Open Studios Fall
16.11.2022
During the fall edition of our traditional Open Studios held on Wednesday, November 16, 2022, the public was invited to come and discover the work in progress of the residents and enjoy installations and performances created especially for this event.
On this occasion, Julia Hanadi Al Abed opened the doors to her apartment and played Oikos Transit, a spatialized sound performance with objects sheʼs been playing with in her daily life at La Becque.
In the library, RA Walden presented an ever-evolving constructed language: ẍây ithřa. Formulated in response to the inherent ableism of the English language, this project explores which experiences are served by language, and whose perspectives are purposefully excluded from the lexicon.
At the onset of a one-month residency offered by La Becque and Centre culturel suisse de Paris, Marie-Caroline and David Hominal offered a glimpse at their respective practices and hint at their forthcoming collaborative process.
Then D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem showed Pastoral Brutalism in her studio and her apartment. This result of new research chart her sensual scholarly engagement with the performed body in relationship to modernist, neo-deco, and brutalist architectures and nature-based environments.
In the Conference Room, Jen Rosenblit presented ElseWhere Excavation, an early dramaturgical research for a future performance and group conversation. Amongst and between some readings emerged physical, visual, and speculative group proposals surrounding (in)completeness and desire, attachment, repetition, forgetfulness, antiquity, erotica, and the event of an auction.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko shared excerpts from their recent documentary entitled altared state: Dramaturgies of Black Care & Other Spatial Attunements. Filmed on site at La Becque, this dialogue between an international ensemble of artists includes topics ranging from dramaturgies of care to other intimacies that allow modes of Blackness and softness to intersect and convene.
To conclude his Pro Helvetia residency, Hao Ni presented AHU trilogy part 1 : The Great Filtration, a new series of sculptural installations that focuses on the air filtration process within heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems – a starting point for a sculptural investigation and improvisation into the way memories and objects flow in the rapidly changing environments we live in. In addition to this new work, Hao also shared two videos from Vicious Circularity, a non-profit internet archive and research platform that collects, showcases, curates, and preserves video and photo documentations of any naturally occurring or unintentional circular motion in our known universe.
ECAL x La Becque guest professor in residence, Yehwan Song presented her ongoing artistic research project, which focuses on the discomfort and insecurity to be found lurking behind the sheen of technological utopianism, immoderate comfort, fastness, and ease of use of the contemporary Internet.
The laureate of our 2022 EDHEA residency, Elias Würsten took a look back at some of the main projects he produced during his studies at the Valais School of Art while offering a glimpse into his current work in progress. In his practice, Elias questions our hierarchical relationship to the objects surrounding us, whose mechanical functioning usually escapes us.
And to end the night, Pro Helvetia x La Becque resident Ruhail Qaisar performed Cenacle Leh 1997-1998, a live audiovisual piece that delves into the intimacy of people in Ladakh, a high-altitude region in the Himalayas. The piece serves as a keyhole for the diegetic camerawork, which inserts haunting warble of images from the past. Based on a longing for innocence, the piece is a sudden glimpse into glorified days: a double-check of personal memory.
© Aurélien Haslebacher
1: Open Studios Fall 2022
2-4: Julia Hanadi Al Abed "Oikos Transit"
5-9: RA Walden "ẍây ithřa"
10-14: Marie-Caroline & David Hominal
15-19: D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem "Pastoral Brutalism"
20-26: Jen Rosenblit "ElseWhere Excavation"
27: Jaamil Olawale Kosoko "altared state: Dramaturgies of Black Care & Other Spatial Attunements"
28-30: Hao Ni "AHU trilogy part 1 : The Great Filtration"
31: Hao Ni "Vicious Circularity"
32-33: Yehwan Song
34-35: Elias Würsten
36-37: Ruhail Qaisar "Cenacle Leh 1997-1998"