Onassis AiR collaborates with BIT Teatergarasjen for the Transmissions Public Art Residency program
Four artists and cultural professionals immersed themselves in a three-week exploration of art and public space, fostering connections with local artistic communities and advancing their creative research. In the context of the bilateral project Transmissions, Onassis AiR joined forces with BIT Teatergarasjen in Norway, for a residency exchange program between Athens and Bergen.
Photo: Evi Nakou
The Public Art residency program aimed to highlight the importance of bringing art to the public space and stands as a beacon for facilitating broader public engagement with contemporary works while probing the role of art in societal perceptions.
Lisa Colette Bysheim, dancer and choreographer and Kristina Melbø Valvik, curator based in Norway, deeply engaged with public art in their artistic and curatorial practice, embarked on a journey to Athens for individual research residencies at Onassis AiR spanning June and July 2023. In the heart of Athens' cultural tapestry, they explored the intricate interplay between public art and their respective creative domains:
Lisa Colette Bysheim worked on her project “Dust Devil”, that explores the engagement of mass movement and togetherness in interplay with the public sphere. Through site-visits and observations of Athens’ public squares, a series of scores were developed based on the public’s movement pathways, patterns, sounds and interactions.
Kristina Melbø Valvik developed her ongoing research project that is inspired by Echolocation, a technique that uses reflected sound to determine the location of an object. Taking as a starting point the interference of noise pollution on the communication and navigation system of whales in the ocean, Valvik reflected on aspects of the ocean, sound, technology, and outdoor art works.
BIT Theatergarasjen hosted the Onassis AiR Fellows Evi Nakou, sound artist and Xenia Koghylaki, dancer and choreographer in Bergen, Norway.
Evi Nakou delved into her research “endless distances inside me, highways of quiet” which comprised a series of observations of multimodal testimonies and documented materials around the notion of gossip as an ephemeral and intuitive social practice denied. The materials and findings of this residency reflect personal and collective negotiations on how we make space and time for narratives to sound and resonate in the public space. During her stay, Evi Nakou led a hands-on workshop on collective transmedia poetry at USF Verftet in collaboration with BIT, where the local participants engaged with aspects of the artistic research and methodologies. She now continues to work on her research in Athens, as part of the Onassis AiR Fellowship program.
Xenia Koghylaki had the chance to work on the choreographic research project “Collisions, crashes and other ways of being together” that explored highly energized collective motion from the perspective of crowd rituals that arise within musical spaces. The project deals with the norms and constraints that determine bodily movement in public space and focuses on the crowd dance practice of moshing as a hardcore practice of extreme dancing. It explores the practice’s performative applications examining their sociopolitical context in relation to dance and notions of collectivity. Her research residency at BIT Theatergarasjen contributed to the development of “Slamming” which was presented as work in progress at the ODD Festival at Onassis Stegi in 2024.
The residencies are organized by Onassis AiR in collaboration with BIT Theatergarasjen within the framework of the Transmissions project, that is supported by the EEA Grants and the Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021. Transmissions is coordinated by Onassis Stegi in partnership with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival in Norway.
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