The Mist That Carries Phantoms

October 2021 Virtual Program
Presented in partnership with Woodland Pattern Book Center

Join us for a casual conversation about the program on opening night, October 1, at 7:00 PM Central Time

Post Soviet Zones [series 1]

Jane Efremova, 2019 - (ongoing), video

Synopsis
The video project «post-Soviet zones» is the collaborative work with dancers and the beginning of visual research of the abandoned space that somehow surrounds us on the territory of post-soviet countries. In the first part of it performers interact with the places of the former pioneer camp, the base «Volga», trying to feel the power of the place and the connection with it in the present moment. The camp came to life a couple of years ago because of a Summer school project: now every summer representatives of different professions meet here to share knowledge and meet each other. Despite constant activities there are echoes of the Soviet era in the camp. The participants of the project found «grey zones», nobody’s land, where we might find ourselves mentally returning to the Soviet past.

The project suggests a new look at the perception of such zones and abandoned spaces and tells us that with the help of dance practices we may learn how to interact with them in a new way.

Performers:
Svetlana Kurakova, Anna Sokolovskaya, Irina Litvinova

Artist Bio
Jane Efremova (b.1994) is a visual artist and curator living between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia. She works with photography, video and performance to accomplish her personal projects.

She works with her subject using methods of deep presence, spontaneity and performative act to discover the topics of closeness, embodiment and movement. Her projects are mostly site-specific as she explores how environment influences the body through the reflection of connection with the place. She takes part in contemporary dance workshops and uses her somatic experience in her art.

She graduated from the Academy of documentary and art photography «Fotografika» in Saint-Petersburg in 2018 and got the MA in «Curatorial practices in Contemporary Art», educational project of Garage MCA and HSE in Moscow.

Pandamonium

Anna Joos + Ana Edwards, 2019, HD video, found footage + screen recordings

Synopsis
PANDAMONIUM is an ethnographic essay film which explores conceptions of ‘the exotic other’ through the trope of the giant panda and, in so doing, it interrogates the seemingly distant colonial legacy of today’s Britain with regards to ‘the oriental Chinese’. The varied source material sets a multivocal stage by including archived letters and newspaper clips from the London Zoo Archive; various news reports and Youtube clips; 'panda-cams'; original footage from the Natural History Museum, London and Chester Zoo; and, a testimony from the last person working with giant pandas in England. It's a multispecies film in which the human appears to be a most strange animal.

Artist Bio
Anna Joos is a Swedish/Swiss visual anthropologist. In 2019, she obtained her MA from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, Uni. of Manchester and she is currently based at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Ana Edwards is a Chilean artist. In 2019 she obtained a Master in Visual Anthropology in England, and is currently enrolled at Le Fresnoy, France.

CHOREOGRAPHIC PATTERNS – Subliminal Message

Ana Trincão, 2016, video

Lungs of Flowers

Arvo Leo

Synopsis
In the ocean there exists a type of creature called Xenophora pallidula that collects discarded shells from the ocean floor and cements them into its own shell, camouflaging itself in a sophisticated spiral of spirals. The genus name “Xenophora” translates to “carrier of foreigners” - one large shelter carrying a collection of many smaller shelters.  

Even your own lungs are not really just you - your lungs are temporary shelters for the outside world to spend time in the middle of your being. Interestingly, whether it is night or day, your body decides to keep this space in perpetual night-mode; dark and moist, sunless, a place where bats would love to dwell. 

"Lungs of Flowers” was originally created as part of a multimedia installation in the Rijksakademie.  Naturally we could imagine a building like the Rijksakademie as a giant Xenophora shell that entangles a diverse body of foreigners within its spiral, but in this case they exist inside the comfort of the shell rather than on its exterior. But what if a shelter was purposefully built on the outside, on the roof of the building; connected to the overall structure yet more exposed and entangled with the exterior world?

Artist Bio
Arvo Leo is an artist and filmmaker who grew up in the small village of Roberts Creek (xwesam), Canada and several places in New Zealand. He currently lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where he is an artist in residence at Artis Zoo and an active member of the Dutch Orchid Society. 

His works have been shown at Vleeshal, Middelburg (2021); Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2020); Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn (2019); Nanaimo Art Gallery (2018); Le Crédac, Paris (2017); Contour Bienniale 8, Mechelen (2017); Vancouver Art Gallery (2017); Kunstverein München (2016), La Mirage, Montreal (2015); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2015), Berlin Film Festival (2015); Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania (2015); La Loge, Brussels (2015); Bienniale of Moving Images, Geneva (2014); Western Front, Vancouver (2012); Stedelijk Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch (2011); MACBA, Barcelona, (2011); Glasgow Biennial (2010); and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2010). Leo performs 'Ghost Poo' annually in the Higgledy Piggledy Parade in Roberts Creek. 

Post Soviet Zones [series 2]

Jane Efremova, 2019 - (ongoing), video

Synopsis
The video project «post-Soviet zones» is the collaborative work with dancers and the beginning of visual research of the abandoned space that somehow surrounds us on the territory of post-soviet countries. In the first part of it performers interact with the places of the former pioneer camp, the base «Volga», trying to feel the power of the place and the connection with it in the present moment. The camp came to life a couple of years ago because of a Summer school project: now every summer representatives of different professions meet here to share knowledge and meet each other. Despite constant activities there are echoes of the Soviet era in the camp. The participants of the project found «grey zones», nobody’s land, where we might find ourselves mentally returning to the Soviet past.

The project suggests a new look at the perception of such zones and abandoned spaces and tells us that with the help of dance practices we may learn how to interact with them in a new way.

Performers:
Svetlana Kurakova, Alena Papina, Adele

Artist Bio
Jane Efremova (b.1994) is a visual artist and curator living between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia. She works with photography, video and performance to accomplish her personal projects.

She works with her subject using methods of deep presence, spontaneity and performative act to discover the topics of closeness, embodiment and movement. Her projects are mostly site-specific as she explores how environment influences the body through the reflection of connection with the place. She takes part in contemporary dance workshops and uses her somatic experience in her art.

She graduated from the Academy of documentary and art photography «Fotografika» in Saint-Petersburg in 2018 and got the MA in «Curatorial practices in Contemporary Art», educational project of Garage MCA and HSE in Moscow.

Toothless Resistance • The Friendship Tree

Polina Kanis, 2021, video

Synopsis
The Friendship Tree was an ideological project of Soviet bio- engineering. Back in 1934, when Fyodor Zorin, a Soviet scientist, was seeking to develop new, hardy citrus fruits, he planted a wild lemon tree in the botanical garden in Sochi. Then he grafted other fruits onto its crown: Japanese mandarins, Spanish oranges, Chinese kumquats, Italian lemons, grapefruits and more, up to a total of 45 different citrus varieties. A tradition grew up: new grafts added to the tree by prominent figures – politicians, artists, scientists, astronauts, athletes. Today there are more than 630 of these additional shoots, representing 167 different countries. The grafting ritual is mirrored by the gifts sent from all over the world. 

The Friendship Tree’s growth is not only physical. Since it was planted, it has also become a monument to our shared, global Earth. This video explores a utopian vision of political and ecological symbiosis
– something which remains unattainable to this day. It shows a group of people living in a world where both the planet and the individual are transformed. Finding themselves in the situation of earth-without-us, they come together to recognize and mourn their humanity. 

Artist Bio
Polina Kanis is a Russian interdisciplinary artist, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She is the winner of the Kandinsky Prize (2011) and the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize (2016). She graduated from the Rodchenko Art School (Moscow) in 2011. Her work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions, film festivals and film screenings, including a solo exhibition at the Haus der Kunst Munich (2017), the VISIO program at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (2019), the parallel program of the Manifesta 10, in 2015 at the Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (2014, 2018), the VI Moscow International Biennale of Young Art (2015), the Moscow International Experimental Film Festival (2016, 2018), the Hamburg Short Film Festival (2019) and many others. Her films are in the collections of numerous museums and foundations, including the Fonds régional d'art contemporain Bretagne, Fondazione In Between Art Film, Rome, Foundation Kadist, Paris, etc. Kanis was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten programs in Amsterdam (2017-2018) and ISCP New York (2020). Currently, Kanis’ works deal with the topics of labor, hierarchy, collectivity, the shifted relationships between people and the notions of resistance.