Søssa Jørgensen, Wild Living Marine Resources Belong to Society as a Whole. Performance presented as part of Ensayso #4, Kurant, Tromsø, 2016. Photo: Christy Gast. [Alt text: A performer wearing a wetsuit floats in a fjord surrounded by mountains]
Ensayos: Hydrofeminist METitations Listening Series
Listen to the podcast here.
As part of their digital residency at the New Museum, Ensayos practitioners will launch three podcasts. Drawing from Ensayos’s transdisciplinary practice, these podcasts will focus on waters in different archipelagic regions, including Tierra del Fuego, New York, eastern Australia, and Norway. Journalist Catalina Jaramillo guides listeners through four acts that mirror different aspects of Ensayos’s field research: fiction, fact, somatic exercise, and care ethics. Each concludes with a song.
II. July 27, 2020
Hydrofeminist METitation: Norway: A glaciorhythmic audio collage from the Arctic/ On law and poetry/ Walk along the Holsbekken Creek leading to a canyon of controversies/ A rowing journey/ Song sung by farmed sea salmon
Listen to complete series here.
I. July 20, 2020: Hydrofeminist METitation: Eastern Australia
II. August 3, 2020 Hydrofeminist METitation: The Americas
About Hydrofeminist METitations:
Gender studies scholar Astrida Neimanis coined the term “hydrofeminism” to bring together feminist, queer, and ecological sensibilities.* In her words, hydrofeminism begins “one’s ethics and politics from the realization that we are mostly made of water…refusing a separation between nature and culture, between an environment ‘out there’ and a human subject ‘in here.’”
When Ensayos collaborated with Neimanis in 2017, Camila Marambio formulated “METitation” to emphasize Ensayos’ material-somatic research that considers molecular and global relationships in the physical world.** MET is an acronym for Mechanical Electrical Transduction, a sensory mechanism through which cells convert mechanical stimuli into electro-chemical activity. MET accounts for senses of hearing, balance, and touch; hair cells in the inner ear convert the stimuli of drum vibrations, water dropping in the sink, a crashing wave, and voice into electro-chemical signals received by the brain. This transformation is the sense of hearing.
*Astrida Neimanis, “Hydrofeminism: or on Becoming a Body of Water,” in Undutiful Daughters: New Directions in Feminist Thought and Practice, ed. Henriette Dr. Gunkel, Chrysanthi Nigianni, and Fanny Dr. Soderback (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). **“Hydrofeminist METitaions” was first used by Ensayos to describe a live sounding experiment performed by Neimanis, Marambio, Sarita Gálvez, and Karolin Tampere and presented as part of the Liquid Architecture program, “Negative Volumes: Body Languages” held at West Space, Naarm/Melbourne, on October 14th, 2017.
The following Ensayistas contributed to Hydrofeminist METitations: Norway:
Geir Tore Hølm & Søssa Jørgensen (Skiptvet, Norway) each have art practices that include video, photography, sculpture, sound, performance and installations. Together they have mediated, taught, and written about contemporary art since 1993 when they initiated Balkong, an apartment exhibition space. Together with artists from Thailand they initiated Sørfinnset skole/the nord land in Oarjelih Bájjdár/Gildeskål, Nordlánda/Nordland. Since 2003, this ongoing project focuses on exploitation of nature, exchange of knowledge and small-scale architecture in the field of a broad aesthetic understanding of ecological realities of society, humans and nature. Parallel to individual exhibition practices, Søssa has worked long-term with radio and sound art projects in collaboration with Norwegian peer Yngvild Færøy and Geir has nurtured a wide art practice informed by his Sámi ancestry. Since 2010, Øvre Ringstad farm is the center of their collaborative practice.
Randi Nygård (Oslo, Norway) is an artist, curator and writer based in Oslo who received her MFA from Kunstakademiet i Trondheim, NTNU, 2006. Her work often departs from scientific facts about how nature influences and is a fundamental part of society and culture. In 2014 she was honored with a 5-year working grant from the Norwegian state. Her work has been exhibited internationally at Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki, Greece; YYZ Artist Outlet, Toronto; Kunstverein Springhornhof, Germany; and Museo Nazionale di Sant’Angelo, Roma, Italy. Exhibitions in Norway include Kunstnernes Hus, Kurant, QB gallery, NoPlace and Fotogalleriet.
Karolin Tampere (Lofoten, Norway) is an artist and curator based in Lofoten, Norway. She has a particular interest in collaborative practices, sound, and listening. Since 2004 she has regularly contributed to the “forever lasting” art project Sørfinnset Skole/the nord land, and together with Åse Løvgren initiated the ongoing collaboration Rakett in 2003. Tampere has been a part of Ensayos since 2010. Her most recent writing appears in the British Council-commissioned publication Where Strangers Meet on the work of Futurefarmers. Currently she has the position as curator at the North Norwegian Art Centre in Svolvær. Together with Hilde Mehti, Neal Cahoon, and Torill Østby Haaland, Tampere co-curated LIAF-Lofoten International Art Festival 2019, which received the Norwegian Critics annual prize.
Artist commissions at the New Museum are generously supported by the Neeson / Edlis Artist Commissions Fund.
Artist residencies are made possible, in part, by:
Laurie Wolfert
The Research & Residencies Council of the New Museum
Presentation of “Hydrofeminist METitations: Norway” has been assisted by the Norwegian Consulate General in New York.
Further support is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Endowment support is provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the Skadden, Arps Education Programs Fund; and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education Programs at the New Museum.
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