Summer Special: BPA// Berlin program for artists

We are happy to announce our first summer special within 10 years – not a solo presentation but a program – a cooperation with the Berlin program for artists.

BPA was initiated by Angela Bulloch, Simon Denny and Willem Rooij in 2016. It facilitates exchange between emerging and experienced Berlin-based artists, through coordinated studio visits and meetings.

BPA does not have a fixed location – activity is concentrated in the studios of the artists involved with the program. Over the course of one year, twelve participants meet with a core group of ten mentors and a wider group of guest mentors. Twice a month participants present their work in concentrated one-on-one visits in their own studios, followed by a group discussion in a mentor’s studio. The program offers participants a production grant for the creation of new work and initiates an annual exhibition.

The VAM summer special program is curated by Bertrand Flanet, one of the 2019 BPA fellows:

Stefanie Schwarzwimmer –  Silent Revolution, 2018, 9 min
Nighttime. A plate is rotating around its own axis without tipping over. Several people around the world discover the mysterious incident during the night. They film it with their mobile devices and comment on it in their respective languages. The work deals with the ever altering image reality that surrounds us. All scenes were built, textured and rendered with 3D Software. Silent Revolution explores the speculative potential of computer generated images and creates an altered string of reality – evidential material for a fictitious event.

Katrin Winkler – Performing Monuments, 2018, 15 min
‘Performing Monuments’ is a continuation of Winkler’s thematic examination of the consequences of colonialism, genocide and apartheid in Namibia. Winkler draws attention to today‘s commemoration of the genocide of the Herero and Nama by the German colonial power (1904-1908) as well as toan old colonial monument and celebrations commemorating Namibia‘s struggle for independence. This is combined with images from telescopes used to measure cosmic gamma rays. Contributions by the spoken word poet Nesindano „Khoes“ Namises, by Ester Utjiua Muinjangue, Chairwoman of the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, and by the musician and performer Cecilia Oletu Nghidengwa additionally ask how memory is formed. – Michaela Richter

Yuki Kishino –  The distance between one and another, 2012, 12 min
Written based on the artist’s personal experiences, the video was shot on a miniDV camcorder. The narrative starts with his observation on a woman, who lived in his neighbourhood and whom he was able to watch from a distance. As the narration progresses, it gets intertwined with his loosely connected other autobiographic stories.

Doireann O’Malley –  Prototype I, 2018, 36 min
In ‘Prototypes I’ the viewer is guided sonically and visually through various dream- and land-scapes, observing psychoanalytic references to both shamanistic pasts and speculative futures that evoke alternate modes of existence. We meet the protagonists who interact with undefined technologies and it appears ambiguous as to whether they are rendering themselves in a virtual world, a potential future, or creating their present. In fact, throughout Prototypes there is little to distinguish between ‘the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real’. – Lou Drago

Yalda Afsah, Tourneur, 2018, 14 min
‘Tourneur’ is an abstract study of the archaic tradition of French bullfighting. Through elliptical footage in which we only glimpse brief snatches of action – the bodies of young men taunting and running from a bull that periodically tramples into the frame – Tourneur removes the practice from its cultural and geographic specificity, transporting it to an abstract cinematic space. Afsah’s sound editing and use of music emphasise the sheer physicality of the event, silencing everything beyond the dance of man and bull.

Rob Crosse, Prime Time, 2017 20 min
‘Prime Time’ follows a group of older gay men as they travel together on an organised trip on a cruise ship. As the pleasure boat cruises from port to port, the un-vanishing line of the horizon doubles as a metaphor for the never-ending churn of desire (always re-forming, always out of reach), while the vessel itself, with its cargo of temporary travellers, reminds us how random connections bring people closer, or keep them apart. Deftly captured by Crosse’s oblique yet tender eye, the film is an affectionate study of human hopes and relationships, and a resonant meditation on how we both measure and deny the passing of time. Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, with Grundy Art Gallery. Supported by Arts Council England.

Stefanie Schwarzwimmer is a Berlin-based artist and graphic designer. From 2012–2018 she studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the department of Art and Digital Media. Her diploma film ‚Silent Revolution‘ was awarded the Academy’s main prize. Currently (and recently) her work is on display in Baltimore (A Good Crisis curated by DIS, Baltimore Museum of Art, 2018-19), Paris (Jeune Création, 2019) and New York (DIS Cinema, Boiler Room, 4:3, 2019). Her work deals with the speculative potential of 3D renderings. Schwarzwimmer sees it as a next evolutionary step of photography emancipating itself from the physical world. The computer generated image creates a reality in itself. It is no longer bound to any­thing material, yet can visualize materials perfectly and can therefore be read as a photograph with all its qualities as a medium of evidence for something real. 

Katrin Winkler (*1983) is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. She works in the fields of expanded cinema, critical research, photography and video. How history is in-/visible and entangled with the contemporary moment is a reocurring theme in her artistic practice. She holds a BFA in Photography from the University of Applied Sciences, Munich. She was a student assistant at the Katutura Community Art Center, Windhoek, Namibia and the City Varsity, Cape Town, South Africa.
She studied Media Arts/ Mass Media research and Art in Public Media Space with Günther Selichar and finsihed the Master Class Programme with Clemens von Wedemeyer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig. And she studied Photography&Media&Integrated Media (MFA) amongst others with Allan Sekula, Ashley Hunt, Michelle Dizon and Billy Woodberry in the MFA Programme at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. This year she is a participant of BPA- Berlin Program for Artists. Her works have been shown internationally.

Yuki Kishino (b. 1982, Kawagoe, Japan) studied engineering in Tokyo, before living in London for several years. In 2011 he enrolled in Prof. Simon Starling class at Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, and graduated from Prof. Peter Fischli class in 2016. He now lives in Berlin and was a participant of Berlin Program for Artists in 2018.

Doireann O’Malley (b. 1981, Limerick, Ireland) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Rencontres Internationales, Paris/Berlin Stadium, Berlin, Nordenhake Mexico City, PS120, Mumok Kino Vienna, The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, Bobs Pogo Bar, Kunst Werke, Berlin. Winner of The Berlin Art Prize, 2018. Upcoming shows at Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art and The National Scuplture Factory Cork/Cork Film Festival and Urban Video Project at The Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY.

Growing up in Berlin, Yalda Afsah studied at the University of Arts Berlin, Burg Giebichenstein College of Art in Halle and the California Institute of the Arts. She has presented her work at various exhibitions and festivals including Locarno Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Institute of Contemporary Arts, ICA London and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. 2018 she received the Karl-Schmidt-Rotluff scholarship and is a current fellow at Graduate School at UdK, Berlin. 

Rob Crosse lives and works in Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Bad Bodies (2019), Tomorrow Maybe, Hong Kong, Jerwood Solo Presentations (2018), London; Prime Time (2017) Grundy, Blackpool, and Clear as a bell (2016), Kingsgate Projects, London. His films have been screened as part of Queer : Both Sides Now, Videotage, Hong Kong, Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag, Videoclub touring programme, UK, Selected 8, Jarman awards touring programme, UK Different Ways, Lux, London, Transactions of desire, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, Slant : for the unsettling, Jerwood Space London, These Rotten Words, Chapter House, Cardiff, and Artist Film Weekender, HOME, Manchester. He has completed residencies at Eaton HK/Videotage, Hong Kong; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska, U.S.A; Katara Art Center, Doha, Qatar; Foundation Marcelino Botin, Santander Spain and Woodmill, London.    

Further information on BPA please find on: http://berlinprogramforartists.org/