Summer 2021
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Artists tell about their work /
Opening @ Rauma and Zoom 25.6.2021 |
BRUNA STUDE: ACCEPTANCE / HAWAII
I spent most of my life at sea, living on a boat. When we dropped anchor to build our home on Kaua`i, Hawai`i, I quietly mourned the loss of my freedom. I missed the sound of water lapping against the hull, the never-ending horizon extending into the distance, and the sky defining my seemingly boundaryless life.
A short sail out into the Pacific Ocean took me to Lehua Rock. It became my way to escape my new life and return for a moment to what I had left behind—sunlight disappearing into an endless depth, a familiar-feeling mystery and wonder.
As I looked up from below the surface, the sunlit rock had taken liquid form, terra firma rediscovered. Acceptance.
A short sail out into the Pacific Ocean took me to Lehua Rock. It became my way to escape my new life and return for a moment to what I had left behind—sunlight disappearing into an endless depth, a familiar-feeling mystery and wonder.
As I looked up from below the surface, the sunlit rock had taken liquid form, terra firma rediscovered. Acceptance.
SALOMÉ-CHARLOTTE CAMORS: THE LAKE / NEW CALEDONIA
We are in Yaté, customary area of Djubea-Kapone, lands of kanak’s tribe, where the ground, full of metal, is redder than the sun himself. We are in New-Caledonia, gifted and doomed by Nickel.
Seventy-two years ago, there was only a river here. A river and lands. But the growing nickel industry was craving for energy and a hydroelectric dam was built to feed the blast furnaces of the pyrometallurgical factory SLN. Then, the Yat river turned into the biggest lake of the country, forty square meter of drowned forest and dead woods.
Nature was, as often, stronger than we can possibly imagine and the lands surrounding the lake became a luxurious park, now protected area, shelter of many endemic species such as the iconic cagou.
This could have been a nice story if humans were more inclined to learn from their mistake and less inclined to exercise domination. But due to unreasonable human activities, this ecosystem stay increasingly threatened, impacting both nature and kanak’s social fabric.
This place is for me a symbol. A symbol of the struggle between deleterious and regenerative strength, between environmental activist and unscrupulous investor, but overall a symbol of our incredible responsibility. As far as can be New-Caledonia, it will never be far enough to escape all the consequences of our overconsumption. As the mist over the mountain, our future seems so blurry, but I still hope that we will have the heart to become the wind of change that will broke the domination patterns over the living.
Seventy-two years ago, there was only a river here. A river and lands. But the growing nickel industry was craving for energy and a hydroelectric dam was built to feed the blast furnaces of the pyrometallurgical factory SLN. Then, the Yat river turned into the biggest lake of the country, forty square meter of drowned forest and dead woods.
Nature was, as often, stronger than we can possibly imagine and the lands surrounding the lake became a luxurious park, now protected area, shelter of many endemic species such as the iconic cagou.
This could have been a nice story if humans were more inclined to learn from their mistake and less inclined to exercise domination. But due to unreasonable human activities, this ecosystem stay increasingly threatened, impacting both nature and kanak’s social fabric.
This place is for me a symbol. A symbol of the struggle between deleterious and regenerative strength, between environmental activist and unscrupulous investor, but overall a symbol of our incredible responsibility. As far as can be New-Caledonia, it will never be far enough to escape all the consequences of our overconsumption. As the mist over the mountain, our future seems so blurry, but I still hope that we will have the heart to become the wind of change that will broke the domination patterns over the living.
JON MACLEOD: FROM LAG A BHOGAN TO GEO AN SHEOMA / THE OUTER HEBRIDES
There is a running narrative of names walking through the landscape from my house down to the sea – these are oral Gaelic names known in my village but not down on any standard map. These names are as handy as street signs for describing where you have been and where you want to go. Some have stories attached to them, with others the meaning is lost, and you can speculate on what they refer to and create your own fictions.
Starting at my house I pass Lag a’ Bhocan (the hollow of the ghost), Creagan Buidhe (the yellow hillocks) Eilean Ard na Reimh (the high island of the oars) and An Daim (The dam). Nearing my destination along the clifftop I pass Geo an Sheoma (the rocky inlet of the room – where the sea has carved out a space big enough for a family to sit down to supper).
There is also a running narrative of plants as I walk through the croft to the sea, starting with Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis) and slowly progressing with Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) and Bog violet (Viola lanceolata), until on the cliff top above the sea I am in amongst Maritime Sunburst Lichen (Xanthoria parietina) and Sea Pink (Armeria maritima) – I clutch a dried kelp stalk as I walk to the edge of the cliff and the cusp of ocean
Beyond the cliffs another form of naming takes place. ‘Sea marks’, mnemonics describing fishing grounds, but also a plethora of names to describe the sea in all its variety exist, such as Strùplaidh (The backwash of sea on the shore usually during Northerly gales or heavy seas)’or Saobh-shruth (whirling contrary eddies).
Words are important here, instead of distancing you from nature they bond us deeper to it.
Starting at my house I pass Lag a’ Bhocan (the hollow of the ghost), Creagan Buidhe (the yellow hillocks) Eilean Ard na Reimh (the high island of the oars) and An Daim (The dam). Nearing my destination along the clifftop I pass Geo an Sheoma (the rocky inlet of the room – where the sea has carved out a space big enough for a family to sit down to supper).
There is also a running narrative of plants as I walk through the croft to the sea, starting with Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis) and slowly progressing with Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) and Bog violet (Viola lanceolata), until on the cliff top above the sea I am in amongst Maritime Sunburst Lichen (Xanthoria parietina) and Sea Pink (Armeria maritima) – I clutch a dried kelp stalk as I walk to the edge of the cliff and the cusp of ocean
Beyond the cliffs another form of naming takes place. ‘Sea marks’, mnemonics describing fishing grounds, but also a plethora of names to describe the sea in all its variety exist, such as Strùplaidh (The backwash of sea on the shore usually during Northerly gales or heavy seas)’or Saobh-shruth (whirling contrary eddies).
Words are important here, instead of distancing you from nature they bond us deeper to it.
THE UNSURVEYED AREA ARTISTS 2021
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BRUNA STUDE is a self-taught contemporary artist best known for her large black-and-white ocean photographs and platinum/palladium prints, initially of marine life and later of the ocean deprived of marine species.
Picturing the ocean as essentially abstract and communicating it through a series of movements she epitomizes water as the lens “sees it”. The resulting imagery is riffing on a brushstroke, as Stude demands from her camera to immortalize the moment and the movement - at times resulting in a cursive character-like line found both in the work of a calligrapher or a random doodle. |
Stude has exhibited in Hawaii, nationally and internationally. Her work is included in the collections of Hawai`i State Foundation for Culture and the Arts and Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, Hawai`i, Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, and Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, Czong, South Korea
Croatian-born, Stude lives on the island of Kauai`i, Hawai`i, of where she maintains a photographic/print studio.
www.brunastude.com
Croatian-born, Stude lives on the island of Kauai`i, Hawai`i, of where she maintains a photographic/print studio.
www.brunastude.com
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SALOMÉ-CHARLOTTE CAMORS "My work takes its inspiration from humanity’s seemingly fatal fascination with the quest for ephemeral happiness, as promised by the consumer society, by way of refuge from the existential social and ecological crises that increasingly threaten our planet.
In this context, it is paradoxical that the massive diffusion of images highlighting and raising awareness regarding such pressing global threats should have failed to induce proportionate changes to our habits and behaviour. Indeed, while we live in a world literally saturated with photographs – whether they be aesthetic objects or vectors of meaning - our relationship with images remains far from simple and has become a key preoccupation for many leading philosophers and visual artists. In this vein, my work adopts an activist, research-oriented approach in order to go beyond images with a determination to engage and empower actual positive action on behalf of the environment." www.sc-camors.com |
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JON MACLEOD is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer and curator based in the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides.
His work explores human entanglements with nature, cultural identity and symbiotic sustainabilities. Recently he has recently taken part in exchanges and residencies in Norway, Finland, Newfoundland and Senegal. He is project curator and residency programmer for the arts organisation An Lanntair. www.lanntair.com https://resartis.org/listings/an-lanntair/ jonmactobaidh@msn.com jon@anlanntair.com |