A Structure Envisioned for Changing Circumstances (ASEFCC)
Curated by Maija Rudovska (Blind Carbon Copy) in close partnership with Amy Mackie (PARSE NOLA) and Tina Rigby Hanssen (Vestfold Kunstsenter)
"A Structure Envisioned for Changing Circumstances" (ASEFCC) brings together curators from Blind Carbon Copy (Riga, Latvia), PARSE NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana), Kongsberg Kunstforening (Kongsberg, Norway), and Vestfold Kunstsenter (Tønsberg, Norway)—and artists from the United States, Latvia, and Norway. Invited artists include Addoley Dzegede (Pittsburgh/Tulsa) + Anna Ihle (Norway), Dave Greber (New Orleans), Kjetil Detroit Kristensen (Norway), Cristina Molina (New Orleans), and Līga Spunde (Latvia). Artist contributions will be on view online from December 2021 through February 2022 at the new website asefcc.org designed by Dave Greber and on Instagram @structure.envisioned.
ASEFCC embraces the unknown and considers how art workers live and produce work within/around/despite constantly shifting frameworks. It focuses on the collaborations, support, and exchange that can take place across great distances, and allows for connections between different geographical locations, while also drawing attention to the creation of sustainable and long-lasting partnerships amongst artists and institutions. The project creates an interconnected web between the participants and addresses issues of fragility, precariousness, impermanence, and isolation with the following prompts:
How has the pandemic offered new ways to work globally across geographic boundaries?
What have been the challenges of this dis-location?
How can we (and have we) utilized online platforms to connect during times of forced isolation?
Can this isolation provide space for new visions and spark additional creativity?
Can an online platform reach larger and more diverse audiences?
BACKGROUND
In fall 2019, Maija Rudovska was hosted by PARSE NOLA, for a month-long residency. This residency was supported through a CEC Artslink Fellowship and overseen by PARSE NOLA director, Amy Mackie. Rudovska is an independent curator and researcher who runs Blind Carbon Copy, an arts organization in Riga, Latvia. Her practice is shaped by independent curation, research, art criticism, and writing. The focus of her work is intermediation and stimulation of relationships and communication between different spaces, contexts, individuals, and institutions in the Baltic-Nordic region. While in New Orleans she conducted over 50 studio visits with local artists and developed ties to several artist-run spaces.
Drawing on her experiences in the city, while also reflecting on the precarity and unpredictability of living with Covid, the immediacy of climate change, and the anxiety produced by political unrest, Rudovska developed ASEFCC to bring together Blind Carbon Copy (Riga, Latvia), PARSE NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana), Kongsberg Kunstforening (Kongsberg, Norway) and Vestfold Kunstsenter(Tønsberg, Norway).
In the context of growing states of uncertainty, Rudovska began her research with several broad inquiries to art workers: “How can we find space for expression and creation in a world of changing circumstances?” She notably made this inquiry prior to the pandemic and now it relays an overwhelmingly apt sentiment. These issues are not only characteristic for certain places but are a global condition for many people working in the arts. Like Riga, New Orleans has few resources for the art world and its workers. New Orleans is also a disappearing city, one that is becoming increasingly vulnerable in view of climate change.
The partnership with a Norwegian organization helps to amplify these concerns internationally--and additionally reiterates Rudovska’s ongoing interest in developing partnerships between Baltic and Scandinavian institutions. From Norway, she has selected art practices that represent the struggle to find sustainable structures within the artrealm.
APPROXIMATE TIMELINE
Dave Greber and Cristina Molina - mid December
A+A Podcast by Anna Ihle and Addoley Dzegede - throughout December
Kjetil Detroit Kristensen - beginning of January
Līga Spunde - January/February
Artworks will be launched throughout the 3 months. For exact dates please follow news on asefcc.org as well as our Instagram account @structure.envisioned.
DETAILS ABOUT THE ARTWORK
For their video series, Casebearer 1.0, Dave Greber and Cristina Molina take inspiration from the highly adaptive species commonly known as the Bagworm or Case Bearer who creates a cocoon home for itself from whatever debris it finds. As artists who live in New Orleans, a city that faces coastal erosion and is threatened by sea level rise, the Bagworm serves as a model example of a resourceful nomad that acclimates itself to any given situation.
Artists Addoley Dzegede and Anna Ihle have created a new podcast entitled A different world for "Ask Addoley + Anna." Through this platform, they use a personal tone to address notions of care, career, and relationships in a political context. The premise of their project additionally considers who has the authority to give advice, and highlights the very practical conditions and dilemmas of art and money.
Līga Spunde’s Episodes about not knowing how it will be takes shape as a poetic, digital artwork exhibited online. The changing nature of this work will create an unexpected experience for viewers, thus emphasizing the lack of stability that artists' experience in their work. The project consists of multiple episodes that use mixed media and digital aesthetics to visualize a feeling of the unknown.
If You Do Not Love Me I Shall Not Be Loved by Kjetil Detroit Kristensen exists as a document of the artist's life and its surrounding chaos, trauma, and depression throughout the ongoing pandemic.
ARTISTS’ BIOS
Addoley Dzegede is a Ghanaian-American textile enthusiast who loves sleeping in and eating ice cream year round. She learned Spanish during the pandemic and looks forward to talking people’s ears off someday in person. Addoley is a Tulsa Artist Fellow, also calling Pittsburgh and other places home.
Dave Greber is an artist, educator, and consultant from Philadelphia, based in New Orleans. He creates experiences situated for the blockchain, galleries, and wider public arenas, manifested through digital media, sculptural installation, and social/environmental interventions. His practice is enthusiastically intuitive and aided by divination and collaboration with fellow biological and artificial intelligence.
Anna Ihle has recently been sculpting in oak with her chainsaw while thinking of time management, a recurring theme in her practice. She is involved in artist union work. Anna has a 9 month old daughter, and currently lives in Stavanger, Norway—the town where she grew up.
Kjetil Detroit Kristensen is a Norwegian artist from Stavanger who works in various fields, including installation, film, and performance. His long-term aim is to explore and erase the borders between art and everyday life. In his artistic practice, Kristensen works both in galleries and in public spaces, building bridges between the two and searching for intersections.
Cristina Molina is a visual artist who hails from the subtropics of Miami and currently lives and works in New Orleans—two precarious terrains that have thematically influenced her practice. Spanning performance, video installation, photography, and textile design, Molina’s artwork is set amongst vulnerable landscapes both real and imagined. Using the language of magical realism, her artworks reshape and centralize little-known narratives to upend dominant histories.
Līga Spunde is based in Riga. Līga. She often creates work as multimedia installations in which personal stories are closely entwined with consciously constructed fictions. The interpretations and use of recognizable characters serve as an extension of her personal experiences, tapping into common truths. Usually, the content of the work determines its physical form, thus a variety of media and materials are used in her installations.
ORGANIZERS’ BIOS
Blind Carbon Copy (Riga, Latvia) is a non-profit platform for curators, artists, and other art practitioners from the Baltic and Nordic countries that initiates and supports exchange, connections, and education via network infrastructures and interrelations. BCC, which is run by Maija Rudovska, has organized various small-scale events and has built close co-operations not only in the Baltic-Nordic context but also internationally. The platform operates without a particular space and site, being a fluid membrane for its members and project partners.
PARSE NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) is a curatorial and research-based residency and art program that serves as a platform for critical dialogue about contemporary art. PARSE NOLA hosts international curators, writers, and artists and helps to support their projects. The organization was founded in 2013 and is overseen by Amy Mackie.
Vestfold Kunstsenter (Tønsberg, Norway) was established in 1982 and is a non-profit art centre and venue for Norwegian and Nordic contemporary art. The core of our activities is our exhibition program, in which commissioning new projects from Norwegian artists plays an important role. Our aim is to increase the visibility of contemporary art in and from Norway, and to create opportunities for exchange between arts professionals in different geographic and political contexts.
Kongsberg Kunstforening (Kongsberg, Norway) was founded in 1961 by a group of enthusiasts, led by ceramicist Rolf Hansen. The purpose of the association is to show visual arts and crafts by promising artists and organize public programs, including lectures, film screenings, and workshops to increase the interest in and understanding of contemporary art.
ASEFCC is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Latvian Culture Capital Foundation, Arts Council Norway, Viken County Municipality, and the U.S. Embassy in Latvia.
