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INTERNATIONAL | GUEST ARTISTS
As part of the Building Bridges Art Exchange participation in the program, a selection of their international artists working in landscape intervention are being showcased.
ANDREA JUAN
Argentina / Spain
Photos courtesy of Andrea Juan
International artist, curator and director of SM Pro Art. Since 2000, Andrea Juan has illuminated environmental concerns through her photographic artworks and installations with projections, fabrics and objects, created in natural environments of Antarctica and other magnificent scenarios.
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Andrea Juan created SUR POLAR, an international network of environmental artists, and made with them, an important series of exhibitions in Buenos Aires, Madrid, London, Washington, Melbourne, Mexico DC, Quebec, Seville, Bogota, The Hague among others.
She has curated, among others, the 230 exhibits of Impact 10 - Santander 2018. She also made curatorships in Mexico, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Australia, the United States, Holland and Russia. She is awarded with the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Government of Canada Award, the UNESCO Fellowship, Konex Award; Gold Amazons Award of Benín; IV International Art Biennial Award of Beijing,China, among others.
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Her most recent exhibitions have taken place at the National Museum of Altamira in Santillana del Mar, Denver, Bangkok, Santander, Casablanca, Bilbao, Tokyo, Barcelona, Saint Petersburg, New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing, Yeosu, Quebec, Sofia, Washington and Buenos Aires.
Antarctica Project, Projections (2005)
Photograph, video :This project is based on research on the impact of climate change. These studies address the consequences of receding glaciers, loss of mass of the Antarctic ice, the disappearance of Larsen ice shelf, the release into the atmosphere of methane gas (greenhouse) and other aspects that increase the atmospheric and ocean temperatures caused by global warming.
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This Series has been developed at Marambio, Esperanza and Carlini bases, in January 2005. “Sunflower” and “Encapsulated” videos were projected onto glaciers and icebergs. The Series is based on research on climate change. The videos were filmed in London and in sunflower fields in the Province of Buenos Aires. They were produced with ultra bright equipment that projected the art onto glaciers and icebergs...
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SOOC Photo and Video Series.
Creating art in this environment was deeply emotional and it was remarkable to experience new colors and unimaginable brightness. Yet it required the need to be ready to face unexpected extreme weather and the encounter of being alone in a pristine and deserted space.
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MIGUEL SBASTIDA
Spain
Photos courtesy of Miguel Sbastida
In partnership with Museum La Neomudejar and Zapadores Arts City, Madrid, Spain, Miguel Sbastida is a visual artist working across sculpture, video installation and site-specific performance, in an investigation around the intersections of geologic time, cultural ecologies and climate breakdown. In his works, he investigates the geo-poetics of matter and environmental processes through ontological, scientific, eco-critic, and post-humanist perspectives.
His process is highly conceptual and understands art making as an entry point for epistemological analysis and social transformation. Through an exercise of interrogating the traditional boundaries between the lively and the inert, the human and the non-human, the biologic and the geologic, his works strive to establish new perspectives towards a sense of belonging, agency, cross-contamination and exchange in our relationship with the Earth Organism.
Sbastida graduated from an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2015-17), with the full support of a scholarship from La Caixa Foundation; where he was nominated for the Dedalus Foundation awards in Sculpture. He completed a BFA at Universidad Complutense of Madrid (2007-12) after his fellow BFA studies in Holland (2011) and Canada (2012).
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His practice has been awarded with several prizes and grants, including Asia Culture Center Korea Residency Grant, Emerging Illinois Artists, Circuitos de Artes Plásticas, Madrid Art Production Funds, Oneminutes Film Festival Art Amsterdam, Encuentros de Arte Contemporáneo, BilbaoArte Foundation grant, Incubarte VI, 3Piedras Foundation grant, or the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Professional Development Award; among others.
Miguel is based in Madrid where he continues to develop new projects. He lives and works in Spain and beyond.
SEVERIN GUELPA
Switzerland
Photos courtesy of Séverin Guelpa
Séverin Guelpa is an artist living & working in Geneva.
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Séverin Guelpa is interested in the extreme territories from which he draws his inspiration, seeking to reveal the forces, movements and energies that are found there. His work combines building materials, construction techniques, vernacular knowledge and raw materials to translate the different states of a constantly changing environment. He transforms, weighs or moves materials in large immersive installations that often translate the links between human action and nature, questioning the fragile balances in which the world finds itself today.
Projects
LA TERMITIERI This construction, between installation and architecture, is inspired by the termite mounds of Amazonia, which can measure up to eight meters high and thirty meters in diameter on the ground. Termites are considered to be true architects of ecology: the structures they develop are models of sustainability, both thanks to the materials used and the complexity and efficiency of their ventilation systems.
The project was carried out using only soil found on site and in a nearby building site. The tar was removed, then the excavated earth was used as raw material for the raw clay bricks.
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TREMBLEMENT Surely the scale, reasons, and magnitude of what is happening today is beyond us, but it now feeds our practice. It transforms us as it should transform our society. Going to meet these tremors allows us to develop a professional approach adapted to these new times, in line with the ephemeral, elusive and uncertain nature of the period we are going through. For us, it is a question of vibrating with the world in which we live, finding ourselves totally in tune with it to reveal its micro-oscillations, its weak signals.
Faced with the cancellation of the Swiss Art and Architecture Prizes in which we were invited to participate this year, we have joined forces to propose TREMBLEMENT, a performative and exploratory work on the roads of Switzerland. From 24 to 27 September, we will be crisscrossing the country to explore six territories, all linked by the question of risk and danger, whether technical or natural.
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From landslides to the melting of glaciers, from geothermal boreholes to motorway areas, the aim is to test the breath of these places, to take their raw materials and to confront the power of the forces operating there. The exercise is sometimes methodical, technical, sometimes more performative and poetic. By induction, TREMBLEMENT responds to the desire to think about a new cartography, both physical and sensitive, of the world today, of the period we are going through and the great upheavals we are witnessing.
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Halfway between exploration and performance, this first phase of TREMBLEMENT is also an opportunity to question the conditions of our practices, whether in art or architecture. Accompanied by specialists, the stages will be filmed and documented, gradually building up a data, film and sound bank that will be accessible online (www.tremblement.ch) and on social networks, like a living archive.
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Valentin Kunik, Guillaume de Morsier (architects) and Séverin Guelpa
CARLOS MARTIEL
Cuba / New York
Photos courtesy of Eric Mihn Swenson
Born 1989, Havana.
Lives and works in New York and Havana. He graduated in 2009 from the National Academy of Fine Arts “San Alejandro,” in Havana. Between the years 2008-2010, he studied in the Cátedra Arte de Conducta, directed by the artist Tania Bruguera. Martiel’s works have been included in the Biennial of the Americas, USA; 4th Vancouver Biennale, Canada; 14th Sharjah Biennial, UAE; 14th Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador; 57th Venice Biennale, Italy; Casablanca Biennale, Morocco; Biennial “La Otra”, Colombia; Liverpool Biennial, United Kingdom; Pontevedra Biennial, Spain; Havana Biennial, Cuba. He has had performances at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; La Tertulia Museum, Cali, Colombia; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito, Ecuador; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), Houston, USA; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia (MACZUL), Maracaibo, Venezuela; Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy; Robert Miller Gallery, New York, USA; Nitsch Museum, Naples, Italy. He has received several awards, including the Franklin Furnace Fund in New York, USA, 2016; “CIFOS Grants & Commissions Program Award” in Miami, USA, 2014; “Arte Laguna” in Venice, Italy, 2013.
His work has been exhibited at The São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil; The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, USA; Zisa Zona Arti Contemporanee (ZAC), Palermo, Italy; Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, USA; Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece; National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba; among others. His works are in public and private collections such as The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami; Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro.
Riverbed – Performance
Cauce (Riverbed)
Curated by Marisa Caichiolo
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This piece reflects on the significant challenges faced by the immigrant community in California and the United States at large. Challenges that, generated by lack of immigration status along with low quality of education and limited English proficiency, reduce their opportunities for social mobility and access to a better quality of life.
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I lie for two hours within a block of mud while drops of water fall near my mouth from the ceiling.
ANTUAN
Cuba/Miami
Photos courtesy of Antuan
Antuan is an integral environmentalist, transdisciplinary and cosmogonic artist.
From the beginning of his artistic training, in the 80s, environmental problems occupied a central place in his thinking, when the environmental art movement arose, resulting in a theme present throughout the course of his career. Likewise, his work gained high interest and visibility, in art biennials, art fairs, and museums.
His works are exhibited in museums and art centers throughout the US, the Americas, and Europe. Among other the Museum of Contemporary Art, Mocca, Toronto, Canada; Cobra Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Dox Center of Arts in Praga; Palacio de los Cristales, Madrid, Spain; Central fine Art Contemporary, Cadiz , Spain; Espacio de arte TEA, Canarias Island, Spain; The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL; Museum Of Latin American Art, Molaa, CA; MDC Museum of Art & Design at The Freedom Tower, Miami, FL; Museum of Modern Art, Dominican Republic; Matucana 100 Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile; Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL; IBB Center For Contemporary Arts, Curacao.
Antuan was born in Cuba 1972.
In 1989, when he was just beginning to study, he created the ECO project of ephemeral art, at the age of 17 years. He obtained his degree in art at the ISP “Félix Varela” of Santa Clara, Cuba, in 1995. Achieving his research thesis, Art, Ecology, and Humanism, between 1995 and 1996. In it, Antuan already emphasizes the role of the artist as a social practitioner.
Since then, Antuan has developed and produced many projects, pouring into them his idea of a fusion between art, design and architecture, through which to express his integrating views of the environment, endangered species and modern human conflicts. He realizes Memories of the 20th Century(1997), and his sculpture series Forks and Spoons(1997), about the Concentration Camps. In 1998, he is granted a scholarship by Fundación Bancaja in Valencia, Spain.
Through his presence in Europe, he studies casting in bronze, under the direction of the sculptor Joseph Castell in Perpignan, France. 1997.
ANGELICA ROCHON
Argentina
Photos courtesy of Angelica Rochen
Angelica was born in 1951, and currently lives in Venado Tuerto, Santa Fe, Argentina. She has a Masters
Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Arts in La Plata, Argentina.
She has had several solo shows and group shows in Galleries, Cultural Centers and Museums in Argentina, Spain, Mexico, United States, Panama, Italy, Colombia, China and Ecuador.
Her work is centered around the state of the earth, nature, and climatic change.
Project: The wise tree and the earth. The offering.
Natural and atemporal weave. While the decadent human atmosphere destroy and contaminate, the nature advances at her rhythm showing us
her splendorous permanence.
The wise tree of 115 years transforms every cycle into life. Its dwelt by many birds, insects and other living beings, inclusive invited the creeper and fern to claim on its trunk and branches, only to coexist and become
majestic.
The death that goes around the world catching without mercy in this pandemic, its a contrast with the landscape and the continuation of the existence.
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Always honor the Earth, offer its fruits with love and simplicity, touch it, impregnate the hands with the colour and give back the tree its own creation.
Ephimeral art is the constant way to fin the natural elements without other intervention and obtain a stetic.
After some days the rain, the air and the sun left their traces. The process coming to its end and fused once more the made in situ with the earth. The nature continue its way.
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The offering goes beyond the personal emotion and taking photos and showing then will be useful for the people to open their hearths, be shaken and respect the nature.
This place is my garden and its a ritual to visit it.
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-Intervention on the land with acorns, dry leaves and small branches. Collection of natural elements to create in situ. Ephemeral art at the foot of the oak tree-
6 Feet of Connection is supported by the City of Ojai Arts Commission, The Ojai Retreat Cultural Center, Porch Gallery Ojai, and Flourish Ojai, and promoted internationally by Building Bridges Art Exchange.
