GENESIS PROJECT 2011
(New York)
Biographies of all participants
Paolo Cirio works as a media artist in various fields: net-art, public-art, video-art, software-art and experimental storytelling. He was born in Turin, Italy in 1979 and currently lives in London. His mixed media installations and internet based projects have been sustained by researches and collaborations, residencies and commissions and have been featured worldwide. Cirio investigates perception and the creation of cultural, political and economic realities that are designed by information through content, distribution and modes of media. Cirio has had numerous group exhibitions worldwide and he exhibited in major exhibitions and museums such as Laboral, Gjion, 2010; S.M.A.K, Ghent, 2010; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2009; Courtauld Institute, London, 2009; HMKV, Dortmund, 2009; PAN, Naples, 2008; MOCA, Tapei, 2007; Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, 2007; NTT ICC, 2006 Tokyo; among others.
http://www.paolocirio.net
Jesse Darling (b. 1980) is a journeyman artist currently based in London, UK. JD has a background in dance and physical theatre, but went on to study fine art at Amsterdam's Rietveld Academie and at St Martin's College in London. Responsive, collaborative, often site-specific, her work plays with entropy and contingency: structures (social, societal, archetypal and architectural) bricolaged together by magical thinking, gaffer tape and the "black foam" of intersubjective networks. JD works in installation, intervention and video, "dasein by design", and the spaces in which performance becomes unmediated experience. She has performed, published, collaborated and exhibited internationally. Jesse Darling also teaches experimental video and performance in community groups, and views this work as an important strand in her research.
http://bravenewwhat.org
Fitzgerald & Stapleton are a dance theatre company founded and directed by Irish artists Emma Fitzgerald and Áine Stapleton. Their work is complex and challenging – displaying an unrelenting and personal intimacy which refuses to be contained within a single narrative or identity. The relationship between language and experience is at the heart of Fitzgerald & Stapleton’s choreographic and performance techniques and for every production they create the duo write a text of performance directions known as a score. They will create their next production ‘The Smell of Want’ in Autumn 2011 as a co-commission between Abrons Arts Centre New York and Culture Ireland‘s Imagine Ireland festival. Their 2010 Chocolate Factory Theatre New York commissioned show ‘The Work The Work’ was described by the New York Times as “A strange and strong enough experience to suggest that the power of art is in its capacity to puzzle rather than to please”. The company is continuously accessing new audiences through their use of various media – they recently created a choreography for radio “In My Father’s Name” available to download - http://www.rte.ie/digitalradio/choice/index.html , and a web-based collaborative choreography with four Irish women ranging in age from eight to sixty-three “MINE” (2010) - www.choreograph.net . Their quartet “Starvin” is taught on the MA Contemporary Dance syllabus of the University of Illinois.
http://fitzgeraldandstapleton.com/
Jody Wood received her MFA in Expanded Media from the University of Kansas in 2009. She has exhibited at venues including Nexus/Foundation for Today's Art, The Spencer Museum of Art, D'adamo/Woltz Gallery, and was recently included in an annual Savior Faire Performance Art Series at Soho20 Gallery Chelsea in NYC. Her work has been awarded funding grants from the Spencer Museum of Art and the Multidisciplinary Research Building in Lawrence. Wood was a PONCHO recipient of a one-year artist-in-residency scholarship in Sculpture at Pratt Fine Art Center in 2004 and has been a visiting artist lecturer at Emporia State University and Pratt Fine Art Center.
http://www.jodywoodart.com
Genesis Project, New York
- Introduction
- Overview
- The Space
- Residency Structure
- Weekly Group Meetings
- Local Outreach and Visitors
- Documentation
- Post-Residency Web Contact
- Director Biography
- Culture Push
- 2009 Artists-in-Residence
Introduction
Genesis Project, New York provides a space for individualized artistic inquiry, defined by the chosen resident artists, for horizontal exchange of knowledge and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Genesis Project will involve 5 artists from diverse backgrounds who will be chosen for their combination of skills and curiosity to form a unique, dynamic group. The artists will converge at 319 Scholes in Bushwick, Brooklyn from August 1st-29th, 2011. International artists are encouraged to apply as up to two artists originating from outside of the US will be accepted into the project as artist ambassadors.
Overview
Genesis Project is a unique, month-long, artists' residency program catering tobody-based artists who identify as working between disciplines and/or seek to integrate other disciplines into their performance practice through individual experimentation and open-source collaboration. The project is modeled after Genesis Project, Dublin, Ireland, which began in 2004 when dance artists Julie Lockett and Ella Clarke, in conversation with seminal post-modern choreographer Deborah Hay, asked the question, “As an artist, what do I need?” Since then, Genesis Project has been recreated in different cities across the US. In August 2008, Genesis Project, Los Angeles was hosted by the gallery, Sea and Space Explorations, and was directed by Hana van der Kolk with assistance from Arturo Vidich. In 2009 the residency was hosted by Basekamp, a non-commercial studio and exhibition space in Philadelphia. This year’s residency is directed by Culture Push Co-Founder, Arturo Vidich.
The aim of the New York residency is to re-imagine the format of artist residencies. Genesis Project facilitates an environment wherein creativity is the act of investigation rather than production. The residency offers 5 artists work space for daily solo practice. It is the intention of Genesis Project to sharpen the potency of each artist’s daily practice while advocating the exchange of increasingly necessary interdisciplinary skills.
The project is hosted by 319 Scholes in collaboration with Culture Push. Each artist will receive a small stipend and a subsidy for local transportation. In addition, each artist is asked to raise $400-$500 (or more) from within their own communities of colleagues, friends, or family to subsidize their own living costs, including transportation and food. Institutional and/or government funding is also permitted. Fundraising will provide participants with an opportunity to articulate their artistic needs and to promote their involvement in the residency. It is anticipated that donors will be invested in Genesis Project and that the residency will cast a wider net of influence, functioning as a service not only for the resident artists but also for their communities.
The Space
319 Scholes, located in the historically industrial neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, supports the minds and needs of contemporary artists of various mediums. The physical space becomes an arena of exchange, allowing production and conception, practice and performance to come together and thus unite artists with their audiences. This attitude is reflected in the raw aesthetic of the physical landscape and unique architecture. Visit the website (319scholes.org).
Residency Structure
The unique space provided by 319 Scholes will be transformed into a self-sustaining artist habitat for the month of the residency. The 2,300sq/ft gallery space is partitioned into two rooms; one room will be a studio for daily solo practice and collaboration and the other room will be for sleeping, lounging, and a space for public dialogue. The sleeping space will contain 5 distinct, artist-designed abodes constructed as a group within the first days of the residency. Raw materials will be provided for construction.
Genesis Project artists will have exclusive and 24-hour access to all spaces within 319 Scholes. As such, they will be able to store supplies in the space and make it comfortable for practice/work sessions, rest, and gathering. Artists will have access to a shower, a kitchen, an array of construction equipment, a sound studio, video and projection equipment, and a library of literature contributed by the artists and the space. There is a 1,500 sq/ft basement for working with messy materials in addition to a 5,000 sq/ft rooftop which will be open for artists to grow food or to use for projects.
Each of the artists will work in the studio space for 2-3 hours a day, 5 or 6days a week throughout the month. Suggestions will be posted, to be referred to or not, for ways in which these interactions might be structured.
Weekly Group Meetings and Workshops
On Saturdays the group will gather for several hours to clean and maintain the studio, converse about the work they are engaged in, participate in optional showings, and evaluate and refine the structure of the residency. The weekly meetings may also include resident-led workshops and/or one or two-day workshops led by people from outside the residency. Resident artists may make proposals to lead a workshop or may suggest an outside workshop leader. Workshop topics could include video or sound production, various creative/movement practices, or other topics deemed useful, exciting, and relevant to the group. Throughout the residency, and particularly during the Saturday meetings, collective decision making about space maintenance, revisions to the residency structure, workshop topics and schedules, and other key components of the residency will be engaged as much as possible. The residency director will act as facilitator when necessary.
Local Outreach and Visitors
The resident artists will collaborate to design a one-day workshop for children from nearby schools. The workshop will incorporate the variety of skills and backgrounds each artist brings to the residency. Additionally, two public events will be curated by the artists, involving a guest lecturer or an open-house, to share the residency and ongoing work with the local community.
Documentation
Consistent documentation of all practices within the project will take place on a daily basis in written, photographed, filmed, and inter-media form. This will provide the artists with a way of reflecting on and developing their practice after the project as well as serving as an archive for the development of future incarnations of Genesis Project. A collective journal will also be kept for more extensive writing on individual practice sessions.
Post-Residency Web Contact
During the year following the residency (and beyond) Genesis Project artists will be able to stay connected via the project’s discussion board and website. Artists will be able to upload photos, video, and text to the site and may receive feedback on their current projects from the other participants. Artists will also be encouraged to discuss how the residency affected their work in an effort to further develop future incarnations of the project.
Director Biography
Arturo Vidich co-founded Culture Push in 2007, and co-directs the organization. He is an inter-media artist working mainly in performance and video. Vidich's work consists of actions and artifacts that revolve around his long-time fascination with bodies and behavior, both human and non-human. Beginning in 2003, Vidich’s performance work has been presented in New York by The Chocolate Factory, Abrons Art Center, New Museum, Dorkbot NYC, Brucennial 2010: Miseducation, SITE Fest 2010, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Movement Research, Catch Series, Dixon Place, Chashama, and AUNTS. In 2008, Vidich was awarded the Movement Research Artist Residency. In 2007, Vidich was awarded the International Artist Residency at the Red Stables, Dublin, Ireland. Vidich has collaborated and performed with Deborah Hay, Yvonne Meier, Daria Faïn, Allison Farrow, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Hari Krishnan, Eiko & Koma, Lower Lights Collective, Christopher Williams and Nami Yamamoto, and with Aki Sasamoto since 2001. He has a degree in Dance from Wesleyan University, and a graduate degree from ITP, NYU Tisch. In 2010, Vidich recieved a Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance) for his collaboration on Yvonne Meier’s Stolen.
http://arturovidich.com