AiR BKN KONSTNÄRER 2023

Melissa Vandenberg, Kentucky

Born and educated in Detroit, Melissa is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and curator living in Eastern Kentucky. Her work surveys a devolving socio-political landscape using myths surrounding patriotism, pride, and partisanship as points of departure. Narrowing world views and false perceptions of a "homeland" prompts creative projects that respond to bodies, prejudice, violence, and unrest. The physical works employ commonplace media—matches, fabric, handkerchiefs, flags, hangers, vases, and other familiar and domicile materials. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and abroad in Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Iceland, and Sweden. Melissa received a BFA in 1999 from Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan and a MFA in 2005 from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She has been the recipient of numerous grants including a Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant, the Al Smith Fellowship, Great Meadows Foundation Travel Grant, and was shortlisted for the Luxembourg Art Prize in 2016. Her work is in the collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, Gummifabriken in Värnamo, Sweden, 21c Museum in Louisville, KY, and the Rockwell Museum in Corning, NY. Melissa is an Associate Professor of Art at Eastern Kentucky University and Director of the EKU Giles Gallery.

At BKN Vandenburg will work to finalize a temporary public artwork. She will conduct workshops at BKN and at Norrtälje konsthall towards the exhibition Trickle.

Melissa Vandenberg is represented by Maus Contemporary in Birmingham, AL.

Studio: 3
Dates: June 3- July 3

Anabelle Schattens, Brussels

I am a French-Belgium photographer based in Brussels – born in Venezuela, raised in 3 continents and 5 different countries. I have been a photographer for 30 years. I have graduated in Belgium with a communication licence specialized in art applications (IHECS) and a photography licence (School of Agnès Varda).

My generation has lived through the decline of analog photography, and seen the rise of digital photography. I have always worked in documentary photography – with a preference for analog photography and its laboratory. For almost 12 years now, I have specialised in antique photography and printing processes. More specifically in the wet plate collodion, a handmade photographic process from 1850s – contemporary to the birth of photography. Working with a view camera and heavy lenses from 1890s, this process requires the final image to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed in a very short period of time, necessitating a portable darkroom (installed in the trunk of my car). The result is a single positive photography, created from chemistry and light, captured on glass or aluminium plate.

Why using such an antique process, slow in terms of exposure (0.5 ISO) and heavy into carrying material carried around (about 20 kilos) and complex in terms of final image revealed (need an immediate development which implies a close-to-hand mobile darkroom)? The slowness of the process allows me to sublimate the act of photographing itself. I enjoy being fully independent by producing the positive with raw materials – without depending of companies to purchase my negatives. I love exploring the possibilities of chemistry reaction while making a photograph as well the immediate revealing of the image (a little bit as a polaroid).

During the Björko art residency, I will pursue my wet plate collodion photographic body of work focussed on landscape and the inner relationship you may have with it at the time of photographing. I seek a final image where the permanence of the landscape merges with my impermanent original impression. Memory is not a duplicate of the original, but a continuing act of creation (as commented Rosalind Cartwright, researcher of the science of the unconscious mind). In a way, the exercise of our memory does not bring us closer to the past, but draws us farther away. Whatever you see, is never seen as the same by the eye of memory again. Photography would seem to preserve it – but in the end, photography rather corrupts the past, by creating your own memory.

I will also continue my printing work, in the analogy laboratory of the residence, using the antique kallitype process. Again, the use of raw chemistry, sensitizing paper and exposing to the natural UV light, goes in the same intention of being fully independent in the process of creating an image from raw material and with the help of natural light.

Website: www.anabelleschattens.com

Instagram @anabelleschattens

Studio: 11 (lower darkroom)
Date: July

Sibylle Feucht, Bonn

Residency BKN 2023

The questioning of the image as a depiction, as a visual narrative and as a supposed construction of reality is a central aspect of my artistic practice. The image, in my case this often means the photographic image, has long since left the representation of reality behind and consciously intervenes in the construction of the world (perception) in different areas and changes it. The world of images in which we live take possession of our thoughts, feelings and expectations and determine how we see the world. – There are hardly any places where we have not already been through pictures before we physically enter them for the first time. This creates a certain uniqueness and one-dimensionality of perception. In and with my work, I try to give back aspects of blurring to these actual shortenings of perception, to question familiar concepts of thinking and perceiving and to add other, new ones to traditional narratives.

Project Dark Matter

My fascination for the darkness and for the night goes together with the fascination for what can be seen or perceived and what stays in the shadows, of what we know and of what we can only guess. Day and night, light and darkness are different reference systems that have their own narratives that seem to be ubiquitous and globally the same. – The day and the light are connected to the live, the new, the hope, whereas the night and the dark are connected to death.

Only through the invention of gas- and electrical light at home and in public space this changed a bit by expanding the hours of light into the darkness. We are now living in an era where we are so much used to have light whenever and wherever we want that experiencing darkness becomes a rare event. Usually, it is necessary to travel to remote places or go to the mountains for that.

During a residency in Slavutych/Ukraine in 2018 I experienced this darkness within a city. On one side the streets have been much less lit by lamps then we know it from our cities in western Europe and on the other side only half of the apartments were occupied, therefore at night half of the windows remain dark.

To understand this darkness and what it did to me I started to experiment with taking images of and in the darkness. During the Corona lockdowns in Germany, that also constituted a form of darkness I continued to work with the material generated in Slavutych and realised that I want to dive more into this motive of darkness that is also always attached to solitude and isolation.

The residency at BKN during the darker time of the year provides the perfect context to experience the darkness in an intense way and research further into this field to continue my photographic project as well as develop new work.

Bio

*1961 in Kaufbeuren/GER, lives and works in Bonn/GER as a freelance artist since 2010, previously in Basel/SUI.
Studied biology at the Biozentrum Basel/SUI, diploma thesis at the University of California, Los Angeles/USA (UCLA); Art studies at the F + F School for Art and New Media, Zurich/SUI (www.ffzh.ch); Executive Master in Design | Art + Innovation, University of Design and Art, Basel/SUI (www. fhnw. ch/hgk).

Solo and group exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad; Acquisitions of works by institutions and private
collectors; Studio grants including Cité des Arts, Paris/F and Rotterdam/NL (international studio
exchange of the Christoph Merian Foundation, www.iaab.ch), Urban Residency Slavutych/UKR,
www.86.org.ua/en, travel grant from the Frauenkulturbüro NRW (Armenia and Georgia). Nominated for CityARTists 2020, www.cityartists.de. Research residency Goethe on Mallorca by Goethe Institute Barcelona and Casa Planas, Palma/ES

Since 2011:
Founding, management and curation of the artist-run, nonprofit art space DAS ESSZIMMER – space for art+ (www.dasesszimmer.com) in Bonn/GER.

Artist webpage: https://atworld.ch

Studio: 35
Date: March 15-May 15

Grant: Culture Moves Europe >>>

Sue Carlson, New York

My first training was in classical music, a language expressing emotion through its structure, elements. In my paintings, my aesthetic expression and structure is fundamentally musical. With repetition and permutation of “motifs”, subtle differences between permutations become expressive. Color reminds us of light, space, expansion. I use few pigments or brushes to see how expressive a work can feel with minimal tools. I create visual compositions, like musical scores, a language existing between music and painting.

I have been researching nordic landscape painting and ancient Scandinavian runestones. 19th century nordic landscape painting depicts the sublime in light, sky, water. I have observed and photographed the Scandinavian sky, comparing it to expression of the sublime in 19th century paintings. I use horizontal lines as an organizing element in painting, a horizon or a line of music in a score. Recently I’m adding the circle. Horizontal lines and circles are fundamental drawing elements, organizing an open painterly space without restricting the expansive feeling of a sky.

The Rök runestone in central middle Sweden, dated to around 800 AD, is the longest Old Swedish runic text existing from this time period .The stone’s lengthy text is newly translated and is now believed to consist of nine riddles or parables about Norse cosmology, the sun and moon, Odin, fear of climate catastrophe and the death of a beloved son . Using ancient images from other Scandinavian stones, I’m creating pictures of the riddles and parables in this complex text. I am continuing this work at BKN, depicting the feeling of Swedish light, sky, water, the sublime in landscape, along with ancient shapes and images. I look for a new sense of the sublime, through ancient symbols, simple geometry, space and light.

Dates: April 13 - May 15
Studio: 11

www.suecarlson.net

Juanma González, Botkyrka

Juanma González is a Spanish artist who works and lives in Alby, Botkyrka Kommun. For 8 years, his research interests have been concerned with the act of walking as a practice for artistic production. Interested in the idea of normality in everyday contexts, he creates situations where new meaning can arise. Walking becomes a device to explore the environment and gather people in participation-based activities and meaningful meetings. He began his art career after studing photography at Universidad Europea (Madrid, 1999). In 2016, Juanma received his MFA from Kungl. Konsthögskolan. His art education has continued through postgraduate courses: Research_LAB at KKH (2017), "Sites and Situations" at Konstfack (2018), “Site and Participant” at Dramatiska Högskolan (2020) and The Photographic Artist’s Book: Performing sustainability" at KKH (2022). Also he uses his walking practice as a teaching tool. For Kungl. Konsthögskolan, he has coordinated and led two workshops for students and professors: one workshop-trip to Madrid in 2019 and one day-workshop inspired by studiecirkel in 2020.

Studio: 3
Dates: Feb 1-30
https://www.juanmagonzalez.com

Malga Kubiak

Malga Kubiak is quite a legend. She is a poet, writer, performance artist, musician and independant film-maker.

Her impact on cultural life in Gothenburg in the 1980’s was immense. To mentiontion a few of her projects from that time DS Art Ensemble, MissMess and GBG Poetry Art Festival.

Kubiak is educated in Sweden and Japan ( 1974 Sweden Performance School at Yoshio Nakajima, 1975 Valand Konstskola. She is not only influenced by the aura around Saint Marks in New York she was part of creating it.

Kubiaks works have been screened at a number of legendary places since the mid 90s among them Anthology Film Archives in New York City.

She has created more than 40 personal independent films and published a handful of books among them OMS (One Man Show) 2022.

During her stay at AiR BKN Kubiak will be filming, turning segments of her published work into audio files and later in the year do a Public Festival on Feb 25th.

Awards:

2015 Polar Bear from Tupilak (Scandinavian LGBTHTQ Organization) for movies of last decade on LGBT Icons.

2015 Public Award for PPPasolini & PPPasolini Epilog at Warsaw LGBT Film Festival Poland

On public screening sites her works have in some cases been censored.

In Collections:

Malga Kubiak The Ego Trip at MoMa, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Film Form Stockholm, Valand Library VHS, Anthology Film Archives - Umatic, Easy TV Los Angeles - U'matic

Residency Dates: Last week February + aug/sept (tba)

https://www.vegabryggeri.se/event/11 & Project space

PUBLIC PROGRAM @ BKN Aug 2023 - TBA :

MALGA KUBIAK PERSONAL FESTIVAL

Screenings and readings (with audience, and web cast)

This event is an event full of works by Malga Kubiak. It will lead up to a new film. Many of the people appearing in her films or as part of the team will come to join her at Björkö.

Visitors can rent cabins or pitch a tent in the area.

Hosted by Björkö Konstnod SWEDEN.

Arr: HYBRID by BKN

Readings & Official book release Sweden

SPECIAL INVITATION:

Art Mess special invitation (some acccommodation can be arranged)

Marina Pugina, Berlin/St Petersburg

An independent curator, art manager, and researcher of local art communities. She usually works with contemporary art archives, various forms of artistic self-runs, modes of temporal collectivity, and co-participation.

This is my fourth visit to Stockholm, the first was five years ago when I was involved in participating in the Supermarket Art Fair with one of our artist's self-run, then I returned a year later for the EUNIC residency program for young curators at Tensta Konsthall with Maria Lind and it was quite a dive into the local art scene. The last time I was here was in 2019, so I'm very excited to be able to come and see everyone again and make new connections and contacts.

Grant: SWAN

Jan 23-April 23

Studio: 1

Public Presentation: TBA

Maria Heine, Copenhagen

My interests are in people and the environment. Maybe this stems from starting as a photojournalist in an urban environment forced to heed people and their pollution. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to see an environment without people. Or maybe it’s because these two things continue to surprise me in the best and worst ways.

In my analog photography practice, this broad interest has become suddenly personal. Me and my environment. A reflective moment to take stock of my self. That 26-year-old self living in Copenhagen, DK.

At BKN, I will continue looking inward with Far Away—a deeply personal project on my own psychological and artistic processes. In which attempts at emotional growth are bound to my development as a photographer and writer. More specifically, the documentation of my dissociative tendencies will come face to face with learning traditional darkroom techniques and the refinement of my prose. Creating a mixture of thoughts, feelings, stories, coping mechanisms, cameras, film, light, chemical baths and paper working to close the distance I place between myself and the world.

Studio: 3
Date: April

Grant: NAN/Nordic Artist Network

Mai S Keldsen, Copenhagen

My work during the residency at Björkö, will be directly inspired by the surroundings near the darkroom that I will be working at. I will be making photographs of the surrounding area and when printing I will use materials that I have collected while photographing. I have therefore prioritized darkrooms that are situated in places where the landscape seems to have a strong influence on the people who live there and vice versa. I have also wished for darkrooms where I will get to be in contact with a local community of both photographers and non-photographers (through artist talks, presentations, introductions or the like), since getting to know and understand the places where I am working is an important part of the project.

My practice reflects on historical and spiritual aspects of landscapes through a playful and conceptual photographic method and deals critically with questions of position, storytelling and sustainability.

In 2018 I received the Caspar David Friedrich Prize, and since 2022 I have been a teacher at Fatamorgana, the Danish school of art photography.

MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2020) and studied at Maumaus Escola des Artes Visuais in 2016. My work unfolds in photography, artist-books and installations.

Studio: 11
Date: May 18 - June 8th

Grant Nordic Culture Point via: Nordic Analog Network

Ekaterina Sisfontes, Stockholm

"Jag är en konceptkonstnär som arbetar med många teman och material.

I mer än 20 år har jag ställt ut på den internationella arenan. Jag deltog i många biennaler av samtida konst, bland annat som kurator för speciella projekt. En stor skulptur för ett offentligt utrymme är särskilt attraktiv för mig samtidigt använder jag av teknik som är mest lämplig för det tema som jag vill ta upp. Det kan vara allt från foto, teckning, målning, video, performans eller annat.

Som konstnär önskar jag forska bland luckor i allmänna mänskliga teorier om den omgivande världen. Jag ställer frågor till mig och min publik genom att undersöka misstag och felaktigheter i den allmänna mänskliga uppfattningen om den. Det gör jag genom skapandeprocess där formen är lika viktig med innehållet." ES

På BKN kommer hon att arbeta med ett tillfälligt offentligt verk för utställningen Rännil/Trickle..

Hon är medlem i Studio 44 och grundare av Duo Contradiction.

Studio: 35

Date: 15-30 maj

Louise Shaw, Henley on Thames

I am a multi-disciplinary artist based in Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, UK.

Working across made objects, site-specific installation, sound and video I choose the medium as a vehicle best suited for travelling the terrain of an idea. Each medium invites different ways of exploring, an experiential process that embraces a less linear, more holistic perception and learning that evolves through the making.

Creating site specific work, interactions and interventions, experiences for people to bump into outside of the gallery confines, is increasingly important in my practice.

Driven by curiosity, threads that connect my work weave through ecologies and natures; human, non-human and the complexities of relationships in between. A touch existential I guess.

Sensitivity to environment and site are vital to my process. Ideas grow from an intimate sensory encounter with place or time.

Whilst at Bjorko Konstnod I plan to take full advantage of extended time away from day to day and the dominant influence of man, to be a speck in the landscape - to just be. To open up my senses, dig deeper into the stuff of the place. To work with what’s there - the aqua, flora, fauna, twilight, the cold and time.

AiR BKN STUDIO GRANT

Studio 11

Dates: Dec-Jan

http://louiseshaw.co

Jan Wallyn, Brussels

Jan Wallyn (33) was 8 years old when they met their first love: sound. As a teenager, they translated their classical music training into digital music production. After a decade of combining both musical and choreographic practice, Jan started focussing on sound design.
At age 24, they started at the open art-house Zinnema as artistic director, later as general director.

Eight years later, Jan quit their position at the Brussels based arts house, and decided to devote their time on where it all began: sound.
Throughout the last years they’ve been making sound sculptures starting from a very simple prompt, processing sounds and non-musical recordings to their essence and create musical language with them.

Jan will be making a sonic portrait of Björkö: “I want to start a series of sound sculptures of different places in the world. Björkö is a very interesting environment for me to have my first research and practice to create a series of geographical sound sculptures. Its rural location and history as a fishing island is something I want to capture sonically. Conversations with locals, recordings of nature, human activity, and its silence are all inspiring triggers to me. The results can sometimes be meditative, sometimes visceral, other times rhythmical. The goal is to create a sonic exhibition.”

Studio 1

Dec 19 2022 to Jan 12 2023

Katarzyna Łukasiewicz

Katarzyna Łukasiewicz is a polish photographer, anthropologist, culture animator, and educator. Her projects have usually a documentary approach. She's interested in human and socio-cultural environments and often uses anthropology in her research. She graduated from Polish National Film School in Łódź, Polish Culture Institute and Pedagogy Faculty at Warsaw University.

In black and white medium format analog photography and analog prints, I would like to work with the subject of silence. According to the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, through silence, and in silence, it is possible to achieve a complete image of the song of life. Silence shows what is present and what is absent, what is covered and what is uncovered. I would like to picture and reflect on silence in the surroundings: landscapes, human gestures, and objects. I have chosen the theme of silence, which I would like to explore precisely in the country and society known for silence, solitude, and the smell of trees.

Simultaneously, being in the place where forest meats sea, I will also experiment with the painting and subject of landscape.

www.katarzynalukasiewicz.com

Scott Hunter, Scotland

Scott Hunter is a visual artist and researcher operating in the environmental humanities who adopts a phenomenological approach to studying the landscape. Intrigued by ecological resistance and intelligence, his current project focuses on how nature reclaims barren landscapes and the ecologies that emerge in post-industrial sites. Integrating photographic fieldwork with camera-less imagery, he works with site-specific materials to provide deeper insight into the entanglements between humans, materiality, and the environment.

Recent project Am I The Wasteland? formed part of his MFA in Contemporary Art Practice at Edinburgh College of Art, receiving the FEUVA award for outstanding student work and awarded with a solo exhibition at the esteemed Summerhall venue in Edinburgh. Pushing the boundaries of photography, his research explores the aesthetic and scientific importance of visually representing the Anthropocene.

Comprising experimental photography, soil chromatography, and found objects from the landscape, his fieldwork draws from astute observations of the local terrain. Recent projects include recording increased precipitation directly onto photosensitive paper, scientific photographic representations of soils, and utilising organic matter -like mosses and algae- to make analogue photo developers.

Working directly with raw materials, Scott considers the origin of each material and their symbiotic relationships within the construction of images. By embedding the materiality of the landscape into the work, he asks whether a photographic practice can mediate between industrial and ecological activities.

During his time at BKN, Scott will conduct a site-specific investigation of the surrounding area, combining photographic fieldwork with soil chromatography and in-situ cameraless work using materials sourced ethically from the landscape. The study elaborates on his current Darkroom Ecology project that explores nature-based solutions to harmful chemicals used in analogue photography. By utilising the residency's darkroom facilities, he intends to expand this process beyond black and white negatives to include wet prints. In addition, he will replace silver-containing fixers with saltwater to provide a non-toxic alternative to the disposal of heavy metals in water systems.

To complement this research, Scott's Darkroom Pedology project builds a library of soil chromatograms from diverse sites to enable comparison between areas
considered pristine; and those deemed contaminated. In Björkö, he will extend the library to include pioneer species -such as lichens, mosses, and algae- to broaden our awareness of how ecological successions may emerge in such landscapes and develop into climax communities(forests) through time. Fascinated by the relationship between the wilderness of the forest and the agency of the sea, he will use his time at BKN residency to reflect, experiment with new fieldwork techniques, and develop a new body of work.

AiR BKN STUDIO GRANT LENS 22
Studio: 3
Dates: Nov 19-Jan 31
https://cargocollective.com/scotthunter
https://www.instagram.com/scott_hunter_artist

Madeline McLinden, Baltimore

Madeline McLinden (she/they) is a queer visual artist based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, that works primarily with photography, filmmaking and text based artworks. They will be graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Film at the Maryland Institute College of Art in early December of 2022.

Madeline has received many scholarships and awards, some of which include the Leonard L. Grief Scholarship in both 2021 and 2022, The Netherwood/Riser Memorial Scholarship for Photography in 2022, and the GO-A Opportunity Award in 2022 to fund their summer internship with Guggenheim Fellow, Angelo Madsen Minax, to assist with production of his new film in San Francisco, California. Madeline has also had their short documentary film, DO US PART, premiere at the MICA-JHU Film Festival in 2022.

Their art practice centers around themes of documentation and archiving as well as the physical effects of the passing of time. They work with experimental methods such as shooting with expired film, creating light leaks and processing color film as black and white film and manipulating negatives in the darkroom.

During my residency at Air BKN, I plan on creating a new site specific project that delves into the intricacies of flesh and soil through a series of analog photographs of my human form and the landscape. The soil in Björkö, Sweden is overflowing with history. I plan to learn more about the soil, land and water of Björkö, Sweden in order to guide my artistic approach of using found elements of nature. Through using my body as a vessel to become closer to the sea and forest, I will also manipulate my film negatives. I am my art and my art is me, thus I plan to take my negatives and immerse them in the land and water, just as I will do with my own body.

Where the sea meets the forest, I would like to come alive again. To mold my body into the earth. I want to dig my feet and fingers into soil and smell the deep fresh blue water. I want to merge with the forest green. I want to connect back to mother nature. I want her to plant roots in my soul.

AiR BKN STUDIO GRANT

Studio: 5 + 35

Dates: Dec 19 2022 - Jan 21 2023

Patricio Salinas, Björkö/Stockholm
Photographer/Artist

Periodistacultural,fotógrafo,crítico,curador.Trabaja entre Estocolmo, Barcelona y Santiago de Chile. Ha sido publicado en medios como Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet y ETC en Suecia; La Vanguardia en Barcelona; y Clarín en Buenos Aires,entre otros. Photographer, critic, curator and cultural journalist. He works between Stockholm, Barcelona and Santiago de Chile. His work has been published, in the cultural pages of Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, ETC, in Sweden, La Vanguardia of Barcelona and Clarin of Buenos Aires, among others.

Cultural journalist, photographer, critic, curator. He works between Stockholm, Barcelona and Santiago de Chile. He has been published in outlets such as Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet and ETC in Sweden; La Vanguardia in Barcelona; and Clarín in Buenos Aires, among others. Photographer, critic, curator and cultural journalist. He works between Stockholm, Barcelona and Santiago de Chile. His work by him has been published, in the cultural pages of Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, ETC, in Sweden, La Vanguardia of Barcelona and Clarin of Buenos Aires, among others.

Patricio Salinas is the head of Björkö Darkrooms located at BKN >>>

Dates: Jan 18 -Feb -28

Studio: 11

Public Presentation: TBA

Anna Viola Hallberg, Stockholm

Anna Viola Hallberg's work - as an artist and curator - interacts with specific communities, while addressing social or political contingencies and by this, taking on a critical stance towards public space/sphere an in the process relating to existential matters for the indiviualas as well as through society.

Hallberg's artistic practice is informed by the notion of in-betweenness, as personal experience and geopolitical position. Her methodology in the immersive space-narrations of video, sound, photography, and text brings forward a discussion on the documentary of experience, remembrance, and emotions rendering collective memory/affect and the work for social justice.

Hallberg's practice, based on dialogical aesthetics, explores the relationships between embodiment/experience and audiovisuality, spatiality and time, through discursive and immersive video-based installations. She works with subordinate thematics from a documentary point of departure focusing on experiences and emotions. At times connecting the material with archival discoveries.

Hallbergs project at Björkö interacts with the work and life of René Malais and is supported by KC Öst.

Hallberg is the curator for AiR BKN and HYBRID by BKN.

Dates: Jan 23 - Feb 28

Studio: 35
Public Presentation: fist weekend in June.

Ami Skånberg, Brännö/Stockholm

Has a PhD in Dance from University of Roehampton, UK, is a performer, choreographer, filmmaker and teacher. She is the current Head of the Master’s programme in Dance Education at the Stockholm University of the Arts, and also works at Academy of Music and Drama at University of Gothenburg. Ami has co-chaired the Nordic Summer University Study Circle of Artistic Research with Dr Lucy Lyons. She is a member of the Peer Review board of Journal of Artistic Research. Ami often creates stage work (solo, and collaborative) based on her embodied life story in a particular theme. Ami makes dance films and documentaries about dance. Her debut film won an honorary mention at VidéoDanseGrandPrix in Paris 1995. She walks slowly as a ceremonial, subversive act thanks to her studies with Nishikawa Senrei and work with Japanese dance in Kyoto since 2000. Her research interests are practice-led and concern gender codified movement practice, non-hierarchical processing of global dance techniques, and auto-ethnographic accounts from within the practice.

Jan 31 - Feb 7, 20-26 feb
Studio 35

Anna-Lena Moberg, Stockholm and Luleå

My first visit to Björkö Konstnod in October 2021 as an Artist in Residence was a very intense, creative and productive visit, and my work developed in a new direction. Meeting people in the house and experiencing the surrounding nature was very inspiring. In February 2022 I had the pleasure to return and continue my work for two weeks, and I am glad to return yet again.

I am an abstract painter, working with acrylics, mixed media and collages with acrylics as a base. The process is of great importance to me. Ideas come easily, and I work intuitively, which is risky but surprising - and that excites and motivates me. Sometimes I work quite expressively with colour, form, contrast and rhythm in focus, and other times with more methodical and mindful repetitions which turn into a series of variation on the same motif.

At the moment I am working on some kind of reconstruction; cutting old paintings to pieces and using them in new contexts and constellations. I recycle, remake and remix my own work. One of my current themes is dresses where the dress is allowed to become something new by taking on a more abstract shape.

I have shown my works in art galleries and museums, juried group exhibitions, and I have also had some solo shows.

Feb 2-16

Studio: 5/35

Derek Oliver, Stockholm
Writer/Poet/painter

I am predominantly a landscape painter, using acrylic on hardboard and hardback book covers. I am drawn to the woodlands, copses, plantations and other tree configurations of my surrounding area: Björkhagen, Nackareservatet, Ältafältet but also further afield: Värmland, Skåne, Gotland and my native Scotland also feature in my work. I am interested in our relationship with the woodland and how it has developed: as a source of fuel, a hunting ground, the many symbols, the mystery and memory, and how it continues to affect our collective subconscious. We are consistently trying to understand what the forest is. I aim to interpret the impression, the experience of landscape without trying to impose a pre-conceived order upon it.I see myself in the modern landscape tradition of Beckmann, Nolde and Kirchner and in Sweden by Åke Pallarp and Hans Viksten. My aim at the Björkö Konstnod residency is to continue to experiment with landscape painting, to develop ideas of simplification of form and palette, to seek out the beauty and mystery in the familiar yet universal landscape.

Feb 5 (2 weeks)

Studio: 11

WHERE THE FOREST MEETS THE SEA

STUDIO GRANT

Ekaterina Sisfontes, Stockholm

STUDIO GRANT

SPECIAL PROGRAMS