Helsinki based curator Yvonne Billmore has written a review of her experience of TICK ACTs, the small two day exhibition of works by Laura Beloff and I, with Antye Greie, shown in SOLU Space, the project space of the Bioart Society here in Helsinki.
Yvonne’s review stages her thinking with the art works as companions to her own forming and shaping as audience and active co-conspirator. No Niin Magazine ‘an independent online monthly magazine at the cusp of art, criticality and love’, has hit the ground with a passion and a fury seem an apt platform for this writing.
Having ones work written about valuable, facilitating all kinds of subsequent audience to the initial showing and presentation, of course it is through a lens - that of the writer, editors and platform which further shape and influence these mediated receptions. Thus one sees at least at least partially how the work enters into dialogues through publishing. TICK ACTs, presented in the spring in Helsinki was particularly poorly attended, perhaps the influence of the pandemic associated caution or maybe the disgust attendant with the subject matter of the punkki - ‘the unloved other’ imbued with dread and fears of the possibility of pathogenic infection that accompany its increasing ubiquity. Therefore I am especially grateful for the efforts of both the author and No Niin in featuring our work.
TICK ACT at Ectopia, Lisbon, 17 - 30th June, 2021
Finally, works from TICK ACT have been included in the Biofriction exhibition at Ectopia, Lisbon, including our TICK TALKs and Laura Beloffs Tick Terrarium.
From the Facebook event page:
The exhibition BIOFRICTION, hosted by Marta de Menezes and curated by the Biofriction partners, opens in a new cultural space in Lisbon, on the 16th of June, at 6pm.
It can be visited between the 17th and 30th of June, at Ectopia – Rua José Sobral Cid, N.16, in Lisbon, between 10am and 3pm on Mondays and Wednesdays and in July by appointment (contact number: 919193108).
The exhibition is the culmination of a collaborative project supported by Creative Europe that involved institutions in four countries. This project explored transdisciplinary artistic practices involving themes related to marginalization and exclusion. The title refers to a point in a surface of friction between biology, biotechnology, fiction and art. In this bio-friction, the emancipatory potential of biotechnology through artistic practices is explored with special attention. The artworks include a variety of biomaterials and a marked role of the artist-activist. These projects were mostly developed during artistic residencies in the different participating countries, under conditions influenced by contingency measures against Covid-19.
The artworks on display are especially diverse: Joel Ong (Canada), during his residence in Portugal, created a project where he investigated the cloud microbiome and its own DNA, in a work that crosses climate change and biotechnology; Simona Deaconescu ( Romenia) and Vanessa Goodman (Canada) created an artwork that explores the movement and the relationship of our body with the bacteria that reside in us; Mayra Gomez (México) has a work centered on botany and social activism; Adriana Knouf (United States of America) reflects on feminism and estrogen as an essential hormone of women; Laura Beloff (Finland) and Kira O’Reilly (Ireland) had a series of conversations with different experts, concerning ticks as vectors of multiple pathogens; Christina Gruber (Austria) seeks to transform common field sampling practices trough bioacoustics and sound recordings; Vanesa Lorenzo (Switzerland) conceived biocompatible prosthesis, which challenge the concept of ornament, symbiose, gender and species; Kinlab (Italy) perceived the women’s body around three stage of life: adolescence, fertility and menopause; and also the four Braiding Friction work groups that created diverse content about curatorial challenges during the times of the pandemic.
The Biofriction exhibition is hosted by Marta de Menezes and curated by the Biofriction partners, presented by Cultivamos Cultura in partnership with the other European Biofriction network members (Hangar, Kapelica and Solu/Bas).
Biofriction residency at Cultivamos Cultura
Finally after much pandemic caused postponement and the careful, thoughtful support of the host organisation Cultivamos Cultura I have begun a month long residency as part of Biofriction,
Biofriction is a research project with the goal of generating and facilitating spaces for exchange where artists, curators, theoreticians and different social collectives, such as activists and educational projects, can collaborate in transdisciplinary experimental proposals that offer practical alternatives to existing problems in contemporary Europe, such as the rise of essentialist discourses that launch not only a worrying discourse but also policies of marginalisation and exclusion.
My research project is called Menopause batteries and endocrine piracy I’ll blog about my progress and processes and post on Instagram @untitledbodies . Suffice to say it has begun wonderfully in the company of fellow Biofriction artist Christiana Gruber and the company of both Adam Zaretsky and Dalila Honorato who are here in Sao Luis before the annual bioart summer school begins in a couple of weeks. Both Adam and Dalila’s scholarly and artistic practices exceed any single website, look them up to get a sense of the breadth of their respective practices and activities from multiple sources.
Cultivamos Cultura is the vision and long term residency project initiated by artist, curator, mover and shaker Marta de Menezes. Check out the ‘who we are’ including Claudia Figueiredo whose producer skills and tenacity is so critical to the administration and enabling of all of our activities.
Needless to say great care is being taken in respect to how we convene and conduct both our practices and our living arrangements during covid 19 times, both for ourselves and the local Alentejo community and context into which we find ourselves.
I have enormous affection and gratitude for being a multiple return visitor to Cultivamos Cultura. Already it’s ambient charms and the vital rigour of daily conversation and friendly, encouraging exchange is making this a remarkable experience.
The barn bioart laboratory created by Marta de Menzes at Cultivamos Cultura
New video work in Martin O'Brien's The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin)
This spring it was such a pleasure to be make a new video, Untitled (aria) for Martin O’Brien’s forthcoming The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin), ICA, London.
The Last Breath Society (Coughing Coffin) is a living installation and exhibition, featuring daily durational performances by Martin O’Brien and a series of 10 commissioned video works by Franko B, Ansuman Biswas, Rocio Boliver, Noëmi Lakmaier, Lechedevirgen Trimegisto, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Kira O’Reilly, Sheree Rose, Shabnam Shabazi, and Nicholas Tee.
Martin O’Brien
Viewing between 24th July and 1st August, bookable via the iCA website.
Untitled (aria), video still
I will write more about Untitled (aria) , it’s processes and acknowledgements in a forthcoming blog post soon.
Arachnid - Tick Sensing, TICK ACTs for Biofriction
Arachnid - Tick sensing was inspired by the uncanny sonic textures developed by Antye Greie (AGF) who edited and mastered the TICK TALKs podcasts, it was inspired by her sound work I vs us, Kyla Schuller’s essay ‘The Microbial Self: Sensation and Sympoiesis', and other readings.
This work was made as part of TICK ACTs, SOLU, Helsinki June 2021 . TICK ACTs presented contemplations and ideas from a collaboration between artists Laura Beloff and Kira O’Reilly on ticks, tick-borne pathogens and their environments. The series of four podcasts, TICK TALKs are available to listen to via the Bioart Society’s Soundcloud page.
Using a specially composed text and sound, alienlike sensational subjectivities of human/tick transspecies encounters are explored, as inseparable from their environment-ing worlds and the ticks microbial cargos. Cross-kingdom relations are conducted via tick sensing of molecular, chemical phrases by which we betray our presence, through secreted volatile signatures.
Text written and read by Kira O'Reilly
Sound and compositional elements by Antye Greie (AGF)
Best listened to with headphones
TICK ACTs and TICK TALKs are part of Biofriction, a European collaboration project committed to supporting bioart and biohacking practices. Biofriction project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Enormous thanks to all at SOLU and AGF
Photo credit Mari Kaakola
TICK TALKs
TICK TALKs is a short series of conversations between Laura Beloff and I with researchers in ticks and their pathogens in the sciences and humanities.
Hosted and produced by the Bioart Society, and supported by Biofriction, through these conversations we archive and reflect on our work in Tick Act during 2019, our current thoughts and possibly where we might go next in terms of our development of the project.
Juror for ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art 2020
Along with Joāo Laia and Fiona Winning I am on the jury for this years ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art. It’s a particularly interesting year given the impact of the pandemic on travel and access to experiencing live art, ANTI Festival have brought their considerable acumen to bear on this facilitating 2nd edition of Shortlist LIVE! and the nominees’ performances which will be presented through a mix of live, digital and remote showings during the festival taking place in Kuopio, Finland.
My relationship with ANTI Contemporary Art Festival began in 2003 and it is an honour to return in this capacity as chair of the jury for this amazing prize, and the only one like it in the world.
Örö Residency this October 2020
I am here on the beautiful island of Örö which is located in the outer reaches of the Turku archipelago for for the duration of October that is organised and hosted by Öres.
It is a remarkable place, full of military remnants from the past 100 years since it’s establishment as an outpost by Russia, and now the site of the careful conservation of it’s unique flora and fauna under the auspices of Metsulahitus.
During my sojourn here I am going to be happily engaged in several concurrent projects including responding to the very locale itself and it’s the blustery autumn weather conditions. I shall be discussing these in my blog.
Thank you to Öres for this wonderful opportunity and to all on the island of Öro.
Moments from the Öres residency house
HOW TO SURVIVE THE APOCALYPSE
Curated by Guillermo Gómez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra, with Grace Exhibition Space NYC
an evening of body based performance online
More information here and how to stream here
This is a free event, donations to Black Lives Matter are very welcome
Public talk as Randall International Chair in Sculpture, spring 2020, Alfred University, NY
This spring semester sees me as the Theodore Randall International Chair in Sculpture/Dimensional Studies in the School of Art and Design, Alfred University, New York. I first visited the department in 2014 at the invitation of newly arrived professor and artist Karen Donnellan and am delighted to return for a longer period.
Whilst here I am teaching a class on Performance, Ecology and Social Sculptuer, engaging with the department and larger community as much as possible as well as focusing on my studio practice.
Tomorrow I will give a public talk by way of an introduction to my work and my current interests.
Be-Wilderment (Nature Drag), 2017
SPLICE. Re-examining Nature
Oulu Museum of Art, Finland
An international art exhibition curated by Nina Czegledy in collaboration with the Bioartsociety and produced in partnership with the Oulu Museum of Art.
Photography by Mika Friman
Dissenting Bodies Marking Time, Venice 12th January 2020
This weekend sees me traveling to Venice (for the first time) to give a performance lecture for Co creation Live Factory with the theme Dissenting Bodies Marking Time. It’s such a delight to anticipate the artists I will meet some leading the workshops and others participating.
Of late I’ve been having dialogies with Gemma Jones and with Becky O’Brien but I have met neither in person which I am looking forward to doing. And as always La Pocha Nostra who hold the beacons which has been leading and inspiring me since my earliest days as an artist. Marilyn Arsem as well, an extraodinary artist whose practice astonishes me.
Other guest artists are Boris Nieslony, Helen Cole & Alex Bradley, Francesco Kiàis, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Marcel Sparmann.
The invitation has been extended by Vest & Page, whose kindness, practice, commitment and verve are exemplary. I met them in Riga for the first time last June and was utterly charmed by their vision and tremendous dedication.
Herding to be screened during IMPULSSI at Oodi, 26th October, 20.00
During last years Field Notes, Ecology of the Senses organised by the Bioart Society, the many headed group I hosted Reciprocal Sensing (Insensible Sensibilities made Herding, a video with artist Teemu Lehmusruusu. It will be screened on Friday 26th October as part of the IMPULSSI programme at Oodi.
Video still from Herding
video still from Herding
In conversation with Annette Arlander: Research Day V
For their fifth research day, How to do things with performance have invited me to engage in one of the days conversations. Each of the core research group have selected someone with whom they can discuss an aspect of their own research and performance making interests. Artist and researcher Annette Arlander has been particularly involved with working plants during the past few years, and therefore our conversation will be about performing with those non-human-others.
The event is on 1st November
from 9.30 - 17.00 at the Theatre Academy of University of the Arts, Helsinki.
Further details can be found here
Up and coming performance for Mad House, Helsinki, 28th September
Mad House mark moving into their own dedicated performance space at Teurastamo in Helsinki with a full autumn programme of works. Their intention is to programme works thoughout the year, ‘settling into a permanent place will offer a sustainable creative environment for artists, audiences and the Mad House organization.’
I will be one of the artists presenting a work for their inaugural season, a reworking of What if this were the only world she knew?
Photo by Sohan Ariel Hayes, for Unhallowed Arts, Perth, 2018
Curated by SymbioticA
The iteration of this work will be in a vastly different context and space to that presented last year in Perth (as seen in the photograph), however it will share elements and approaches of working with the spaces material reality, it’s confines and it’s context.
As remaking the work for Mad House develops I will share notes and images on my blog here on this website and my on instagram account @untitledbodies
My thanks to Mad House for this very welcome and rare opportunity to present my work in Helsinki.
@tickact : follow the progress of my tick related work with Laura Beloff on Instagram
Laura Beloff and I have begun posting some of our work on a dedicated instagram account @tickact
The first prototype of a wearable glass terrarium for ticks, soon to be finished with living ticks in it.
Conceived and fabricated by Laura Beloff for a collaborative project by Laura Beloff and Kira O''Reilly
This project is supported by Kone Foundation
Keynote for The First International Queer Death Studies Conference, 4-5 November 2019,
I am delighted and astonished to be in such extraordinary company giving one of the four keynotes for the The First International Queer Death Studies Conference:
“Death Matters, Queer(ing) Mourning, Attuning to Transitionings”
4-5 November 2019,
Karlstad University, Sweden
Organised by the Queer Death Studies Network, Centre for Gender Studies, Karlstad University, Tema Genus, Linköping University.
More information here:
https://www.kau.se/en/centre-gender-studies/date/first-international-queer-death-studies-conference-death-matters
CALL FOR PAPERS is open until 30th June
The First International Queer Death Studies Conference: "Death Matters, Queer(ing) Mourning, Attuning to Transitionings" aims to create an arena for critical discussion of death, dying and mourning that goes beyond the dual approach to death – human death in particular – that is common within Western cultural frameworks of Christian tradition or secular biomedical perspectives. As such, the conference invites scholars who work with death, dying, mourning and afterlife in relation to: diverse cultural, socio-political, historical, and economic conditions; entangled relations between human and the environment in the context of the Anthropocene; differential experiences of marginalised communities and individuals excluded from the hegemonic discourses on death, loss, grief and mourning, associated for example with the heteronormative model of family bonds; and, contemporary forms of necropolitics: mechanisms of power that force certain bodies into liminal spaces between life and death (for instance, refugees whose lives in detention camps turn into the state of “social death” (Mirzoeff 2019)). Interventions that focus on practices that resist hegemonic norms, as well as queer and decolonialise mourning and remembering are also welcome.
In order to search for broad inspirations for alternative articulations and stories which queer, that is, unpack and question the normativities (Chen 2012; Sandilands & Erickson 2012) that often frame contemporary discourses on death, dying, mourning and afterlife, the conference is based on a transdisciplinary engagement involving not only academics, but also activists, artists and other practitioners. In the context of the conference, to queer issues of death, dying, mourning and afterlife means to unhinge certainties, “undo normative entanglements and fashion alternative imaginaries” beyond the exclusive concern with gender and sexuality, often associated with the term “queer” (Giffney & Hird 2008, 6). In particular, the conference will call for papers within the following three overall themes: (1) death matters and materialities, (2) queering mourning, and (3) attuning to transitionings run through both days and all the keynote lectures.
The conference invites individual papers (length: 20 min) that engage with – but are not necessarily limited to – the following themes:
- Queer methodologies of researching death, dying, mourning and afterlife
- Queering and decolonialising practices of mourning, bereavement and remembrance
- Materiality of death and corpses
- Queering philosophies of death
- Death/life ecologies
- Necropolitics and borders
- Queer and trans necropolitics
- Un/grievable lives and deaths
- Death and biotechnology/biomedicine
- Queering cancer and other life-threatening diseases
- Suicide
- Technologies of life/death
- Queer widowhood
- Decolonialising death
- Illness narratives and death
- Ethico-politics and practices of killability
- Nonhuman death and dying
- Extinction and annihilation
- Death and acts of resistance
- ‘Slow death’
- Queering temporalities of death
- Queer spiritualities
- Death, ghosts and hauntology
Please, send a 300-word long abstract, accompanied by a 100-long bio to: qdsconference@gmail.com .
TO YOU TO YOU TO YOU, Love Letters to a (Post)Europe publication
Late last year saw the publication of a book edited by Lisa Alexander which gathered together writings by artists involed in her project Love Letters to a (Post)Europe programme that took place at Bios, Athens (2015).
As I was unable to travel to Athens at the time, Lisa suggested that my work be performed by Athens based artist and performer Dimou Vassilik, who did so with a brilliant intensity. What we could not have foreseen was that Vasilliki would become terminally ill, she died in early 2018.
Vasilliki had realised the work in the 15 minutes duration that Lisa had stipulated for the work, and then came to support and witness me as I remade the work, again in Athens, over the duration of 10 hours for the Marina Abramovic, curated MAI, AS ONE at the Benaki Museum.
We had not met before, and yet within the short time frame of my visit to Athens I felt the kinship of a great artist and a firm ally who lavished me with company, flowers, critical dialogue and emotional buoyancy. I was desperately sad to learn of her illness and passing. In Athens we unpicked the mechanics of the work, and it’s political import within a workshop and a public discussion.
Subsequently within the book Lisa made a space for Vasiliki and my voice by including a series of emails drawn from the space of our association and collaboration. I am indebted to Lisa for affording this opportunity and for documenting it so tenderly in this publication.
Other vital contriutions include: Kate Adams, Demosthenes Agrafiotis, Brian Catling & David Tolley, cris cheek, Robin Deacon, Tim Etchells, Alec Finlay, Matthew Goulish, Guy Harries, Steven C Harvey, Catherine Hoffmann, Wendy Houstoun, Mikhail Karikis, Brian Lobel, Claire MacDonald, Georgios Makkas, Ivana Müller, Mariela Nestora, Kira O’Reilly, Florence Peake, Erica Scourti, Maria Sideri, Anna Sherbany, Jungmin Song, Yoko Tawada, Nikki Tomlinson, a collaborative text by Lisa Alexander and Mary Paterson, and an essay by Claire MacDonald.
Tiny Live Art (Development Agency) - 20 works for 20 years + AGENCY: A Partial History of Live Art
I was astonished and delighted for my work Stair Falling to be included in Robert Daniels special edition of twenty performance art works, Tiny Live Art (Development Agency) - 20 works for 20 years: 20.
You can learn more about the series here and the other extraordinary works he has realised in miniature.
The works will be presented as part of Live Art Development Agency’s celebration of its twenty years anniversary on 6th March.
The occasion will also see the launch of the publication AGENCY: A Partial History of Live Art edited by Theron Schmidt, in which a dialogue between Martin O’Brien and myself is included.
Other contributors include: Barby Asante, Ron Athey, David A. Bailey, Anne Bean, Bryan Biggs, Cassils, Simon Casson, George Chakravarthi, Curious, Richard DeDomenici, The Disabled Avant-Garde, Tim Etchells, Andy Field, French & Mottershead, RoseLee Goldberg, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Jen Harvie, The Institute For The Art And Practice Of Dissent At Home, Dominic Johnson, Amelia Jones, John Jordan, Lois Keidan, Alastair MacLennan, John E. McGrath, Jordan McKenzie, Hayley Newman, Mary Paterson, Project 0, Alan Read, Heike Roms, Rajni Shah, Joshua Sofaer, Selina Thompson, Jane Trowell, Johanna Tuukkanen, the vacuum cleaner, Manuel Vason, Lois Weaver, Catherine Wood.
My Monster: The Human-Animal Hybrid e-catalogue
A beautiful online catalogue has been created for an exhibition Jennifer Willet and I exhibited a collaborative work in. RMIT Gallery’s exhibition My Monster: The Human-Animal Hybrid curated by Evelyn Tsitas.
See the e-catalogue here.
Disentangle: Science in a Gendered World until 6th April 2019
Jennifer Willet and I are delighted to have a work in the current exhibition at LifeSpace until 6 April, 2019, Disentangle: Science in a Gendered World curated by Cicely Farrer. More information about it here.
One of the intriguing aspects that formed part of working with Cicely was her invitation to us to select a work from the University of Dundee’s many museum collections to show with our work. We settled upon one of the extraordinary Blaschka glass model of Starfish (Asteria rubens) developmental (larval stage), 1888.
You can see an amazing 3D rendering of it here
Underglass: the mutable, liquid like qualities of glass that were so adroitly manipulated into morphologies, also articulated the objectives and perspectives of scientific scrutiny that we try to indicate in our work including it’s jewel like framing under convex glass.
Our selection is also a contemplation on gender, In her astonishingly beautiful essay More Lessons From a Starfish: Prefixial Flesh and Transspeciated Selves Eva Hayward refers to Anthony and the Johnson’s track Cripple and Starfish, exploring gender identity, flesh through the regenerative properties of the starfish and the prefix trans.