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S04E01
What do you think an aquarium is made for, is it just a container for the soul?
clara saito, eva susova, noha ramadan
WORK PERIOD 01.02 – 26.02 2021
SHOW 17.04 – 02.05 2021
Pictura Groningen, St. Walburgstraat 1, Groningen | Entrance €3
On February 1, 2021, members of the Jacuzzi collective (Amsterdam) Clara Saito, Eva Susova and Noha Ramadan began their work period of S04E01 at the resort. Together, they worked from this location on their group show, which will be on view at Kunstlieven Genootschap Pictura from April 17 till May 2.
The exhibition "What Do You Think An Aquarium Is Made For, Is It Just A Container For The Soul?" is a mix of video and installations, with a focus on dance, ecosystems and femininity/gender.
The Veiled Lady, Eva Susova | Audiovisual installation
Eva Susova involves the female voice in her work. In Pictura she shows her installation 'The Veiled Lady', consisting of organic materials such as branches, wood chips and a hanging mask, in combination with a sound composition that combines vocal recordings into a non-linear onomatopoeic story.
How To Cure Bacterial Vaginosis, Clara Saito | Video, 12:00 min
Clara Saito works with a palette of characters she imagines herself, allowing her to express critical (political) opinions to express critical (political) opinions. In her work 'How To Cure Bacterial Vaginosis' we see Lady Dada explaining the mysteries surrounding vaginal bacteria. Scientific facts surrounded by soft hugs. At the same time, the installation reminds us that the body will always rule us.
Dream_sequence.part, Noha Ramadan | 3 channel video loop, 8.12 min.
Video artist, performer and choreographer Noha Ramadan works with all these media simultaneously. In Noha's work 'dream_sequence.part' we see an infinitely estranged landscape in which three warriors dance. Performance as ritual. In the background, mysterious and repetitive sounds can be heard which are supplemented by a voice, an invitation to let yourself be taken into this threatening dream world.
LOCATION
This epsiode, the resort is temporarily moving into Art-Loving Society Pictura. From a series of activities, the resort develops its own approach in presenting art. It seeks an interaction between artists and environments through which new ways of working and contexts arise. The self-chosen nomadic form of the resort offers the possibility of always looking at locations with a special story or function.
Where Pictura (as the oldest art place in Groningen) has a rich history in showing paintings by De Ploeg, Karel Appel, Vincent van Gogh, Piet Mondriaan, Rembrandt van Rijn, the resort (as a young art place in Groningen) has a predilection for making combinations of locations and artists that are complementary to each other or that actually compliment each other. Pictura's classical building and history create a contrast to the interdisciplinary approach of the performative artists of this episode.
The monumental building of Pictura is used as an exhibition space to this day since 1934, and finds its origin in 1832.
SOUNDTRACK & PUBLICATION
The resort will issue its first publication with an ISBN number during S04E01. The text is written by Iulia-Irina Aionesi, who graduated this year from the RUG, direction: Theatre Criticism and Analysis. She talked to the artists about their working methods, inspirations and projects in the resort. The publication will be for sale from April 17 in Pictura and online via hetresort.nl.
In addition, for each episode the resort invites a musician to make a matching soundtrack. Juliette Lizotte, aka Jujulove, provided the music for S04E01. The soundtrack will be heard during the opening. Juliette Lizotte is a videographer, designer and DJ from Amsterdam. https://jujulove.eu
THE ARTISTS
EVA SUSOVA (1986) obtained her MA in Fine Arts at Sandberg Institute, her BA in Choreography at the SNDO at Amsterdam University of Arts. She works as an artist, a choreographer, a performer, and an educator.
Her work investigates the politics of the body, movement, voice- the corporeality, through the production of experiences. These experiences often allude to imaginative and speculative fiction. Her research centers around the female voice and the creation of ecosystems. Her work is necessarily and consciously in a dialogical practice with the intersectional feminist discourse.
EVA SUSOVA is a co-founder of Jacuzzi, an artist-run space at the crossroads of performance, visual arts, and time-based media in Amsterdam.
CLARA SAITO (1988) is a performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her BA in Dance and Choreography (School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam, 2014) is congruent with her interest in performance as a tool to explore and expand the limits of the self and its possibilities to enact effective changes in the world.
Her work, in combination with her life experiences became the base for her reflections on anarchism, practices of freedom and sustainable ways for living and creating. In her most recent works she puts in relation three of her main characters, Kurt Dickriot, Lady Dada and a confused version of Clara Saito. These characters have been performing solo and together since 2014.
She has been active since 2017 in the Amsterdam-run dance space Jacuzzi
NOHA RAMADAN's (1979) (they/her) artistic work starts with the body and manifests as text, performance and moving image, often with a clear drive to destabilise formal logic and allow subjects to appear as suggestive and poetic traits.
She is inspired by open and improvisational forms which privilege emergence, play and sensation over semiotics, as well as in the potential of working in close proximity with others. Her current body of work ‘all our weapons’ is a long-term research into power and ritual within artistic communities.
Noha is a co-founder of Jacuzzi, an artist-run space at the crossroads of performance, visual arts, and time-based media in Amsterdam. They graduated from Das Choreography in 2017 and are a mentor and teacher at the School for New Dance Development and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.
about iulia
Iulia-Irina Aionesi recently graduated from Arts, Culture and Media (RUG/University of Groningen), specializing in Theatre Criticism and Analysis. Her interest lies mainly in contemporary art practices and their intersection with ecology, public space and mobilities, but also topics surrounding more-than-human perspectives, intersectional climate justice, cultural anthropology, ritual decolonization and dance theory. Her research is focused on the practice of site-adaptive performances, through mobilities, interactivity and witnessing. By reinforcing these potentialities, Iulia is exploring the affordances of collaborative, co-creative and interdisciplinary practices.
about juliette
Jujulove aka Juliette Lizotte is a video maker, designer and DJ based in Amsterdam. Her current research focuses on witches as ecofeminist key figures. Learning from the subversive character of the witch: marginal, powerful and disruptive, with an unsettling relation to nature, Juliette invokes the powers of witches, their spell casting and their engagement with unconventional knowledges to empower bodies and minds.