Arctic Action

From 26st of February to the 11th of March
Born 1986, Perth, Western Australia. Lives and works Perth.

Jacobus Capone’s practice incorporates performance, photography, video installation, painting and site-specific work. Characteristically evocative and poetic, his work frequently combines physically demanding durational performances with majestic, sublime landscapes. In 2007, he traversed Australia by foot, in order to pour water from the Indian Ocean into the Pacific.

The artist recently presented Forgiving Night for Day at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts as part of the 2017 Perth International Arts Festival, and was included in Primavera 2017 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia as well as the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art’s NEW16 exhibition. He has participated in numerous international festivals, fellowships, and residencies. The artist is the recipient of the 2016 John Stringer Prize and a finalist in the 2017 Ramsey Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Capone received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Edith Cowan University in 2007.

From the 20th to the 30th of March
Born in 1966, Yann Marussich, a unique character of the contemporary dance, delivers performances which have a true impact on the audience: « scraped, disturbing, provocative, authentic ». Since 1989, he signed a score of performances and choreographies diffused all over Europe and the world. From 1993 to 2000 he evolved in the field of artistic programation as director of the « Théâtre de l’Usine » (Geneva) where he programmed almost exclusively contemporary dance and more specifically new forms of expression. He is the founder of the ADC Studio (Geneva) created in 1993.

In 2001, Yann Marussich choreographs Bleu Provisoire, his first totally motionless piece. Since then, he is sinking into introspection and the control of stillness meanwhile confronting his body to diverse solicitations, or even agressions. That is where the poetic space of the performer is located, in an often violent contrast between what his body is undergoing and an absolute impassivity.

Today, he is moving towards solo performance and Body-art in its poetic aspect. His last performances which he considers as a fullfledged style have been presented in many festivals in Switzerland and abroad. Autoportrait dans une fourmilière [2003], Morsure [2004], Traversée [2004], Blessure [2005] and Soif [2006], Bleu Remix, Nuit de Verre [2007], Brisures, Ex-Pression [2009] and Bain Brisé [2010]. L’Arbre aux Clous, L’Oeuf du serpent and Glassed [2011] a collaboration with Carter Tutti, one of the pioneer of industrial music. Crash! and Hyphos with students of the Geneva University of Art and Design [2012], Rideau! [2014] and La Chaise with Filipe Espindola and Sara panamby [2015].

In December 2015 - January 2016, a performative exhibition of the works of Yann Marussich was programmed at BAC - Le Commun, called Experience of Immobility - 20 years of performance Acts in Geneva with the support of FMAC, Loterie Romande, the city of Geneva and Ernst Göhner Foundation.
In 2008, he won the Ars Electronica price in the category Hybrid Art with the performance Bleu Remix. He was an associate artist at the Grütli Theater for the 2010-2011 season. Since 2011, Yann Marussich is supported by the Department of Culture and the Municipal Fund for Contemporary Art (FMAC) of the City of Geneva.

From the 21st to the 29th of April
The woman as an occurring subject in my installations or performance work is represented as living in a state of occupation. This occupation or ‘occupying’ force is issued through political conditions within her environment and this results in influencing the otherwise peaceful quality of her world. There are both private and public elements that manipulate this world.

The occupying force has many facets: it can take the shape of physical tangible realities of the everyday, such as in a wall of concrete, a fence, a checkpoint, a curfew, a barrier of stone – or it can reassign it’s force unto a face of a child, a home, a language, and cultural, traditional expectations. There are limitations on her personal freedom as well: the woman, the mother, the lover, the guide, the protector. She seeks justice and longs for change. She is not blind to the opponents around her and pushes forward with enduring strength – and at times, she feels that it is almost as if she has to assume a sort of madness in her behavior so that she can live unharmed by oppression, in an attempt to always protect those she loves from negative forces of fear.

In my art works, the woman I represent lives in a world that attacks her values, her love, her spirit on a daily basis, and for this reason, she is in a state of occupation – and her world could be here in Palestine or elsewhere; and despite all, she looks towards her future with a smile.

The subject/woman I represent in the majority of my work is weighed down with oppression but is filled with ambition; she is saner than she should be and yet she is also a little mad. She is both fragile and strong, she is fully aware and responsive, and she is constantly on the move. And every move she makes, every act, is an act that exhibits awareness towards her surrounding environment, while simultaneously being an act of revolt towards social orders/conditions.

Raeda Sa’adeh (Palestine) was born in Um El Fahem in 1977, and received her BFA and MFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. She was the winner of the first Young Artist of the Year Award organised by the A.M.Qattan Foundation in 2000. Her work in photography, performance and video has been exhibited widely internationally in Europe and the US. Recent exhibitions include ‘Re-Orientations’ at the European Parliament, Brussels; ‘No Man’s Land’, at the GEMAK Museum, The Hague, Holland; ‘In Transit’, House of World Culture, Berlin; ‘Biennal Cuvee’, OK Centre, Lens, Austria (all 2008); Infr’action Festival International d’Art Performance, Se’te, France; and ‘About Time 2’, Kunstmuseum, Denmark (2007). Her work was included in the Sydney Biennial of 2006 and the Sharjah Biennial 8, 2007. She lives and works in Jerusalem. In 2015, Al-Monitor considered her among 50 people shaping the culture of the Middle East.

http://sharjahart.org/sharjah-art-foundation/people/saadeh-raeda

From the 21st to the 30th of July
Boris Nieslony was born 1945 in Germany, lives in Cologne. He has worked intensively as a performance artist, curator, archivist and independent scholar, staging various installations, interventions and artist projects since the 1970s. He is the founder of Black Market International, a performance group that meets regularly in various configurations to realise group performance projects. And also the instigator of the ASA foundation, a platform for a self-organizing rhizomatic network of performance artists and theorists.

Nieslony is recognizes as one of the most prolific and significant contributors to performance art. Nieslony creates unpredictable and unrepeatable improvisational performance works that manifest “an encounter and its effects”. Responding to local circumstances, Nieslony develops images attuned to the moment, rigourously searching for the truth of self-recognition at the intersection of history and live presence. His impressive performance style stems from the motto “life is art enough”.

Will take part of Arctic Action in August
Saskia Edens was born in Geneva where she is graduated in 2002 from the Ecole supérieure des Beaux-arts and the Ecole des Arts décoratifs. From 1999 to 2000 she studied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna. Today she lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.
Saskia Edens works with molten metal, video, photography, drawing, painting as well as with moulding techniques, performance and the elements. What is the common base to all these medium is the energy and the gesture that allows transformations process of matter and being. She performs the painting, draws with fire, or makes experiences under earth. After this encounter with the elements, she lets the entropy doing the rest.

Since 2007 she has been working profoundly on live performances, participating in international festivals of performances in Asia (2007 KEAF; South Korea; 2013 Guangzhou Live 4; Macau), in Europe: Nordic countries Diverse Universe Tour 2013, and Estonia, Latvia, Germany, UK, France (Infr'action, Le Printemps de Septembre), Serbia, Poland, Switzerland (Bone Festival, Art of Encountering, etc) Sweden, Spain and America (New York, Desert of Nevada).

In her performance art, she has collaborated with other artists like Non Grata group (Estonia) and sound artists like Daniel Buess, Mathieu Sylvestre and with the artist Jérôme Karsenti.

Her artworks (installations, videos) were shown in Switzerland and abroad -including in the Fotomuseum Winterthur (Darkside II), the Kunstmuseum Chur, in Kunstmuseum Thun, Kunsthaus Baselland, in the Wyspa Progress Institute in Gdansk, in the gallery Kritiku in Prague, in Kunstverein Freiburg and in the gallery Nicola von Senger Zürich.
Besides ephemerals actions, her Art-in-architecture project 'Magma' was realized in 2013 as a permanent installation for the School building of Brunnmattschulhaus in Basel.

www.saskiaedens.com

From the 10th to the 18th of September
Arctic Action is preparing to host 7 artists from Finland, Åland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, The Faroe Islands and Svalbard. The event will take place from the 10th to the 18th of September.
This project is a collaboration that will create a Nordic network between different island communities in the Nordic region and Gothenburg. We want it to happen through focusing on nature, food and performance art. The project is initiated by ComLab, Gothenburg. Partners in the project are: Live Action (Gothenburg), Performance Kitchen (Copenhagen / Faroe Islands), Åland Action Art (Åland) and Arctic Action (Svalbard). The selected islands taking part in the project are: The Faroe Islands, Åland and Svalbard with Gothenburg as the city partner. These islands are all remote with wild and impressive scenery. The communities on these islands are relatively small and the people are dependent on and influenced by the nature. Our goal is to arrange creative meetings between artists, visitors and locals, where we build our activities and art works around the existing sustainable society. We wish to do this through formal and informal gatherings, performances, workshops, discussions, artist talks and good local meals where we can learn more about each other in a relaxed atmosphere. We hope for interesting dialogues and close relations to create strong ties between the artists, but primarily between the artists and the society they meet for further cooperation and sustainable development in the spirit of art and culture.

Will take part of Arctic Action in October
Anne Rochat was born in 1982 in Vallée de Joux, Switzerland.
She positions the human body at the centre of her artistic work, a body flexible and strong, subtle and athletic, wild and acrobatic. Her postures are incongruous and a little absurd and lead her into offbeat situations, she expresses herself with forbidden gestures we can only dream of engaging in ourselves. The artist takes her position through actions both sensual and powerful, mellow and savage, disturbing, sometimes funny and always informed by rigouruous aesthetic discipline. Spectacular without being a spectacle, the live art performances of Anne Rochat invite us to marvel.

Rochat travelled widely in Asia, prior to her studies at Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne(ECAL). In 2011-2012, she took up an art residence in Varanasi. India, followed by a year long stint at the Swiss Institute of Rome(ISR). She has been awarded many notable prices including Prix Irène Reymond(2013), Prix Kiefer Hablitzel(2012), Bourse culturelle du Canton de Vaud(2011), Bourse culturelle de la Fondation Leenaards(2010), Swiss Awards, Art Basel(2010).