We are very happy to report that Bart Wijsman’s experimental film Vlekken & Lijnen has been selected for the finale of the Premio Combat art competition in Italy!
If you are curious about this film but don’t really have the time or budget to fly out to Italy to check it out, don’t worry. There is a much better way to experience his film because it’s part of an installation at our Growing Between Spaces expo at Hotel Arena!
So go check it out and yey Bart! Congrats!
I felt like I can’t mention this piece and not show it. It’s just an extract, and you should see it in real life of course. But even like this it is beautiful. Btw, Matthew dances in the front and is the storyteller.
Peter is more than one of the artists in this collective. When I held my little speech at the Hotel Arena I actually introduced him as one of the founders of Furthur Labelz. Although this may technically seem untrue (it was Matthew and myself, combined with musician Thijs Havens, who started the collective) Furthur Labelz really only exists the way it does today because of Peter joining. Within Furthur Labelz he is always the one asking questions about what it is we are doing, how we are doing it and why. He keeps us sharp. He is the balance between Matthew and myself and in many ways just the piece that was missing when we started this collective.
Peter is a hard worker who has a very unique and I would say poetic vision. Check out his website and you will know what I mean. He is a very, very talented choreographer. He has one piece, called Black Sea Still, that gives me chills every time I see it. Although he doesn’t really think so, Peter’s work is interdisciplinary in it’s own way. He often collaborates with other artists, and incorporates stories and disciplines in his pieces. He also made a few dance installations, which are stunning. Pearls was shown in De Lakenhal for a few months last year, and Personal Space was also shown at Nuit Blanche.
In directing and choreographing Peter has a way with playing, giving ‘assignments’, with pushing boundaries and confronting the awkward, which gives his pieces such natural poetry.
Aside from being a dancer/choreographer he is also a photographer, with a very strong style.
Most of all, however, he is wonderful friend. Needless to say, we are very lucky.
You’ve seen the pictures, you’ve met the dancers, and so here it is: the video of Fear No Space.
Choreographed by Matthew Sky specifically for the beautiful stairs of the Hotel Arena this video by Erik Sawaya is currently in the PUP Gallery at Hotel Arena in our exhibition Growing Between Spaces.
Fear No Space is a piece about exploration and discovery- the dancers becoming comfortable with each other and the uncertainty of their terrain. Most of all the piece is about overcoming our fears, and that one way or another we will get where we’re going, we just may need a little help from the people around us.
As most of you must know by now, the opening of our new exhibition in collaboration with PUP at Hotel Arena was Saturday evening. It was a great success and we’re really happy so many people came to see what we were up to and of course super grateful to all the wonderful artists who contributed to the exhibition. This includes of course the dancers who performed in Matthew’s new site specific dance installation “Fear No Space”: Erica Horwood, Tycho Hupperets, and Clotilde Tran-Phat.
Erica you must know by now- she has participated in many Furthur Labelz projects, both as dancer and sometimes even as actress! She is the beautiful redheaded dancer and muse to Furthur Labelz.
Tycho has been participating in Furthur Labelz projects for almost a year now. In Peter’s piece Autoscopy he is part of the absurd “Flashmob” of photographers. He left the National Ballet in order to pursue this side of his artistic talent, but Tycho also missed dancing himself, and luckily for us this meant that he would participate as a dancer with Furthur Labelz for the first time. He did a great job and we are looking forward to creating more with him!
It is also the first time we worked with Clotilde, who has only been living in Amsterdam a year and a half. She is a young dancer who moves easily on the floor with a lot of attention to detail, which we love.These three dancers have expressed an incredible openness and eagerness which has made Fear No Space what it is- a strange and wonderful journey.
The process of creating a dance piece to be performed on stairs was interesting and challenging but this group helped make it fun, and the end result was for sure a success. Through this post are some photos from Erik Sawaya- the rest are here the video will be up soon!
Also- if you missed it- there is a video installation of the piece in Hotel Arena. Go see it for yourself!
Meet the boys of Treasure of Grundo. An interesting, entrepreneur-ing musical and independent duo, who not only create music together but also hold a recordlabel and the house Geertruida, where many a memorable night happened and many great ideas took form.
They have played for us before, and have the rare talent of creating a space within a space with their music. Through the use of synthesizers, guitar and a deep voice, Bert and Yannick create strange, dark yet danceable songs… and we are very pleased to have them with us!
Check out their website here for more info and their soundcloud!
Building up- less than 24 hours to go!
Erik Sawaya came by Hotel Arena last night to capture some films and images of the dancers rehearsing for Matthew’s newest piece “Fear No Space”
Here’s one picture of Erica, Tycho and Clotilde- come by tomorrow at 5 for the performance!
Céline Manz (1981) is a Visual Artist born in Switzerland and currently studying at the Rietveld Academie. We met Céline last year when she and Sterre were asked to collaborate for FoamLab. Since then we have been looking forward to exhibiting her work, and also to collaborating again. Both of these will happen in Growing Between Spaces.
Céline will exhibit “Radiance” a series of photograms made out of things that belonged to her grandparents. Both of them had the habit of keeping whatever could be used again. When clearing their flat she found an extensive collection of neatly stored everyday objects; used wrapping paper, buttons, corks, elastics, nails etc. Fascinated by this telling gesture, which she felt was like being an echo of a distant time, she used parts of this collection for a series of photograms. By lightening the photographic paper indirectly with mirrors, glass and punctual lights, the photograms don’t show the exact imprints of these objects but their reflections. In photometry radiance is the factor indicating how much light is emitted by a surface from a specific angle of view, it refers to the brightness of the object.
We will tell you more about the collaboration she and Sterre have been working on a little later!
For now see more of her work at celinemanz.com
FOUND is a boutique event styling business based in Amsterdam, you may have met them during Nuit Blanche when they sold their furniture. They now specialize in styling events and used their furniture this time to enhance an installation by creating a homey corner in a transitional environment; the Hotel Arena.
See some of FOUND’s past events and future plans at: www.wearefound.nl
Like many of our artists for Growing Between Spaces, you may also remember the next one from Nuit Blanche last summer.
Meet Bart Wijsman (1987, The Netherlands). After having studied Media & Culture and Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, he now lives in Brussels, where he is studying Audiovisual Arts at Sint-Lukas University College of Art and Design. He writes, films and takes pictures.
Bart’s work often focuses on the tension between the need to get a grip on the world and the desire for a moment of contact.
For Growing Between Spaces Bart will exhibit a new and unique installation in collaboration with FOUND (but about them later) which includes one of his films and three photographs.
We started building it up yesterday and it’s looking great!
Check Bart’s website to see more of his work: bartwijsman.comToday we bring it all back home with the introduction of a North-Holland born and raised artist:
Julien Staartjes (1989) is a musician (The Vagary, Summer with Monica, Les Singes) and writer living in Amsterdam. He is currently finishing MAs in Cultural Analysis and Literary Studies at the UvA.
Julien is interested in the ways in which we experience and perceive time and especially in the ways in which we try to seize and frame it. Instead of storing memories in our minds, we tend to project them onto our surroundings. We build archives not to forget. Almost compulsively, we attempt to freeze time into spatial objects. His piece Turning Time into Space exhibited at Growing Between Spaces explores what happens when projected memories start to live a life of their own and create new narratives.
Unfortunately Julien doesn’t have a website where you can read more of his works, however his blog entries for the touring and recording adventures of his band The Vagary should tide you over for a while!
Enjoy!
