February's news in NAC

Published on Sunday, 16 February 2014 19:16

It seems that previous residents from South America have taken the freezing Neringa weather and -15ºC with them and left us just some melting snow.
Now NAC is fully inhabited with our new residents: Henrik Heding (SE), Laurie Lax (UK), Justin Tyler Tate (JAV) and Allison Guy (USA/NL). Kalin Lindena from Germany just took the ferry from Klaipėda to Kiel. Months, residents, languages change in the Colony, and not the English has change the previously Spanish temperament.

Kalin Lindena (DE) is interested in the Gesamtkunstwerk – an art practice that includes all forms of expression: sculpture, movement, film, painting, drawing, installation…but here in Nida she was more focused on the drawing aspect. She is returning to her origins of Graffiti, using her signature or tag as a constant motif. Everyday she has been painting the same sign which has become more and more abstract to the point where she cannot read it herself. Through these 300 hundred plus drawings, everyday experiences of Nida have entered into her work allowing her space and time away from the urban city environment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_wnS27Q2Us

Dominik Bednarek (DE), fiancé to Kalin (a recent proposal made in Nida!) is one of the founders of SculptureBerlin, highly professional artwork fabricators based in Berlin-Wedding.They help artists all over the world realize ambitious sculptures, often in the public realm. In our beautiful NAC backyard Dominik has constructed a ‘wind-spinner’ made from recycled tins. http://www.sculptureberlin.com/

Henrik Hedinge (SE) seeks playful ways of communicating serious issues through performances. He’s concerned with modern science and engineering to understand what is needed for sustainable future. Here in Nida his focus is on local maritime traditions, researching via interviews and incidental encounters. Via food experiments, nearly everyday he has devised absurd participatory performances. For example in « Baltic Snacks » he invited an audience member to tape dried local fishes to his fingers  and proceeded to play Russian «finger roulette», slam them in the door, eat them and slice them off! This provoked the audiences reaction mix of horror and laughter due to the sympathy pains produced via «mirror-neurons». Now we are anticipating the next self-inflicted torture!!
www.henrikhedinge.blogspot.com

Laurie Lax (UK) is currently working with drawing and installation. She explores the visual and physical dynamic in between the reality of experiencing nature and representations of it. Resourcefulness is a continually increasing theme in her practice, expressed through use of readily available materials like pencil, paper, charcoal, chalk, sandstone and silt. She has realized being resourceful is more than just a necessity: Laurie enjoys the challenge of intuitively and sensitively responding to a place. Her specific interest lies in the potency of experiencing art in places that you might not expect. That is the reason for being in Nida where she will be honing her observational drawing skills and using the architecture of her studio to make an installation/event.
Previously Laurie has covered whole gallery floors with mud from deep lake, to create a «mudcarpet» or showed video installation on snow-wall so we can only anticipate a sand studio, we will wait for the incidental to occur.
www.laurielax.co.uk

Allison Guy (USA/NL) is an American theorist and writer (currently living and working in Amsterdam). She is working in the areas of animal studies, emerging (bio)technologies and topics that deal with the Anthropocene – the so-called «age of man». While at Nida, she will be working under the supposition that sea ice is a critically endangered living organism (such as a Polar bear). Using the methods and language of captive breeding programs, Allison will be raising sea ice in her studio for eventual release into the Baltic Sea. Throughout the weeks in the Colony «ice babies» have been appearing we hold our fingers crossed that we get more freezing weather to keep them alive!
Parallel to this Allison is using her time to write short stories which she rarely has the opportunity to do.
www.allisonguy.com

Justin Tate (USA) was born in Canada, grew up in the United States, has lived in Estonia  and has returned to Nida Art Colony, his «second home». He has participated in the majority of NAC symposiums and just began his third individual residency.
Often his work deals with the introduction of constructed elements into an unusual environments so that the two will create a dynamic point of contrast, resulting in the creation of social situations. During his time in Nida he is looking to break away from his usual methods of working on projects which will be more exploratory and slightly outside his comfort zone, typically involving engineered structures.
Farewell eve before Dominik and Kalin left and before the snow melts completely Justin heated the «luxury» sauna (one of his previous works, completely made of re-purposed materials) while at day time he is computer designing a cardboard coffin that you can download!
http://justintylertate.weebly.com/

Additionally we must write about our two helpful volunteers Ugnė and Kotryna. They have both just graduated in Vilnius Academy of Arts (Industrial Design and Architecture), been travelling in Mediterranean sea, now are staying in colony until the end of March and  their next stop is Iceland!

The daily life of NAC is simple as always – work at day and talk at night. Resourceful Laurie and Ugnė took the opportunity to make charcoal in the sauna heater with pieces of wood collected in the beach for Laurie’s drawings and made meringue using drill. We had many dinners organized by residents, such as onion soup, vegetable curry, «Baltic snacks», «Soviet sweets», alternative kibinai (traditional pastries popular with Karaite ethnic minority in Lithuania), lasagna and for the first time all residents gathered in the morning for an English breakfast made by Laurie for «Kings» (with salmon, poached eggs, and without beans!). We regularly play the game «Jenga» donated by Maricel Delgado and a photo-memory game made by Henrik Hedinge to show his previous performances in South America. Our ping-pong champion leadership players left (former Swedish residents: Sanna and Niklas) and soon we will probably organize a tournament between the new residents and the locals to fill our Sundays. So everyone is welcome!