Spring Starting: New Residents in March in NAC

Published on Monday, 17 March 2014 09:43

This is the beginning of March and freshness of spring is blowing in the air, snow disappeared and the ice is melting to the deepness of the lagoon. This early spring brought us four more new residents: Laura Skocek (AT) from Vienna, Gwendolyn Lootens and Gawan Fagard (BE) from Bruxells and Bas Katelaars (NL) from Rotterdam. Laurie Lax and Justin Tate Tyler will stay until the end of March.

Image: Laura Skocek

Laura Skocek (AT) is a multimedia artist. Like a scientist, she used to make researches and now she is trying to build a poetic bridge between art and science.
She is investigating elusive states of consciousness and natural rhythms and translate her research in alive sculpture. At NAC Laura would like to investigate that topic furthermore and find out more about text production during the timeframe between sleep and wakefulness.
http://www.behance.net/viablethings

Gwendolyn Lootens (BE) is a visual artist. She makes primarily drawings, collages, mini sculptures that can evolve into small installations. The work is a continuing dialogue on the preceding action between hand and mind. During her stay at Nida she will particularly involve the tranquility of the island and its exceptional light conditions. She might also be experimenting with her former practice in video.
www.gwendolynlootens.com

Gawan Fagard (BE) is an art historian and currently he works on a PhD at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich, where he is researching on sacred images in film and video art. Furthermore, he is involved as a scriptwriter and researcher in feature film project with the working title “The Fountains of Gods.”
In Nida he will be working on a treatment for “The Fountains of Gods” and also conduct research on the Lithuanian filmmaker Šarūnas Bartas. 
Read more here.

Bas Ketelaars (NL) practice includes drawing and sculpture.
In Nida he takes time to concentrate on making series of large graphite drawings. Using a projector he projects an image on a sheet of paper and then makes a drawing based on the imagery of light. He’d like to explore various basic drawing techniques in order to create images that have a clear visual transparency which involves the spectator in the process of creation.
http://bas-ketelaars.blogspot.com/

During February Laurie Lax (UK) has mainly been working with charcoal. After collecting and powdering the material, she has installed a temporal installation onto the frozen lagoon entitled Oblong (Kuršių Marios). It was important to re-visit the work and document it as the constantly changing weather conditions alter the piece.

Laurie has been exploring a new drawing technique using charcoal-dust which was favoured by the surrealists called Parsemage. Meanwhile, she is half-way through installing a geographically Nida inspired drawing which protrudes up to the first floor of the studio space. You can watch a video https://vimeo.com/88180516 and photos on her website.

Justin Tyler Tate (CA) is still working on his coffin, daily-life Yeti’s movie (which is already available for you to watch here) and now presented a new project named Secret castle.

Secret Castle is a chess board, table and seats for two installed in a hidden spot of the national park outside of Nida. The work is isolated in a part of the forest with dense tree growth, necessitating that only those who know the exact location of the installation are able to visit it.
Secret Castle modifies the existing space by giving visitors a purpose for being there while the space itself imbues the visitor with a feeling of isolation. The installation in its environment also encourages a reflective dialogue between the space and individual(s) but also between opponents, whereby individuals are able to assess themselves based on their relation to the other.The work develops over time, as the secret is slowly revealed to the local population, Secret Castle can become a point for clandestine meetings,tête-à-têtes, and private rendezvous.
During March, visitors will be invited to the work in pairs for a Secret Castle chess tournament. The winner of the tournament will be shown the location of the installation.

February NAC community was a mix of artists in residency, DJ’s, actors, film’s directors and Nida lovers. Like usual we had Thursday’s screening and our «various night dinners» to gather after working days.

Also February NAC community organized the first Ping Pong Champignonship and understood that the guests were well prepared as all top places were honestly won by Nida citizens.