Meet the artists of "Whose voices are being heard?" residency project! Wrocławski Instytut Kultury

In 2023, thanks to the support of EEA funds under the Culture Programme, we will organize 12 artistic residencies with Norwegian partners: six creative stays on one side and six on the other side of the Baltic Sea. It is worth to mention that the main goal of the project is to equalize the chances and visibility of artists who stand out from the minority.

Participation in the program will be safe and comfortable place to work, where there will be room for providing questions, changing thoughts and inspiration.

The design of the residencies focuses on supporting features, and thus on building the value of action and cooperation. In this process, the artists in Hvitsten will be accompanied by the curator Jon Lundell, and in Wrocław by the curator Agata Ciastoń. The intention of the curators is to strengthen the residents in the new environment, to suggest ideas for solutions and, together with them, the need to develop and implement them. An important element of the program will be the presentation of works by artists working in Norway during the artistic and musical program Hvitsten Salong 2023 and the exhibition planned for the autumn in Wrocław.

Who was interested in participating in the program?

During the month-long open call, applications came from large urban centers such as Wrocław, Warsaw, Poznań and Katowice. There were also applications from the area of Lower Silesia (outside Wrocław). Artists represented various fields of art, primarily visual arts (sculpture, painting, ceramics, glass, socially engaged art, eco-art), performative arts and photography. There were also portfolios of people looking for their creative path or adapting them to a specific space and context, the so-called site specific. The applications represented great openness to experiment, flexibility in action and readiness to co-create a safe space for art.

Who will go to Hvitsten?

Out of over 140 applications from artists living in Poland to participate in the artistic exchange program “Whose voices are being heard?” we selected six artist representing various visual arts, such as photography, sculpture, textiles, illustration and new media. Choosen esidents have repeatedly emphasized their desire to create projects in harmony with nature, referring to the relationship between man and the natural environment. There were well-being ideas, firmly rooted in artistic well-being.

Anastasia Jechorek / Taso Pataridze (Tbilisi, Georgia)

Georgian intermedia artist active in Poznań and Leipzig. She draws inspiration from the weaknesses of man in the modern world suffering from information overload and rapid development of technology. Anastasia’s works deal mainly with the gloomy aspects of the new reality. Presenting a vision of the future, he often uses photography, changing its traditional forms and other media.

Dawid Puszyński (Poznań, Poland)

Graphic artist, sculptor and educator. The portfolio of the artist based in Poznań includes projects of spatial activities and traditional media. His works often touches on the sphere of the human figure, its transformations and adaptations to existing situations, analyzing the chaos of modernity and pop culture transformations. During the residency, he wants to create a sculpture/installation, directing the audience to reflect on the exclusion and isolation of LGBTQ+ people.

Kate Ngan Wa Ao (Macau)

The artist comes from Macau and has been living in Poland, in Wrocław, for eight years. Her work is inspired by different visual cultures, childhood memories, issues of racial identity, and the complex issues of post-colonialism and irredentism in Macau. She often transforms and remakes archives, photographs and everyday objects, combining different materials and cultural symbols to discover intricate meanings in the process. During her Norwegian residency, she wants to deconstruct the question “where do I come from?”; is it a national concept or an individual experience? The artistic process will be connected with dialogues, locally written answers, as well as stories of collections of locally found objects that carry the idea of identity. As a result, we can expect an installation in an engaged art form.

Saitip Majewska (Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand)

Thai artist, PhD student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. She uses her work for art therapy, focusing on the interactivity of art and connecting people. Her activities on the borderline of ceramics, drawing, graphics, sculpture and artistic installations focus on experiencing through the sense of touch. She often works with textiles due to their specific properties. They are flexible, susceptible to changes, deformations, have shape memory, and their materialism gives many messages. Giving fabrics new forms, it lures recipients with softness, color, and ideas. In this way, she offers new experiences to those familiar with her art.

Oleksandra Balytska (Kiev, Ukraine)

Ukrainian graphic designer and illustrator. Artist has been passionate about drawing since she was a child, although at the time she thought it was just a hobby, an extra job. After obtaining her master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, she began illustrating books and magazines. Her visual world is characterized by surreal figures, distorted human silhouettes and pastel colors. She experiments with proportions without breaking the rules of composition and color theory. Oleksandra’s drawings resemble movie scenes.

Ala Savashevich (Stolin, Belarus)

A visual artist, she creates sculptures and video works, often in the form of on-camera performances. She graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in Minsk and the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. She uses a variety of materials, monumental objects made of felt are characteristic of her. In her artistic practice, she faces the problems of identity, memory, trauma, as well as gender and corporeality in a socio-political context. She often refers to historical phenomena and their impact on the present. For this, she uses performative practice that goes beyond the limits of physical possibilities. Such tools allow us to share the internal changes that build the identity of a female artist and a migrant.

Who will we host in Wrocław?

In spring-summer residencies series under the artists exchange program “Whose voices are heard?” there will be six female artists working in several fields of art (painting, sculpture, photography, music). Residents are coming from different socio-cultural contexts, with diverse biographical experiences will take part. All of them currently live in Norway, but several of them have recently arrived looking for shelter and a new home. The participants of the residency in Wrocław will be:

Kine Michelle Bruniera (Oslo, Norway)

Norwegian-French photographer and artist, currently based in Oslo, Norway. Working mostly in documentary-based areas, but often get inspired by other technics and genres. Her artistic practice is drawn from deeply personal experiences and examines her insecurity, vulnerability, and fears. She is particularly interested in the debate on heritage versus DNA and exploring how one generation´s choices affect the next. It all together profoundly influences Kine’s work and manifests itself by blending documentary photography, archival images, installation, and sound. 

Ingrid Frivold (Oslo, Norway)

Norwegian artist dealing mainly with sound and music. She studied music at Trinity College of Music in London, before returning to her native Norway, first playing horn for the Norwegian Air Force Band as her conscription and then started working for children’s theatres as an in-house musician, later teaching brass. She played in the Oslo-based band Frank Znort Quartet (2004-2020) and was a founding member of the award-winning band Beglomeg. Her love for improvisation was becoming increasingly more visible during this period. She performed guesting with numerous Norwegian and foreign bands and artists, in 2019 she started doing solo gigs mixing trumpet and electronics under the name “Frvldz”. In 2022 her artistic repertoire increased and widened even further with her debut as a visual artist at the Olsok exhibition in Stiklestad, Norway. Last year she also had her public debut performing joik (a traditional form of Sami vocal style) at the National Museum of Arts in Oslo and worked with her first major theatre production as composer and musician for the Norwegian production of Jo Cliffords’ play “The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven” that recently was awarded best entertainment at the Rainbow Gala in Oslo. She also recorded with the Czech multi-instrumentalist Petr Vrba. Ingrid is involved in voluntary work as a central board member of the Norwegian LGBTIQ organization “FRI” and on the national board of the Sámi People’s Party. 

Aliona Pazdniakova (Belarus)

An interdisciplinary artist. Belarusian by origin, since 2010 she lives and works in Norway. Her background consists of education in traditional arts (MA), philosophy (BA) and photography. She is a member of The Norwegian Association of Fine Art Photographers (FFF). Mainly based on media of photography, video, and text, her works often take hybrid shapes and manifest themselves in forms of transgressive research. Her primary focus is shifting from the figure of the Other towards the theme of collective identity and mechanisms of its construction, which she tries to reveal through the combination of philosophical theories and visual art experience. In her artistic practice, she uses both digital and analogue techniques, combining staged and documentary approaches, mixing genres, and experimenting with styles. Being fascinated by the origin of things Aliona is often in a dialogue with antiquity and traditional cultures, striving to decode and visualize new ethic and aesthetic standards as well as principles behind contemporary mythologies.

Ghawgha Taban (Afghanistan)

Singer, songwriter, and composer from Afghanistan who started her music career in 2015. Her main interests are experimental, and folk music from Afghanistan, but she creates works in various styles. Since she is not limited to one style, it is difficult to classify her work into a specific musical genre. Ghawgha researches and explores the musical world, from the history of Afghan music to the most recent one. Most of her songs deal with social issues. In some of her works, she addresses the problem of violence using love songs. Probably most well-known Ghawgha’s piece is “Meboosamat” (I kiss you) published on 14 February 2019. Released on Valentine’s Day and during negotiations with the Taliban, it became quickly a viral around the world, receiving a lot of media coverage and feedback. Ghawgha is also interested in revising works from veteran Afghan singers. 

Lill Yildiz Yalcin (Norway)

Grew up in Oslo in a multicultural family. With a background as an activist and street artist, she performs unique meanings in her works, having a tight relationship with the outdoor space. She has exhibited regularly since 2006 and has worked as a curator since 2017. Her sculptures, installations and jewelry have a performative starting point and discuss private versus public space, institutional criticism, and social ecology. With recycled materials and a penchant for rebar steel, she links everyday urban life to the current political agenda. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Metal-and-Jewelry-art and a master’s degree in arts and public Space from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. 

Yachi Shian-Yuan Yang (Taiwan)

Painter working with the traditional calligraphic ink technique from East Asia. Her works are in the collection of the Taiwan Art Bank and several private institutes. After she moved to Norway, she presented her works in the opening exhibition of the National Museum of Norway in 2022 and the Autumn exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus in 2021.She participated in Art-Citizen Art Shanghai, Asia Contemporary Art Show, Singapore Contemporary Art Show and Chinese Contemporary Ink- Hong Kong Christie’s. She was a lecturer at the National Tainan University of the Arts. She was also a freelance reporter and wrote for the contemporary art magazine in Taiwan “Artco”. Recently, she has worked in Oslo supported by BKV on a series of male portraits “Pen Gutt” as another way of expressing feminism. Her works are attached to metaphysical themes, lines and brushstrokes in her paintings are inspired by nature. She creates with care for the beauty of humanity, and with a meditative attitude to both the chaos and magnificence of the contemporary world.

Congratulations!

“Whose voices are being heard? Exchange program for foreign artists from Poland and Norway” is co-financed by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway within the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 under the Culture Programme. 