Ystads konstmuseum och Bästa Biennalen har utformat ett internationellt residensprogram, The Art Nest, som riktar sig specifikt till konstnärer som är intresserade av deltagarinvolverande konstproduktion och sociala processer i sitt konstnärskap. Residensprogrammet drivs av Ystads konstmuseum och Bästa Biennalen med stöd från Region Skåne.
Konstnärer kan inte själva söka programmet utan vi utgår från de tips som vi får in. Maila oss gärna ditt eget förslag på artnestystad@gmail.com
In English:
The Art Nest: a residency for artists working with participatory art and social processes
Ystad Art Museum and Bästa Biennalen have designed a residency program aimed specifically at artists who are engaged in incorporating participatory art and social processes in their practice and who work or intend to work primarily with children and young people.
With this residency program we want to create meetings between our own regional art scene and international artists, a place to exchange experiences, to be inspired, and to work—with the focus on artistic processes that dissolve the boundaries between making art, curating, and teaching.
Each residency will be planned in dialog with the artist in terms of length of stay and content. With the Ystad Art Museum and Bästa Biennalen as a base, the resident artist will participate in all the region’s art offerings, tailored to his or her own interests and expertise and to the Biennalen’s participants and organization. The plan for each residency is developed in close dialog with the artist or artists.
Artists will be selected from a comprehensive search effort that relies on Ystad Art Museum and Bästa Biennalen’s networks for recommendations of artists who work within the intended guidelines. We will also solicit recommendations through websites and social media platforms. Artists will then be contacted and invited to apply to the residency program.
It is not possible to apply for the residency program but you can suggest artists to us, by mailing us at artnestystad@gmail.com
2018
Einat Amir och Amelia Ray. Foto: Ýrr Jónasdóttir.
Programmets första gäster kom till Ystad under hösten 2018 då den israeliska konstnären Einat Amir anlände tillsammans med den amerikanska musikern Amelia Rey. Einat deltog bland annat på konstmuseets kulturprat den 27:e september och Bästa Biennalens konferens om konstförmedling i förändring som ägde rum på Wanås konst den 5:e oktober. Amirs och Rays tid i Ystad resulterade också bland annat i ett performance som framfördes på det gamla Rådhuset i Ystad.
Einat Amir arbetar främst med video och performance. Hon är utbildad vid Columbia University i New York och har visat sina verk på bland annat MOMA, Whitechapel Gallery i London, Istanbuls konstmuseum och Bergens konsthall.
Amelia Ray har spelat på festivaler i hela Europa, bland andra Altstadzauber Klagenfurt och Jazz Festival Madrid, Hennes kompositioner har funnits med i dokumentärer och filmer på italienska, tyska, spanska och engelska.
Reflections on my time in The Art Nest Residency, September - October 2018
by Einat Amir
It’s challenging to propose a project that is based on participatory art and social processes to a place you never visited, to a community you are unfamiliar with.
It’s hard from obvious reasons, of not knowing what could be relevant to the area and its people, but also for the fear to project one’s own assumptions and stereotypes on a place, since the lack of actual knowledge leaves a lot of room for such thoughts.
It’s also difficult, not to be drawn too much into romanticism and beautiful aesthetics ,when you’re invited to a residency in a small medieval town that has beautiful beaches that are connected to a beautiful small forest, cobblestone colorful buildings and a night watchman that blows a horn every single night from the highest tower.
So, when I was invited, along with my collaborator the musician Amelia Ray, to do a community based project as part of a new residency - The Art Nest, we started thinking - what can we possibly bring to Ystad that would be meaningful to its people?
We thought about ways in which we can learn more about the backdrops of the town - the things that wouldn’t come out in an ordinary conversation with an outsider. We came up with the idea of investigating letters of complaints that the citizens of Ystad had written to its municipality. We were very happy that the wonderful people of the Art Nest managed to get the municipality to give us access to dozens of such letters.
After reading the letters, feeling a bit more informed about what is going on around us, we decided that we want to hear more about the burning issues. And we had the perfect opportunity - election day. So we went the the local polling place and bothered voters with questions about their hope for the future. Maybe here is a good time to mention - neither I or my partner Amelia speak Swedish. Which means that in any interaction we had with the local community - we had to use a translator. And that raises, of course, another big question: Can you really connect with a place, with a culture, can you really understand local issues without understanding the local language?
I’m going to jump to the end of our stay, and try to answer the questions I raised here, in a very specific, un-objective way: For our performance, we did give in to some romantic local aesthetics: we chose the beautiful old town hall as our venue. Also, we ended up inviting the night watchman and his horn to participate. We also, however, did our best to address the different issues we heard about during our one month stay. We did it in the form of inviting anyone who wished to speak during the event to come to the podium and answer a question. The questions were given to each audience member in a sealed envelope. Each person received a different, very open question from us. In this questions, we tried to encourage our local audience to speak out about the issues that mattered to them, which (according to what we heard and read during our stay) include: The harbor development, the rise of the right wing parties, pot holes in the roads, elderly care, emergency care, special ed, school buses, and much more. Our contribution to this “town hall meeting” was a portrait of the town based of our research, composed into song, as well as composing songs in real time - based on what people chose to say in this event.
But then, in the live performance, something unpredictable happened: most of the people who spoke up, chose to answer their open question in a different way than expected: they spoke about love, happiness, broken hearts, dead relatives they missed and childhood memories. So, maybe, in this context, we already know each other, everywhere we go. Our truly burning questions are the ones that we all share.