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Current Resident: Sep 1, 2022–Aug 31, 2023

OCA - Office for Contemporary Art Norway

Studio #220

Artist

Anawana Haloba

Anawana Haloba’s artistic practice is an ongoing investigation of societies’ positions within various political, social, economic, ideological, cultural, and post-independence frameworks. Haloba drafts poetry in the form of sketches for her work, from which she abstracts to performative-based artworks in moving image, installation, and sound. She constructs scenarios in which the material culture of any given location can be probed and reconsidered within the context of rapidly shifting contemporary subjectivities.

Anawana Haloba has exhibited work at Center Georges Pompidou, France; Biennale di Venezia, Italy; and Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil, among others.

anawanahaloba.net

Events & Exhibitions

2023 Spring Open Studios

April 21–April 22, 2023

2022 Fall Open Studios

November 18–November 19, 2022

Confessions of a delusional dictator and a museum of guilt explores the pitfalls of post-independence development during the 60s-70s throughout to 80s, the rise and failure of African Socialism, the social and economic politics struggles and the stifling of freedom of speech (expression) assembly, Social, and economical exploitation it comprises of a safety bunker, or a contemplation of a fictional president modelled on my research. Inside the bunker is a marble confession box with a two-way video work where a delusional dictator is giving his contradictory confession in front of a female priest. Also found in the bunker is some kind of memorabilia collection from either material on victims of torture or merchandise confiscated from oppositional supporters to all other materials imagined.

Anawana Haloba, Confessions of a delusional dictator and a museum of guilt, 2013-2016, video installation

How to (re)pair my grandmother’s basket is an experimental opera by the contemporary visual artist Anawana Haloba, drawing from African philosophy and operatic traditions. The opera is grounded in the Ubuntu philosophy of encounter to create a non-hierarchical comparative method, by which to interrogate rootedness and empathy. Haloba’a opera is created and composed borrowing from operatic conventions, knowledges and sensibilities outside the European tradition, mainly from Southern Africa, such as Chiyabilo/Kuyabila and Budima from Zambia. The libretto of this experimental opera, scripted by Haloba, is a dialogue among non-gendered characters who transverse geographies, cultures, and societies, composed for these times. It engages with questions of environmental racism, the rise of nationalism in the western world, and the plight of immigrants. Her incandescent experimental libretto and composition is an extension of her doctoral exhibition at Bergen University and teaching practice, in particular a course she taught at KHiO University in Oslo, based on a comparative approach. (Re)pair opens many possible readings: repairing the basket as a new pairing of histories side-by-side, as much as the idea of recovery, or reparation (though the basket, or history, may not be ever retrievable).

Anawana Haloba, How To (RE)Pair My Grandmother's Basket, 2021-2022, sound and music installation, dimensions variable

A DRAGON KING IN SLEEPY PRIDE ROCK explores China’s presence in Africa (Zambia particularly), taking into consideration the historical, and present day, myths and facts. My want to research this theme is partly inspired by the religiously flared-up media declaring China’s “new inroads” without looking at its long history in Africa. Now having pointed that out, this project does not aim to engage China’s presence in Africa from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) through the last imperial dynasty of Qing (1644- 1912), a period that accounts for an overwhelming knowledge of Africa. Here rather, I am interested in exploring China’s modern relations with Africa commencing in the 1950s during the cold war era, and throughout the 60s/70s, examining its social and political implications. What did this solidarity or ‘friendship of economics’, whose core agenda was eradicating colonialism and forging a common front to safeguard sovereignty of emerging nations against cold war politics, mean to a newly independent Africa? is divided in three parts “a synchronised video/sound/Animation with the animation playing from 3 old television set (early 60s-70s model) with sound from headphones. An interactive piece of train rail piece of 2.8 cm in length that always triggers sound if rubbed with dry maize grain beneath it, as way to retell the stories of both the workers and witness (people that lived along the rail). There is a saying that says one can trace their journeys through a maize cob, it’s a game kids would play while eating fresh maize- eating the grain on a cob in way that you creates irregular lines. A series of drawing from the made by layering photographic images and then re-drawing over with an ink pencil. Each drawing goes with a text especially written for it. A wall (sound memory wall) with tiny 14 home-made speakers using calabashes, cables and speaker drives that play different sound from each of the 14 station along the Tazara railway. Above where the television will installed on a time-line map of the migration and also the railway map.

Anawana Haloba, A Dragon King in Sleepy Pride Rock, 2016-2020, film, sound, drawing, and installation

ISHALL CURE YOU WITH MY TONGUE is part of a larger installation work, Conversations with Stitched Up Lips and the second listening station. “Conversations with Stitched-Up Lips” was a “process exhibition” in which I compiled information from interviews I had with different thinkers, friends, readings and rewrote them in as conversations, and poems written by myself. The exhibition was intended to bring out a series of internal discussions of the mind, reflections, reactions and other poetic meanderings, embedded in the exercise I called “A Process of Becoming” dedicated to work of Frantz Fanon who is the main subject of my PhD research. Understanding the background, environment and heritage of Fanon was as crucial as the scriptwriting. With the recorded text, I included the ambient sounds of nature and music from Martinique. The viewer was invited to listen to fragments of text, noise and tones relating to trauma, healing and psychoanalysis via several sculptural audio stations.

Anawana Haloba, I Shall Cure You With My Tongue, 2018, sculptural and sound installation

Close-up is an installation with sound elements revolving around salt rocks that, over a period of time, undergo a process of liquefaction. It makes reference to the bodily fluids of humans, minerals found in landscapes and the historical significance of salt as a means of exchange. The melting and trickling of the salt is a slow, timed, and amplified process that ultimately leads to relief on the one hand and extinction on the other.

Anawana Haloba, Close UP, 2010-2016, sound installation

India

Current Resident: Apr 1, 2023–Jun 30, 2023

Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation

Studio #221

Artist

Akshay Sethi

Akshay Sethi’s practice takes a mundane approach to exploring the relationship between the personal and the political. He focuses on unnoticed, trivial and repetitive actions of daily life to create works that foster everyday encounters and public spaces.

Akshay Sethi has exhibited work at the 2019 Serendipity Arts Festival; 1Shanthiroad; and India Art Fair, all in India, among others.

Events & Exhibitions

2023 Spring Open Studios

April 21–April 22, 2023

Akshay Sethi, What is Dangerous, 2018, ink on paper and photocopies, 11 × 8 in. (27.94 × 20.32 cm)

Akshay Sethi, Bura mat Dekho, Bura mat Suno, Bura mat Bolo, 2018, ink on Indian Railway tickets, 3 × 1 in. (7.62 × 2.54 cm)

Akshay Sethi, Situational Irony of a Stick, 2020, watercolor on paper and stickers, 11 × 8 in. (27.94 × 20.32 cm)

The work 'Man and the rattrap' is based on one of the stories of Franz kafka which resolves around a critical and dark conversation between the gatekeeper of law and a citizen. Its was published in a small zine format.

Akshay Sethi, The man and the Rattrap, 2018, charcoal pencil on paper, 8 × 5 in. (20.32 × 12.7 cm)

Akshay Sethi, Mootri, 2018, ink on paper, 8 × 5 in. (20.32 × 12.7 cm)

Residents from India

Shaunak Mahbubani

India

Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation

2021

Srajana Kaikini

India

Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation

2019

Rajyashri Goody

India

Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation

2018

Italy, Germany

Current Resident: Jun 1, 2023–Jul 31, 2023

Artis

Studio #222

Curator

Vanina Saracino

Vanina Saracino (she/they) is an independent curator, film programmer, writer, and lecturer. Her work focuses on theories and art practices that question anthropocentric and binary worldviews from an intersectional perspective, with an emphasis on lens-based and time-based art. Since 2021, Saracino has taught at the Institute of Time-based Art – IZM, Universität der Künste, and the MFA Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

Vanina Saracino has curated exhibitions at Screen City Biennial, in Berlin and Oslo; and the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, among others.

vaninasaracino.com

Patricia Domínguez, Matrix Vegetal (2022). Installation at the Archenhold Observatory, Berlin. Exhibition: Other Minds (Screen City Biennial). Photo: Marjorie Brunet Plaza. Courtesy the artist.

Patricia Domínguez, Matrix Vegetal, 2022, installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Marjorie Brunet Plaza

Anna Ehrenstein and 4DHD (Cibelle Cavalli Bastos and Coco Magnusson), Coffee Ground Imaginaries (2022). Installation at the Archenhold Observatory, Berlin. Exhibition: Other Minds (Screen City Biennial). Photo: Marjorie Brunet Plaza. Courtesy of the artists.

Anna Ehrenstein and 4DHD (Cibelle Cavalli Bastos and Coco Magnusson), Coffee Ground Imaginaries, 2022, AR experience. Courtesy of the artists. Photo by Marjorie Brunet Plaza

Jaakko Pallasvuo, Hole & Hole 2, 2019 & 2020. HD video, sound, 7’10’’ & 10’50’’. Installation view at EKKM. Photo: Paul Kuimet Courtesy of the artist.

Jaakko Pallasvuo, Hole & Hole 2, 2019-2020, video installation and posters, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist

Kristina Õllek, Nautilus New Era, 2018, video installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Art Museum of Estonia. Photo by Kristina Õllek