Announcement: Residencies 2021
Residencies are an important part of our overall programming mix, functioning as a crucible in which the very different realities of Switzerland and Southern Africa can find meaningful points of contact through the ability of artists from one context to spend substantial time in the other. Normally spanning up to three months, residencies provide possibilities for a rich immersive experience, and ground for the gestation of new networks, collaborations and projects.
Received through an annual open call, applications are carefully considered by experts from both our Johannesburg and Zurich offices. Special attention is given to the clarity, coherence and local relevance of each submission, as well as the positioning of the residency experience meaningfully within the artist’s overall professional trajectory. We work with a network of partners across the Southern African region and Switzerland in designing bespoke residency experiences for the selected artists.
We are pleased to introduce an exciting group of arts practitioners from Southern Africa and Switzerland working across the various disciplines who have been selected for residencies to take place in 2021.
SWITZERLAND >> SOUTHERN AFRICA
Flurina Casty’s artistic practice blends performance, text, installation, video and painting. Her work investigates the correlation between memory, oral tradition, symbolism and sense-making. She’s greatly inspired by the tradition of storytelling and how meaning is created through distance and time. Embracing the limitation of subjectivity and the relativity of truth, Flurina uses her body as a perceptive tool; a filter, a frame, a shutter of her cognitive lens. She frequently moves around exploring urban landscapes and natural topographies. In her research she focuses mainly on people, personal experiences and history with the aim to recite impressions, stories and memory merging the collective and personal. Her 2021 residency will continue an existing project begun in 2016 about the ghosts of abandoned spaces, and explore community based initiatives in horticulture and urban agriculture in Soweto and the Johannesburg area.
Magali Dougoud is a visual artist based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She graduated with a Master in Fine Art in HEAD-Genève and HKB-Berne. In 2012, she founded the artist-run space Urgent Paradise, that she co-curated for 7 years. In her work, with mainly video, but also text, installation and sound, she dismantles dominant historical and scientific stories. Her work looks to develop an emancipatory feminine imagination through notions such as water and liquidity – as an exploration of otherness, inter-species intelligence, violence and desire. Her work has been shown in various art spaces, museums and festivals in Switzerland, Europe, China, USA, Chili and Colombia. She took part in residencies at the CAB in Puerto Yartou (CL) and at the Filmhaus in Basel (CH). She’s currently working at the Air Berlin Alexanderplatz Residency (D). During the first semester of 2021, she will join the Cité des Arts in Paris (F).
Martin Perret is a drummer, composer, educator, and band leader for L’Anderer, a musical project he helms that fluctuates its sound in accordance with its rotating constellation of musicians. What remains consistent through each iteration is the drive and energy to integrate the strength and talents of the performers in his compositions. Martin is a dynamic participant in the creative and avant-garde contemporary music scene, having collaborated with a broad range of artists: French actresses and theatre directors Claire Deutsch, Isabelle Vesseron and Lola Giouse; Swedish saxophone player Otis Sandsjö, Dutch french horn player Morris Kliphuis, Swiss guitar player Franz Hellmüller, piano player Marie Krüttli; and film directors Adrien Barazzone and Roman Hüben. Martin is an instructor of music theory and practice with a focus on percussion. He studied with Marcel Papaux at the Lausanne Conservatory Jazz Department, and in Lucerne with Norbert Pfammatter and Gerry Hemingway. He has a Master in Jazz Performance with Minor Composition as well as a Master in Musical Pedagogy.
Luca Forcucci is a composer, artist, writer and scholar of Swiss and Italian citizenship based in Berlin. His research observes the perceptive properties of sound, space and memory. The field of possibilities of the experience is explored as the artwork through compositions, sound installations, video, photography, text and walks. In this context, he is interested in perception, subjectivity, consciousness and the mechanisms of listening. He regularly collaborates with scientists in the field of neuroscience, perception and biology, and has his own lab for art and science research. His work is regularly presented worldwide. Luca achieved a PhD in Music, Technology and Innovation from De Montfort University in UK and a MA in Sonic Arts from Queens University of Belfast. He studied electroacoustic music with the Swiss composer Rainer Boesch in Geneva, and was produced by Al Comet, former member of The Young Gods. He has also an extensive professional background in architecture spanning over twenty years.
Born between different worlds, different cultural identities, and the persistent feeling of not belonging anywhere; being rootless, ‘homeless’: this describes the biography and musical career of Swiss musician of Czech and Pashtun descend, Miron Andres. The viola da gamba being his first instrument, he studied the ‘early repertoire’ at the Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität (Austria) with Pierre Pitzl before completing his BA in music in the specialisation of medieval and renaissance performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, CH). Feeling caged by the limitations of ‘historical correctness’ he fled to the Netherlands to pursue a Master’s in contemporary music, with Margaret Urquhart, as well as taking up private lessons with Joshua Cheatham. Since having touched the viola da gamba for the first time, Miron has been driven by improvisation. Over the years this has evolved into new compositions and ideas that have lead Miron to compose conceptual audio pieces. The sensitivity and insights of these audio pieces set them more in the realm of visual art than the compositions as they are abstract ideas of his bicultural identity that make socio-political commentaries in a very poetic manner in a cross-cultural audio language.
Andy Storchenegger lives and works as an independent artist in Zurich and St. Gallen (CH). In 2011, Andy completed a Master of Fine Arts at the École cantonale d’art (School of Art and Design) in Lausanne and has studied ceramics and polymers at the HEAD in Geneva. He has exhibited in Switzerland and abroad and was a guest lecturer at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam. Since 2009 he has been a lecturer at the Höhere Fachschule für Gestaltung und Kunst (Higher Technical College for Design and Art) in St. Gallen. His artwork deals with the collective phenomena of the idea of paradise. His research has led him several times to the South Pacific, South America and Africa. He is fascinated by the remaining archaic customs of island inhabitants, and the wild and primitive aspects preserved in Switzerland. He has conducted extensive photo research and created his own works including various series of masks influenced by the twofold field of tension between progress and the time-honoured. He works in the fields of video, sculpture, performance, dance and installation.
SOUTHERN AFRICA >> SWITZERLAND
Keenan Ahrends is a jazz guitarist and composer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Having started playing the guitar at the age of fifteen, and completed his undergraduate degree in jazz performance at the University of Cape Town and the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2009. In 2019, he completed an honours degree in performance at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. During this degree, he completed research into the life and music of prominent South African jazz guitarist Errol Dyers. During his tertiary studies combined, he studied under the likes of Jon Eberson, Wayne Bosch, Eckhard Baur, Alvin Dyers, and Andrew Lilly. Keenan has toured extensively both within South Africa and internationally. In 2017 he released his debut album ‘Narrative’ (featuring Romy Brauteseth, Claude Cozens, Sisonke Xonti, Nicholas Williams) to critical acclaim, and has become known for his evocative musical writing, emotive improvisation and his sensitive musicianship.
Vitjitua Ndjiharine is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Windhoek, Namibia. Her work spans various media to develop strategies of deconstructing and re-contextualising the pedagogical function of texts and images found within colonial archives. Her interdisciplinary approach utilises drawing, painting, collage, and site-specific installation as tools that enable a critical engagement with problematic historical content. Vitjitua is a recipient of the Gerda Henkel Foundation research scholarship, allowing her to work in collaboration with the research centre Hamburg’s (Post-)Colonial Legacy, MARKK and M.Bassy in Hamburg. In 2017 she received her BA in Studio Art from The City College of New York. Having taken courses in Journalism, Mass Communication and Cultural Anthropology, Vitjitua draws insight from these fields, combining ideas from mass media and visual culture in her artistic work. Vitjitua has previously exhibited her work in New York City, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Windhoek.
Orakle Ngoy is a rapper/singer and performer from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her style is known as muyenga, which reflects the ways and gestures of the part of the Congo that she comes from. Through her music, Orakle aims to spread awareness of women’s rights and combat traditional notions of gender roles, across a variety of contexts where women are regularly silenced, discriminated against and subjected to violence. Orakle embodies the voice of these women in her music and aims to change the narrative with empowering feminist messages. She is the creator of the collective Africa Diva which works to promote the emergence of Congolese female talent through the annual Yambi City Festival, a platform for exchange and artistic collaboration. The festival was developed with the idea of enhancing promotion, visibility, capacity building and to establish a pan-African network of women artists.
Buhle Ngaba is a multi-award winning South African actor, writer, speaker and arts activist. She studied Acting and Contemporary performance at Rhodes University and Processes of Performance at the University of Leeds (UK). Buhle performed in the world premiere of John Kani’s play Missing at the Baxter Theatre (SA) and went on to tour internationally with the production, which earned her nominations for Best Supporting Actress for the South African Fleur Du Cap Theatre Awards as well as the Naledi Theatre Awards. In 2016, Buhle was awarded the prestigious Brett Goldin Bursary, with the opportunity to expand her knowledge and acting ability of Shakespeare at The Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK). It is during her time there that Buhle began to conceptualise and write her first play Swan Song, which was recently featured as part of the virtual National Arts Festival. In addition to numerous other performing accolade and awards, Buhle has also been acknowledged for her writing and public speaking. As a published author (The Girl Without A Sound), Buhle seeks to promote diversity in children’s literature, aid the development of the arts in underprivileged communities and to develop the legacy of storytelling amongst the youth. Through her acting, writing and inspiring work, Buhle empowers people, especially the youth, to find their own voices in a world where they are often disempowered and dismissed.
Fransix Tenda Lomba is a visual artist living and working in Kinshasa., Democratic Republic of Congo. He is an associate artist at Kin Art Studio and has a BA degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. His practice includes painting, drawing, installation, sculpture and video. He has participated in various workshops, residencies and exhibitions in Africa, Europe and the United States. Over the past few yers, Fransix has been exploring archives in his work, mixing documents and objects belonging to his parent’s from the 1970s with official documents issued by the national authorities in the (then) Zaire. He uses these artefacts as witnesses of experience, history, traces, clues and fragments of life. Perceived as living documents, Fransix approaches these everyday objects as illustrations of the signs and mutations of a post-colonial society. His work draws on the collective memory of the Zaire period to question contemporary African and world culture. He is a self-taught video animation artist, and will use this residency to develop a new autobiographic video series based on colonial archival material.
Kieron Jina is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in the realms of performance art, theatre-making, visual art and with a background in photography & film. He has an MA in Art from Wits University and his interests span African futurism, migration, Identity, new technology, immersive and site-specific performance, collaboration and interdisciplinary creative practices. He is interested in the potential for art to generate empathy through harnessing certain intimacies and vulnerabilities. Kieron has received numerous awards including including the Ovation Award for choreography at the National Art Festival of South Africa and the Goethe Co-production fund to create DOWN TO EARTH at Tanzfabrik in Berlin. he has received international scholarships and taken part in artistic residencies that have lead to collaborative performances and art creations in Brazil, Germany, Austria, France, Reunion Island, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Korea and Switzerland.
