual quality of deterioration. My current work is about the<br />
patient observation, recording, acceptance and encoding of<br />
the processes of time and change.<br />
Photography and drawing<br />
This was my second time at <strong>Arteles</strong>. I spent the month<br />
working on my time-and-change-based photography<br />
project, and also challenged myself to sit down and draw.<br />
I also read, wrote, meditated and explored the area on foot.<br />
What a phenomenal place!
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Gaylene Anne Barnes<br />
New Zealand<br />
www.gaylenebarnes.com<br />
About<br />
Since completing a Diploma of Fine Arts on an Amiga<br />
computer in 1991, I have worked as a computer graphic artist,<br />
video editor, animator, painter, writer, designer, director and<br />
producer. I have freelanced on many creative projects in<br />
New Zealand, as well as developing my own practise as an<br />
artist and filmmaker. My recent work includes the feature<br />
documentary film Seven Rivers Walking Haere Maarire (NZ,<br />
2017), a solo exhibition of paintings, Origins (Nelson, 2019),<br />
and a book of poems and images, Circumscribed (London,<br />
<strong>2020</strong>).<br />
I’m also a farmer with an organic vegetable family farm (and<br />
a small flock of Finnsheep!). As with most farmers, I have a<br />
born-n-bred impetus to ‘produce’ and to be a caretaker of<br />
nature, as one creates. Discovering and painting the icon,<br />
with it’s methodology of sacred matter, has been a major<br />
influence. I am currently curious about the sacred and the<br />
story in art and nature; the unfolding of conscious thought<br />
and form; the potential for miracles; the zero-point; and the<br />
many hands that create the evolving image/s on this planet.<br />
Whilst I have brought several projects to work on during<br />
my <strong>Arteles</strong> residency, including a screenplay, I will also<br />
take the opportunity provided by the theme, and evolve my<br />
contemplative meditation practise, and see what happens in<br />
the cloister! When in NZ, you are welcome to visit my studio<br />
in the upper room of St John Anglican Church, Woolston,<br />
Christchurch, NZ.<br />
Filaments and Durations<br />
A thought struck me on day three and it was a blessing to<br />
nurture it at <strong>Arteles</strong>. Those branching veins, these braided<br />
trees, in this living forest – I thought – Angels track across<br />
these filaments. From the proto-filaments of our cellular being,<br />
to the massive galaxy filaments of the universe. Along these<br />
routes that surround galactic voids and magnetise our body,<br />
we track. We are one, of this filament, coalescing in space,<br />
with the trees. The artists here at <strong>Arteles</strong>, and creative souls<br />
everywhere, are connecting threads in endless co-creation<br />
of this universe – except, perhaps, when we stop, to spend<br />
20 minutes twice a day in quiet emptiness, in the meditation<br />
room.<br />
On this day of silence, I watch a fly. I give this living creature<br />
time. In this moving image project I film beings in longduration.<br />
Attending to life. To watch and be with. An openeyed<br />
meditation? How hard! We come to nature with our<br />
stories, an agenda, some myths, a narrative. I want to see<br />
change, action, I want to be doing. So, I was filming. I was<br />
seduced by the images of nature – the low angle light, the<br />
frosty ground, the tall trees swaying in the wind. Seduction<br />
first, followed by distraction – the need to see it in another<br />
way, a new angle, and always this anticipation, waiting for<br />
change .... I am only beginning, to learn to Be. Thanks you<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> and Finland.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Amanda Page<br />
Australia<br />
pagestudio.com.au<br />
About<br />
Amanda Page makes works about transformation. In<br />
capturing and recording changes of state in materials and<br />
processes, Page explores change as a universal condition<br />
that connects all matter.<br />
Works develop from observing transformative processes in<br />
natural systems and phenomena, such as weather patterns,<br />
temperature, erosion, interaction between organisms,<br />
metamorphosis, growth and decay, where organic<br />
substances break down into simpler forms of matter, and<br />
how matter and energy change under varying circumstance.<br />
Particular phenomena, cycles of life and death, and<br />
the coalescing and dissipation of natural systems are<br />
investigated and embodied in the works.<br />
Page uses constructed parameters to record processes of<br />
melting, freezing, molding and transforming materials into<br />
various states. Perishable materials reference loss and<br />
fragility in natural systems and capture the interaction of<br />
forces and energies.<br />
Page uses water, ice, sunlight and camera-less exposure<br />
processes combined with drawing, printmaking and<br />
sculptural methods to catalyse, explore and articulate<br />
processes of change. Specific areas of investigation include<br />
capturing ice in its natural frozen form, freezing water to make<br />
ice forms, melting ice and recording the marks it leaves in its<br />
trace and melting and casting materials into molded forms.<br />
Snow Showers<br />
Using the cyanotype process of exposing light to an<br />
emulsion coated surface, I recorded snow showers and<br />
other atmospheric activity. The process captures changes in<br />
weather patterns in the season of winter.<br />
Melted snow and rain pool and reflect too little light to affect<br />
a change in the emulsion surface, producing patterns of blue<br />
and white in a patchy, uneven surface coverage. In contrast,<br />
strong solar activity transforms the whole surface into dark<br />
blue where the light has absorbed most. Snow showers create<br />
a mottled, saturated effect that references the cosmos.<br />
Duration exposures reveal nature’s transformative process<br />
by capturing natural phenomena and changing sequence in<br />
weather patterns.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Sophie Molins<br />
UK<br />
www.weddingdressinspace.com<br />
About<br />
Recent projects include:<br />
- Sending a divorced women’s wedding dress into space<br />
where it dances to a score by Michael Nyman.<br />
- Inland Island - A feminine sensory ethnography of the<br />
mountains at the St Bernard’s pass.<br />
Current projects:<br />
- Lost Sheep. A sensory ethnography through addiction,<br />
articulating the importance of love attachment and<br />
community. This is deeply connected to my work in a recovery<br />
house where I volunteer running a Spiritual Guidance group.<br />
- A sugar corset exploring consumption; sugar; colonial trade<br />
and women’s waste sizes.<br />
- Weekly documentation at a local Auction house of loved<br />
collections by recently deceased.<br />
INTERESTS include<br />
Systems – education; prisons; climate change Nature,<br />
seasons, climate, walking, swimming.<br />
Reading poetry and psychoanalysis, iyengar yoga and<br />
mediation.<br />
I have an MA from UCL Anthropology dept. in Ethnographic<br />
and documentary film and am particularly interested in the<br />
anthropology of healing and ritual. I also have an MA in Fine<br />
art from Central St Martins.<br />
I have won funding from the Arts Council and The New York<br />
Times Eddie Adams Award.<br />
I have worked as a senior lecturer in Photography at the<br />
University of Roehampton and as The Arts coordinator for a<br />
climate change charity Artists Project Earth.<br />
Switch On The Dark<br />
Going through old work I became interested in playing with an<br />
image of a mesmerised woman by Dora Maar. I told the group<br />
a story of how the Victorian search for spirits unwittingly led<br />
to the discovery of the great communications systems of our<br />
time. The telegraph; Morse; The Cold Cathode Ray (TV) and<br />
The Telephone were all results of experiments to contact the<br />
spirits of the departed.<br />
I took this work outside on my walks through the woods<br />
and to the lake. I love Northern European Pagan rituals and<br />
folklore so I photographed potential wood folk similar to The<br />
Groke or the Krampus.<br />
I made a book out of materials I found in the supermarket,<br />
the kitchen, the store cupboards and old Finnish magazines<br />
from the 2nd hand shops and began to knit and sew and<br />
made glass Sugar.
Silence Awareness Existence program / JANUARY <strong>2020</strong><br />
Isabel Rumble<br />
Australia<br />
www.isabelrumble.com<br />
About<br />
I am a multidisciplinary artist and yoga teacher from<br />
Melbourne, Australia. I have been fortunate to delve into<br />
the various creative outlets of dance, music, visual art and<br />
yoga, each informing the other in my creative practice and<br />
sculpting the person that I am.<br />
An underlying theme in my work is the investigation of the<br />
breath as a balancing force, and mode of connecting to self<br />
and place. Employing various breath drawing techniques,<br />
repetition as a force in performance, and spontaneity in<br />
image making, I position the intuitive body over the analysing<br />
mind. I encourage bodily awareness whilst drawing parallels<br />
between the body and rhythms in nature.<br />
At the core of my life and work I recognise the urgent need<br />
to remedy humanity’s disconnection from the natural world.<br />
I hope to contribute to this discussion through my creative<br />
outlets.<br />
Temporary bodies<br />
Paper cannot hold breath forever, twigs scratch their<br />
temporary bodies.<br />
How many lines do I draw before I understand this language?<br />
<strong>Arteles</strong> was a time of growth, self enquiry, and community.<br />
I came away feeling the power of art and nature, and the<br />
urgent need to nurture both. Meditation became even more<br />
integral to my creative process and I will continue to delve<br />
deeper into this space. Whilst silent days were insightful, and<br />
solitary time was plentiful, the connections shared with each<br />
of the other residents has had a huge impact on my approach<br />
to art making. My views around art have evolved, I trust again<br />
in this form of expression.<br />
I approached the month with the intention of furthering my<br />
ongoing investigation into the breath and its ability to map<br />
a space and a time. I drew my breath on paper most days,<br />
a meditative process. In the forest I found a place to hang<br />
them, and the installation grew over time. The place became<br />
important, almost sacred as it held vulnerable records of<br />
intimate moments. Each time I walked the overgrown path,<br />
my relationship to this small patch of forest deepened.<br />
I recorded the installation with photographs at intervals as<br />
the elements and time made their way into the paper, and<br />
created a video of the final piece.
ARTELES<br />
Hahmajärventie 26<br />
38490 Haukijärvi<br />
Finland<br />
+358 50 300 6304<br />
info@arteles.org<br />
www.arteles.org