Residency | Despina

Henry McPherson

01.09.2018 - 30.09.2018

Lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. His practice in composition, improvisation and performance is embedded in mixed-media score-production, devised performance, present-time composition, cross and inter-disciplinary practice, through which he explores personal and collective identities, musical and otherwise performative traditions. Henry’s inter-media work centres around the body-mind, score-object as mediator, the subject of invocation, impulse-led generation, queer and sustainable art practices, and meanings of ownership in collectively-generated improvisation. He is a founding member of Glasgow’s mixed-arts collective EAST (Experimental Artists Social Theatre), KUI piano duo, and the chamber trio Savage Parade.

In recent years, Henry has collaborated with groups and individuals such as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scotland, Martyn Brabbins, RedNote ensemble, The Glasgow New Music Expedition, Garth Knox, Zilan Liao and Germany’s Ensemble Modern. He is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland composition dept., and is an award holder of the Dinah Wolfe Memorial Prize for Composition (2014); Scottish Opera’s Opera Sparks Competition (2016); the Patron’s Prize for Composition (2017); the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Composition Club Prize (2017); the Harriet Cohen Memorial Music Award (2018); and was a nominee for the inaugural Scottish Awards for New Music (2017).

He has been awarded residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativiy (CA, Alberta, The Creative Gesture: Collective Composition Lab for Music and Dance), Despina (Open Bodies Residency, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, with the Fruitmarket Gallery Edinburgh) and Skammdegi Residency and Festival (IS, Olafsfjördur).

Henry McPherson’s residency was commissioned by the British Council and Creative Scotland under the Open Bodies Residency programme, designed jointly by Despina and The Fruitmarket Gallery. More information here.

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Curatorial statement, by Raphael Fonseca

Artist Henry McPherson trained as a musician and his expressions in visual art frequently take sound as their point of departure. The artist has followed interests in experimental ways of using classical instruments, in durational sound pieces, and in the cross-currents between the concert hall and white cube gallery. During Open Bodies, Henry recorded sound from different Rio locations, each with its own particular queer cultural importance. Bars, cruising spots, places of shelter and the streets of the city inform his practice. Different routes have been assembled in sound, and during the presentation the artist plays these tracks to individuals at their request in the upstairs bathroom, one of Despina’s most intimate spaces.

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Miro Spinelli

01.09.2018 - 30.09.2018

Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He holds a Master’s Degree in Performance from the Performing Arts PhD Programme at UFRJ (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro). Currently, Spinelli is investigating how performance and its radical connection with materiality, writing and dissent can generate forces on the subjects, creating possible counter-ontologies. Since 2014, he has been developing the continuous project and series “Gordura Trans” (“Trans Fat”), mixing performance, photographs, texts and installations.

This project has been presented in several Brazilian cities and abroad with the collaboration of artists such as Fernanda Magalhães, Jota Mombasa and Jup Pires. In 2017, he was awarded a scholarship (along with artist Luisa Marinho) to take part in a residence programme at the Andreas Züst Library, in Switzerland, where they developed together the “Chupim Papers”, which shed light on themes such as precariousness, abjection, decoloniality, politics of affection and transgenderism, focusing on the body and its poetics and political potencial.

Miro Spinelli’s residence was commissioned by the British Council and Creative Scotland under the Open Bodies Residency programme, designed jointly by Despina and The Fruitmarket Gallery. More information here.

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Curatorial statement by Guilherme Altmayer

Miro Spinelli develops his artistic research from his own body and from the traces left by it, to think about states such as abjection and precariousness. In the “Gordura Trans” (Fat Trans) series, composed of performance actions (seventeen performed to date), Miro presents his naked body in contact with various types of media such as soybean oil, grease, butter and palm oil. The particular material for each action is chosen with political consideration for the geographical and social context in which the action is presented. While smeared in oily, greasy, sticky substances, the artist moves in an unpredictable way, with care and difficulty, dissolving the boundary between his body and the space and simultaneously establishing a relationship with the public by making eye contact. In the Open Bodies residency at Despina, Spinelli broadened his field of investigation from the Gordura Trans series to explore substances changing in chemical reaction, and made traces beyond, but still inseparable from, his body. Using as a base many litres of recycled cooking oil, caustic soda and water, he produced soap in large quantities. Common sense makes us think of soap as a symbol of cleanliness and hygiene. However, here with soap the artist invades the gallery space to spoil, a stain soiling the white cube in a spread from one of its corners. The stain makes reference to the colour of skin, visually presenting many different shades. These are imagined skins that live as part of diverse bodies, which provoke a rethink of polarising description, they blur categories (as well as corners), and open up cracks onto many other places that there might be to situate oneself in the world.

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Sabrina Barrios

01.08.2018 - 31.08.2018

Born in Santa Maria (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), lives and works in New York, USA. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Graphic Design from Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM) and a Master’s Degree in Visual Arts from The Pratt Institute, New York.

Sabrina’s practice investigates the gaps in human history as a way of questioning our ideas about reality. Mixing science and quantum physics, mythology and conspiracy theories, she uses symbolism and geometry in order to bring to discussion hidden or misinterpreted facts.

Her most recent installations include: “Escape Plan” (Rio de Janeiro, 2018); “Epic of Creation” (Finland, 2017); “Birth” (Poland, 2017); “The Earth Experiment” (USA, 2017); “Ley Lines” (USA, 2017); “The Horse Rider and the Eagle” (Brussels, 2016) and “In Finities” (USA, 2012). Her paintings have been exhibited at the 4th Biennial of the Bronx Museum (New York, 2017), JustMAD (Madrid, 2016), Anita Schwartz Gallery (Rio de Janeiro, 2014/15) . Among the residences that she participated, we highlight: The Studios – MAS MoCA (USA, 2017); Arteles (Finland, 2017); Bronx-AIM Museum (New York, 2016); Bains Connective (Brussels, 2016) and The Wassaic Project (New York, 2015).

During her residency at Despina, Sabrina continued her research – a journey between the contrasting poles of Rio de Janeiro’s social geography, using art as an instrument of reflection, resistance and change.

More information
sabrinabarrios.com

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Maria Marvila

12.07.2018 - 26.08.2018

Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. She is currently doing her Master’s Degree in Research and Artistic Production at the Faculty of Fine Arts – University of Barcelona, where she also holds a Bachelor in Arts. During her graduation, she participated in an exchange at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Her work has already been shown at “Frontex Cortex”, during a residence in Arraiolos (Portugal); “lokal_30” gallery, in Warsaw (Poland) and at “Mecànic”, in Barcelona.

Marvila’s research is focused on the development of the relationship between individuals and the spaces they inhabit, and their subsequent interactions. Using the action of walking as a way to approach and occupy a space, and later perceiving it as a living organism, she observes the features of an environment and tries to understand it, activating all the senses, often mutating her own attitude to become part of it, through forms of both physical and mental camouflage, and imitation. Having photography, sculpture and installation as her main supports, Marvila has produced multiple reflections and representations of the universes she found, with a recent transition from purely visual work to a more tactile projection of ideas.

During her residency in Rio de Janeiro, Marvila identified in the spaces through which she passed marks of events and past moments, marks of constant mutations in the landscape, a track of scars imprinted on concrete skin covered by old and new wounds.

More information
www.mariamarvila.com

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Marcela Fauth

01.07.2018 - 31.08.2018

Born in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul), lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Fauth holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts with a specialization in Costume Design from SENAI-CETIQT/RJ and a Degree in Sewing and Modeling from SENAI/RS. She has participated in the Contemporary Art Foundation Course at Parque Lage School of Visual Arts (EAV). She is the author of the book “That was not there”, published by Casa 27 in 2015, and is, currently, an activist in the feminist collective “Vem pra luta amada”.

Her artistic practice takes shape day-to-day, in the investigation of tasks and work processes, in the symbologies present in the development of actions and in her own positioning before the world, as a woman, as a worker and as an artist. In addition to addressing issues related to the feminine universe and the expression of the anguish of this genre in her work, Fauth also seeks a deep problematization of themes such as self-image / self-representation, alterity, body and its unfolding in the sociocultural and political context of the contemporary world, among others, always placing the performative body as the main support. Photography, video, poetry, print-making, text, clothing and installation have been used by the artist as forms of recording the experiences of the sentimental-body, the passage and the impermanences of time.

During the period of her residence at Despina, the artist continued her research on Performance and Femininity, proposing a dialogue with several women in a process of collective creation.

More information
http://cargocollective.com/mfauth

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Isabella Lescure

01.07.2018 - 31.07.2018

Lives and works in São Paulo, where she is a visual arts graduate student at Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (FAAP). Her practice explores invisible or forgotten situations of daily life, which are reconfigured through perosnal memory signs. As she absorbs and translates the situations in her surroundings, her own sensory experience transforms what she chooses to reconfigure, allowing the emergence of new meanings in the final result. This process can be materialized in painting, collage, embroidery and objects.

During her residence at Despina, Lescure continued to explore the unfolding of her painting practice and to delve into her latest experiments. The overlap of transparency and the fragility of paper (which forms silent graphics) were starting points for her research. One aspect of her practice is not to get stuck into models, allowing the materials and their objects of study to play an active role in the creative process.

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Felipe Rivas San Martín

01.05.2018 - 30.06.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III

Chilean artist living and working in Valencia, Spain, where he is a fellowship PhD student at the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) – Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). He holds a Master’s Degree in Visual Arts from the University of Chile. His practice includes painting, drawing, performance, video and it’s related to technological image (virtual interfaces, digital codecs). He is the co-founder of the Sexual Dissidence Student Collective (CUDS), and has been participating in this activism platform since 2002. He also directed the magazines “Torcida” (2005) – about culture and queer criticism, and Disidenciasexual.cl (2009). Rivas links activism and artistic production with research, text and curatorship in relation to arts, politics and technologies, queer theory, post-feminism and performativity.

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a Despina project, with the support of the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme will guide a series of actions, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names of contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For this third edition, the project brings DISSENT AND DESTRUCTION as its main theme and it runs between May and June 2018.

Danitza Luna

01.05.2018 - 30.06.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III (2018)

Lives and works in La Paz, Bolivia. Luna is a cartoonist and graphic designer, graduated in Visual Arts from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, specializing in sculpture. Since 2011, she has been part of the anarcho-feminist movement “Mujeres Creando”, one of the most important and influential political platforms in the country, which develops artistic intervention and performance projects in public spaces, as well as art and screen printing workshops and educational programs in universities and women’s unions.

Amongst the recent exhibitions she participated as part of “Mujeres Creando”, we highlight: “Muros Blandos”, held at the Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum in Santiago de Chile (2017), where she developed, alongside artists and activists Esther Angollo and Maria Galindo, a series of provocative and ironic murals that brought the attention to some political and religious controversies around the discussions on gender identity. In 2016, she developed (also with Esther and Maria) a commissioned work for the Bolivian International Biennial of Arts – the public intervention projects “Altar Blasfemo” and “Escudo Anarco-Feminista Antichauvinista”, which took place on the external wall of the National Museum of Art City of La Paz. In 2015, she participated in the Medellin International Art Meeting – “Historias Locales / Prácticas Globales”, in Colombia, where she coordinated with other members of the collective the screen printing workshop “Grafica Feminista, No acepto ser cosificada” in the Muesu of Antioquia. The results of this experiment were displayed on a public mural in the streets of Medellin.

During her residency in Rio de Janeiro, Luna will coordinate a “feminist graphic workshop”, which will take place on 7 different dates during the months of May and June. The results of these meetings will be compiled in a printed memory. More information to be posted soon.

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a Despina project, with the support of the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme will guide a series of actions, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names of contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For the third edition, the project brings DISSENT AND DESTRUCTION as its main theme and it runs between May and June 2018.

Ana Lira

01.05.2018 - 30.06.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III (2018)

Lives and works in Recife (Pernambuco, Brazil). Her work seek to discuss political experiences and collective actions as processes of mediation. Power relations and implications in the dynamics of communication are among the main issues of her art projects, which articulate visual narratives, press material, printed media and independent publications. She is a specialist in Theory and Criticism of Culture and in recent years has developed independent research and curatorial work, as well as educational projects articulated with visual arts. Lira has participated in more than seven collectives for two decades. She is the head of the educational projects Visual Cities, Entre-Frestas and Possible Circuits, the latter related to the elaboration of photo-books and photo-zines.

She received the 2015 Funarte Arte Contemporânea Award for the Non-Dito exhibition, which was presented at MABEU / CCBEU in Belém do Pará (2017) and at Capibaribe Centro da Imagem, in Recife (2015). She is the author of the book Voto, published by Pingado Prés, in 2014 (1ª ed.) and 2015 (2ª ed.). The book is part now of the São Paulo Pinacoteca collection and also of the Museum of UFPA Photo-book Collection. She is also a researcher in audiovisual projects – currently Lira is doing a research for the Terrane project, a visual narrative about women working in construction in the Brazilian semi-arid region, an experience related to the Casa da Mulher do Nordeste (“Northeast Women’s House”).

During her residency at Despina, Ana intends to investigate the relationships between invisibility and power, through the mapping of knowledge and the sharing of information-culture which does not pass through large communication circuits.

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ART AND ACTIVISM IN LATIN AMERICA is a Despina project, with the support of the Dutch organization Prince Claus Fund. The project extends for three years (2016, 2017 and 2018). Each year, a theme will guide a series of actions, including occupations, workshops, talks, film screenings, exhibitions, public talks with important names of contemporary artistic + activist thought and a residency programme. For the third edition, the project brings DISSENT AND DESTRUCTION as its main theme and it runs between May and June 2018.

Christian Danielewitz

01.03.2018 - 30.04.2018

A Danish artist and writer whose work revolves around environmental degradation, with a particular focus on the ecological repercussions of the global mining industry, that is, the extraction and processing of minerals used in the production of contemporary image – and communcation technologies. An offbeat traveller of sorts, Danielewitz uses his status as an artist to venture into contested territory, bringing back images, objects and toxic substances, exposing the flipside of human engineering: explosion, excavation, exclusion, exhaustion and finally extinction. He is particularly interested in hidden sites of contamination and invisible forms of exposure, such as the uncanny nature of radiation.

Danielewitz holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He has recently had solo exhibitions at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo, at Black Sesame Space in Beijing, and at Fotogalleriet [format] in Malmö (in collaboration w. Anu Ramdas). He has participated in group shows at Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Fotografisk Center, and Tranen Contemporary Art Center.

During his residency at Despina, which had the support from the Danish Arts Foundation and LFFoghts Fond, Danielewitz developed an installation project titled “Bento Rodrigues Steel Displacements (after Robert Smithson)”, which refers to a 1969 work by American artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973) in relation to the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, the Samarco dam collapse, which happened in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais in 2015.

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