Saara Nights #3

25.02.2016

In this edition:

RESIDENCY FINAL SHOW
Carla Barchini (Lebanon)
Catherine Boisvenue (Canada)
Cecilia Vilca (Peru)
Joe Williamson (England)

+ OPEN STUDIOS
+ FINA ESTIRPE DJ ENSEMBLE

THURSDAY | 25 FEBRUARY | 19:00
Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado
Centro – Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Free admission

Saara Nights #2 Deluxe Edition

16.12.2015

The second edition of our SAARA NIGHTS was special. In addition to our residency final shows, we invited carioca musician Lê Almeida, the multimedia group SNSTSIA and the artist in residence Amanda Selinder to present their music projects. On the same night, carioca artist Felippe Moraes (coordinator of our LargoLAB) held his”Orbits” action.

“Saara Nights Deluxe Edition”
When: 16 .12, Wednesday
Time: 7 pm
Where: Largo das Artes
(Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado – Centro, Rio de Janeiro)
Free admission

ABOUT THE  GUESTS

LÊ ALMEIDA is a Rio based musician who writes concise songs about old jeans, bikes and pills, saturated by high doses of fuzz. Almeida is also behind the DIY label “Transfusion Noise Records” (founded in 2004) and since 2013 he has been managing “Escritório”, a studio and recreation club that is the home of a new generation of alternative bands. For this concert at Largo das Artes, Lê will present some songs taken from his second album, “Paraleloplasmos”, which was released in March 2015.

To learn more:
www.lealmeida.bandcamp.com

SNSTSIA is a group of visual artists who met in April 2015 in order to explore new combinations of sounds, words and images. Alexandre Palito (words and vocals), Rafael Bandeira (flute), Thiago TW (guitar, bass), Vagner Do Nasc (bass, synthesizers) and Wilson Domingues (visuals) have in common a taste for improvisation, mockery, ludic and chaotic environments, old and new technologies, which makes this collective a gang of restless guys willing to make some smoke and disturb our perceptions.

To learn more:
www.vimeo.com/133407009

Pictures Gallery

Saara Nights

Todo mês

Diagonale

Every year

Canadian contemporary art center Diagonale has been a partner of Despina since 2015 in a special project which grants artists who live and work in Quebéc to participate in our residency program.

This initiative is supported by the Conseil des Arts de Montréal and it aims to encourage the experimentation and development of contemporary artistic practices and promote the international mobility of artists who use fiber in terms of material and work concept.

The residences have a duration of 1 month and are 100% focused on the process, allowing the visiting artist a production in response to the new environment and to the new dialogues, which include activities such as workshops, meetings with curators, visits to art studios and other cultural spaces as well as an open studio event at the end of the residency.

To learn more about Diagonale, visit www.artdiagonale.org

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Chronology

2019

Selected artist: Mégane Voghell

Lives and works in Montreal, Canada. She is interested in the many ways the world can be experienced in the absence of a physical body. Through installation, (textual) correspondence, drawing and video, her work call into question the binaries of transcendence/immanence and real/virtual.

Through devices — both tangible and intangible — Voghell utilizes a personal mythology pointing to an experience beyond the lived world, but drawn from a very real subject. Her work emerges from the desire to define the peculiarities of the elemental and phenomenological forces surrounding us in order to better manipulate and reinvent them.

Her work has been featured in various screenings and exhibitions including “harbinger” at Eastern Bloc (2015), at FME in Rouyn-Noranda at Center l’Écart (2015), at Le Lobe in Chicoutimi (2016), at Paris Variation Fair (2017) and more recently at Calaboose Gallery in Pointe-Saint-Charles (2019) and Vicki Gallery in Newburgh (2019). Her work has been included in publications such as Nut II, ETC MEDIA and Cigale. She also curated the “Episode Laurier” event in June 2018.

Check here Voghell’s profile page which includes some photos and a curatorial statement (in Portuguese only).

2018

Selected artists: Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau

Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau are multidisciplinary visual artists based in Montreal, Canada. Their work focuses on theatricality and the choreographic; in their performance work but also in their interest in staging tableaus and working with ephemeral materials that can be said to perform through redeployment and decay. The duo’s recent works investigate the agency of objects, the material condition of the body, and the transformative potential that bodies and objects exert upon each other. These interests are informed by Chloë’s experience with chronic illness and its effect on their collaboration as well the duo’s exploration of narrative tropes from literature, theatre and television.

Recently, their work has taken an autobiographical twist, dealing with chronic disease, and how it alters the materiality of the body and affects its communication with the external world. It is important for them to show the body in action, in order to illustrate the haptic discomforts and discoveries during a first contact between two bodies ; this is why performance and video have become two of our favourite mediums, in transition from their installation works.

The research of the duo in Rio de Janeiro focused on Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s letter archives and also on the experimentation with costumes and accessories, which will be used in a future video performance.  While continuing on the theme of chronic disease, Chloë and Yannick want to approach it from the transformation angle – a sensorial and physical phenomenon that they want to illustrate by the phenomenon of the « second skin ». Thus, the duo is interested in deepening their investigation on the elasticity of fabrics and their capacity to give the impression of transforming the body shape by these properties – until perhaps prolonging it.

Lum & Desranleau have exhibited widely, notably at the Center for Books and Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the Kunsthalle Wien; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Whitechapel Project Space, London; the University of Texas, Austin; the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown; the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto; and the Darling Foundry, Montreal. The duo is also known on the international music scene as co-founders of the avant‐rock group AIDS Wolf, for whom they also produced award-winning concert posters under the name Séripop. Their work is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

Check here the duo’s profile page which includes some photos, videos and a curatorial statement (in Portuguese only).

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2017
Selected artist: Lorna Bauer

lorna_bauer_2017_thumbBorn in Toronto, lives and works in Montreal (Canada). She has recently presented her work at The Loon, Toronto; CK2 Gallery, New York; The Darling Foundry, Montreal; Model Projects, Vancouver; the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal among other places. Bauer has participated in numerous national and international residencies, including stays at The Couvent des Récollets, Paris; Quebec-New York Residency funded through the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec; The Banff Centre, Alberta and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida; working with the artist Josiah McElheny. She operates the artist project space L’escalier (together with Jon Knowles and Vincent Bonin) in Montréal.

Lorna Bauer works mainly in photography, installation and most recently, glass and bronze. Her formal language and use of materials alludes to ideas developed through city planning, and urban theory. Her work focuses on specific examples of architecture, urban planning and psycho-geography within the 20th Century. Her projects are generally characterized as site related, leading to a final result that has responded to a specific place and context. Interests are wide and range from topics such as the Paris city plan, in particular the arcades and the underground mushroom cultivation in the Parisian catacombs, Haussmannization, North American west coast utopian gardens from the nineteen sixties to Walter Benjamin’s letters to his lover, describing the Island of Ibiza, while in exile.  All of her projects deal with spaces and how they shape individual perceptions and the correlation between the natural and the built environment.

Check here Bauer’s profile page which includes some photos, videos and a curatorial statement (in Portuguese only).

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2016
Selected artist: Romeo Gongora

romeo_gongora_2016_thumbRomeo is a Canadian-Guatemalan visual artist. His participatory art works employs radical pedagogy to promote socio-political and human awareness. Romeo collaborated, amongst others, with the Rencontres de Bamako (Mali), CCA – Lagos (Nigeria), Centre of Art Torun (Poland), Festival Belluard (Switzerland), HISK (Belgium), The Office (Berlin) and Open School East (London). In 2007, he took up a two-year residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam). In 2009, he represented Canada as an artist in residence at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin) and at the Acme Studios (London) in 2016.

What would identity look like in a utopian world? Awaken Dream. New Models of Identity is a grassroots community art research that harnesses the capacity of creativity to offer a space for imagination as a tool for self-empowerment. Romeo’s residency project consisted of engaging a group of people from the local community of Rio de Janeiro to imagine a clothing collection for a utopian society. The residency culminated in a fashion performance-installation about otherness, cross-culture/religion, which brought individuals and groups in contact.

Check here Gongora’s profile page which includes some photos, videos and a curatorial statement (in Portuguese only).

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2015
Selected artist: Karen Kraven

karen_kraven_2015_thumbKaren lives and works in Montreal, Canada. Her recent solo exhibitions include the ICA at the Maine College of Art, Portland, ME (2015); Darling Foundry, Montreal (2014) and Mercer Union, Toronto (2015). Reviews of her works have been published in Canadian Art Magazine and Artforum. Karen has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Quebec Council for the Arts as well as a fellowship from the Dale & Nick Tedeschi Foundation. She is represented by Parisian Laundry in Montreal.

Karen is inspired by the clothing and accessories that athletes and spectators wear. She is attracted to the patterns in a flurry of basketball players, the competition of their bright jerseys and the distracting crowds, waving scarves in the background of the free throw line or the wavy, moiré pattern from an announcer wearing a striped shirt. Like Harlequin, whose role in Comedia del Arte was to distract, the costumes of athletes, spectators and sportsman are distinctly designed to standout like a bird of paradise, but also to camouflage each individual, like in a flock of birds. These flashy markings emphasize speed and movement of the body, while potentially distracting an opponent’s eye.

In her work, Karen has been making handmade fishing nets, photographing mesh sports fabric and stretching spandex fabric stretched over partial body forms. She has also been making sculptures of gymnastics costumes and horse race lady hats. Her main interest is the gender politics of sports clothing, and the latent sexuality embedded in how much or how little is covered up as well as the tight or loose opposition when fabrics and garments are viewed as a second skin.

The artist’s research lately has been focused on early sports costumes, designed by constructivist artist Varvara Stepanova, who exaggerated and abstracted the appearance of movement of the body, by using geometric forms and lines, like racing stripes. She has also been researching the surrealist fashion designer Elsa Schiaperelli, who designed the famous shoe hat and lobster dress.

After an open call led by Canadian institution Diagonale, with the support of Le Conseil des Arts, Montreal, Karen was selected and commissioned to join Despina Residency Programme. While in Rio de Janeiro, she was interested in the history of textile design in Brazil and in the use of recycled materials in handmade textiles, rugs and bags. She also collected different kinds of fabrics found in local shops around the SAARA commercial area and created sculptures from combining these materials.

Check here Karen’s profile page which includes some photos and a curatorial statement (in Portuguese only).

partners_romeo_vsfinal_eng

Iran-Rio Art Connection

Setembro 2015

Em setembro de 2015, jovens talentos das artes visuais do Irã estiveram no Rio para uma residência artística. Durante todo o mês, nossos ateliês de residência foram ocupados por quatro artistas iranianos que tiveram a chance de explorar os seus trabalhos em um novo contexto cultural. Ao final do processo, uma exposição marcou o resultado desta experiência.

Artistas participantes: Ali Zanjani, Amin Aghaei, Farnaz Jahanbin e Shadi Ghadirian.

Shadi e Farnaz foram especialmente convidadas para o projeto. Já Ali e Amin foram selecionados por um painel de curadores e artistas brasileiros formado por Bernardo José de Souza (curador), Daniela Labra (crítica de arte e curadora), Ernesto Neto (artista), Marta Mestre (curadora do Instituto Inhotim – MG) e Miguel Sayad (diretor do Largo das Artes).

Uma série de eventos paralelos, públicos e gratuitos foi realizada simultaneamente ao período da residência com o intuito de potencializar o diálogo inter-cultural, além de promover o trabalho em rede entre artistas do Oriente Médio e do Brasil.

PROGRAMAÇÃO

3 – 6 setembro
Artistas visitam a 31ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, a convite do curador da mostra Charles Esche.

12 setembro
Conversa com a artista Shadi Ghadirian, seguida de brunch.*
Local: Despina | Largo das Artes
Horário: 11 horas
Entrada gratuita (sujeito a lotação do espaço)
* Este evento faz parte da programação especial da feira ArtRio 2014.

16 setembro
Visita dos artistas ao Colégio Pedro II em Realengo, Rio de Janeiro
Horário: 14 horas

23 setembro
Conversa com os artistas na Universidade Cândido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro
Horário: 11 horas

25 setembro
Abertura da exposição final* + concerto de música tradicional Persa com a artista Farnaz Jahanbin e o pianista Tomas Gonzaga
Local: Despina | Largo das Artes
Horário: 19 horas

Conheça abaixo os artistas participantes

combo_ali

Ali Zanjani é um artista iraniano que vive entre Dubai e Teerã. Os seus trabalhos refletem sobre a herança sociocultural do Irã ao longo das agitadas transformações políticas que ocorreram no país nos últimos 35 anos. Destaque para uma série bem humorada que inclui registros fotográficos de praticantes da luta livre, o esporte nacional iraniano. O esporte também faz parte de uma outra série, criada com base em fotografias perdidas de um time de basquete feminino, pré-revolução de 1979. Estas imagens de mulheres sem a burca são únicas e estritamente proibidas no regime político atual do Irã.

Desde 2011, Ali trabalha com o Museum Salsali de Dubai. Em 2012, teve o seu trabalho selecionado pelo Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Teerã e pela Feira de Arte de Beirute. Atualmente, o artista tem se dedicado a inúmeros projetos, incluindo “Live Moment of Wrestling”, “Life Is Too Short”, “Show Off” e “Just Between Us”.

combo_amin

Amin Aghaei nasceu no Irã em 1982 e passou a infância sem uma moradia fixa, deslocando-se com a família pelo país devido à guerra Irã-Iraque (1980-1988). Esta natureza itinerante fez com que ele descobrisse o desenho, que acabou funcionando como uma válvula de escape às condições adversas por que passava. Quando seus pais puderam finalmente se estabelecer num local fixo, Amin conseguiu se concentrar mais em sua arte. Com a repressão política no Irã, começou a desenhar caricaturas e este estilo logo tomou conta de suas pinturas, por isso o tom crítico e humorístico de seus trabalhos. Além do desenho e da pintura, as suas práticas também compreendem escultura e vídeo. A obra de Amin assume um realismo mágico com uma temática sui generis para o Irã, daí este artista ter sido uma escolha unânime do comitê de seleção para este projeto.

Fica aqui registrado o nosso agradecimento especial a Azadeh Vafardari e Amirpasha Shafaei, que viabilizaram a presença de Amin no Brasil.

combo_farnaz
Farnaz Jahanbin é uma artista iraniana reconhecida internacionalmente, que utiliza a escrita persa e árabe para criar interpretações modernas da antiga arte da caligrafia. Suas pinturas têm formas abstratas e apresentam interpretações mais tradicionais dessas escritas.

Farnaz é também uma cantora clássica persa. Como mulher em seu país, ela não tem permissão para se apresentar na frente de um público misto. No Rio de Janeiro, porém, a artista se apresentou ao público, entoando canções da música tradicional Persa num pequeno concerto que marcou a abertura da exposição “Iran_Rio Art Connection”. Conheça mais sobre o trabalho de Farnaz aqui.

combo_chadi

Shadi Ghadirian é uma importante artista iraniana cujo trabalho já foi exibido em grandes museus e galerias pelo mundo, incluindo o Museu de Belas Artes de Boston e o Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Nascida em 1974 no Teerã, Shadi estudou fotografia na Azad University. A sua prática artística busca refletir sobre as questões que envolvem o tradicional e o moderno na cultura do seu país, principalmente a questão da mulher muçulmana no Irã, um assunto que ainda repercute em todo o mundo.

Em “The Qajar Series”, realizada entre 1998 e 2001, Shadi fotografou mulheres vestidas com roupas tradicionais “Qajar”, justapostas com objetos modernos típicos da cultura ocidental, como um “boom box” ou uma lata de Coca-Cola. Já na série “Como todos os dias”, produzida logo depois de se casar, Shadi revela de maneira crítica e irônica a rotina mundana e repetitiva que é reservada à maioria das mulheres em seu país.

Estes trabalhos evidenciam a preocupação da artista em destacar o papel das mulheres iranianas dentro de uma sociedade em permanente conflito entre a tradição e o moderno. Para conhecer mais sobre Shadi e sua obra, visite o site: http://shadighadirian.com/

 

Logo_Iran_Rio

IRAN-RIO ART CONNECTION
Conceito:
Consuelo Bassanesi, Leila Lak, Miguel Sayad
Direção executiva: Consuelo Bassanesi
Direção de produção: Leila Lak
Assistente de produção / arte e conteúdo multimídia: Frederico Pellachin
Suporte curatorial: Bernardo José de Souza
Comitê de seleção: Daniela Labra, Bernardo José de Souza, Ernesto Neto, Marta Mestre, Miguel Sayad.
Agradecimentos especiais: Rose Issa Projects, Azadeh Vafardari e Amirpasha Shafaie

Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development é uma instituição holandesa que apoia artistas, organizações culturais e pensadores que atuam em locais onde a liberdade de expressão é limitada por conflitos, pobreza e repressão.