LIGHT UP 2022
Click on the artist’s photos below to view their personal slideshow of images for Light Up 2022.
4Fréttatilkynning – Light Up 2022
English below
Á íslenskum vetrum eru dagarnir stuttir og næturnar langar. Eftir að ljósaflóð jólanna er liðið hjá getur janúar virst vera dimmasti mánuður ársins og við þráum öll langa sólríka daga. Til að bjóða bjartara og skærara 2022 velkomið þá mun Nes listamiðstöð „lýsa upp“ Skagaströnd með þátttöku listamanna sem munu búa til allskonar listaverk með lýsingu. Það verður gert með því að nota LED ljós til að varpa birtu, búa til skugga, endurskin og fl. víða um Skagaströnd og með listagöngu fyrir íbúa Norðurlands vestra 23. og 24. janúar 2022 frá kl. 18.00 – 21.30.
Óáþreifanleiki ljóssins getur breytt skynjun okkar á hugtakinu „rými“ og Nes listamiðstöð hefur valið listamenn frá Austurríki, Hollandi, Grikklandi, Bandaríkjunum, Þýskalandi og Kanada sem munu búa til stórar innsetningar og varpanir með því að nota ljós á frumlegan og skapandi hátt, einnig bjóða upp á gerð lukta með börnum og lýsandi vinnustofur.
Þessi viðburður er hannaður með þátttöku samfélagsins í huga til að breikka sýn okkar á hvað er „list“. Komdu í heimsókn til Skagastrandar meðan á viðburðinum stendur, gakktu um bæinn og bjóddu bjartara og skærara 2022 velkomið.
Þessi viðburður er aðeins mögulegur með stuðningi frá Uppbyggingarsjóði Norðurlands vestra, Minningarsjóðnum um hjónin frá Garði og Vindhæli, Kaupfélagi Skagfirðinga, Samkaupi og ómetanlegri aðstoð frá Sveitarfélaginu Skagaströnd.
Þú getur tekið Light Up rölt um bæinn með því að fylgja kortinu, ljósaperurnar leiða þig að listaverkum Light Up 2022.
English
During the Icelandic winter, the days are short and the nights long, January is the darkest month of the year, and as the warm glow of Christmas fades we yearn for summer days. To welcome in a lighter, brighter 2022 we wish to ‘Light Up’ our town by engaging artists to create artworks with light, through the use of LED’s, projection, shadows, reflections etc, around the town of Skagaströnd, culminating on the 22nd and 23rd with an artwalk event for the local northwest community. The intangibility of light has the ability to change our perception of spaces and we have selected artists who can create immersive light installations and projections using light in creative and innovative ways.This event is designed for community interaction and engagement to broaden the understanding of what is ‘art’.
This project is only possible with funding from Samtök sveitarfélaga á Norðurlandi vestra, Minningarsjóður Skagaströnd, Kaupfélag Skagafirðinga, Samkaup and the unlimited support from the local Skagaströnd community.
You can take a Light Up walk around the town by downloading the map here, light bulb icon marks a Light Up 2022 artwork.
Meredith Leich - USA
Meredith Leich is an animator, watercolorist, and installation artist, whose work explores the nature of cities, place-based histories, and climate change through scientific research and intuitive visual exploration. Her interests are driven both by curiosity about the natural world and fear of the broad impacts of a changing climate on societies and collective well-being. She seeks psychologically-attuned ways of working with these themes: rather than inducing terror, she aims for wonder, imagination, and even humor as means of creating a receptive state in which to consider a frightening future.
Her climate change-based collaboration with glaciologist Andrew Malone was awarded a 2015-16 Arts, Science & Culture Initiative Grant from the University of Chicago. She received a 2018 Individual Artist Grant from Chicago’s DCASE, and her work has screened as part of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Athens International Film + Video Festival, Chicagoland Shorts, and at other venues nationally and abroad. She has completed residencies at the Studios of Key West, the Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Wrangell Mountain Center in McCarthy, Alaska. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. http://meredithleich.com/
Leandros Ntolas - Greece
Leandros Ntolas (b. 1992) is an artist from Greece, currently based in the Netherlands. He is a graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts (BFA, 2015) and of the ArtScience Interfaculty, part of the Royal Academy of Arts The Hague (MA, 2018). Ntolas has been active in the field of art in public space and has exhibited works in Greece and the Netherlands. He has been awarded the Emerging Artist Stipend, by the Mondrian Fund (2019) and his work has been supported by organisations such as Stroom Den Haag and Outset NL.
The artistic practice of Leandros Ntolas can be defined as multidisciplinary and pluralistic. It doesn’t limit itself to one medium, direction or approach, but embraces the freedom to run around freely following its curiosity, intuition and mood of the day. The common thread of this free-roaming practice is a phenomenological and experimental approach combined with research into diverse fields ranging from the study of light, optics, astronomy and perception, to philosophy, architecture, history of religion and metaphysics. Past outcomes have manifested as works in public space, immersive light installations, drawings, sculptures, and architectural models.
Heinz Kasper - Austria
Heinz Kasper is a light painter, a light draughtsman, and a light designer. For him, colour is light and light is form. Forms evolve from shadows, and gain their contour from light; light delineates the shapes, which transform like light itself as the day moves into night. On travels from Europe to Africa, from India to Japan, he has explored the most varied manifestations of light, and experimented with light environments and designs.
With this in mind, it is only logical that Heinz Kasper does not limit himself only to the institution of art during his research trips. Alongside his light designs for museums, and his participation in international light festivals, he also mounts interior and exterior architectural projects as well as temporary exhibitions and other projects related to all genres of the pictorial arts. Moreover, time and again he creates and stages illuminated “moving pictures” in which nature itself is brought to speak. Lectureship, national and international awards. In the end, everything is light.
https://www.heinzkasper.com
Heidi Zenisek & Nicole Shaver - USA
Heidi Zenisek and Nicole J Shaver hail from Midwest, USA. They use abstract surveying methods to learn about the land and consider the effect of the human hand on our Earth. Their playful, investigative work experiments with the threshold of sense perception—looking and seeing, hearing and listening, giving attention and awareness, and exploring what lies in between.
Heidi has exhibited throughout the United States and Iceland, and has participated in numerous residencies such as HEIMA, Franconia Sculpture Park, and Salem Art Works. In 2016, she was a Fellow at The LungA School in Iceland and has twice been invited to exhibit at the Icelandic Light Festival, List í Ljósi. She holds a BFA from the University of Iowa, an MA from Eastern Illinois University, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Maryland.
Nicole received her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA from the University of Iowa. She has attended artist residencies in Colorado, Iceland, North Carolina, Ohio, Portugal, Vancouver, and Wisconsin, while exhibiting widely throughout the United States and Scandinavia. Her work has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and published in New American Paintings and Studio Visit Magazine.
https://www.heidizenisek.com/
https://nicolejshaver.com/
Bas Peeters - The Netherlands
Bas Peeters (1962) is a spatial designer and light artist. He gives content to spaces. His site-specific light installations and video mapping projects tell something essential about the area, the social context, and its history of the environment.
The power of his work lies in its simplicity. He creates penetrating experiences with minimal resources, with respect for the existing environment. No unambiguous messages, but multi-interpretable dreams that awaken spectators from their sleep.
“Building with light intrigues me because of the paradox between the immaterial intangibility of light and its strong, attractive presence. Light is the common thread in my work, in the sense of the catalyst of all materials”.
In the cold and dark winter, Iceland will give an excellent challenge to work with artificial light outside in nature. Experiments with freezing LED lights in the snow and melting ice with infrared lamps to imagine global warming. Inside the studio, Bas Peeters wants to make new light objects inspired by the Northern light. https://www.baspeeters.nl/
Almar Freyr - Iceland, Björn Alexandridis - Iceland/Greece & Ola Baldyga - Poland
Unfortunately, due to pandemic restrictions, this event has been canceled.
Almar Freyr AKA Tálsýn Visuals, is a visual artist exploring relationships with humans, AI, and technology in art. For several years he has been performing and setting up installations for festivals in Iceland and abroad. Almar has developed his style along with music performance using live computer processing to generate visuals that react and flow to the sound of the environment. https://www.instagram.com/almar.freyr/
Björn Alexandridis is a music producer, composer, sound designer and sound engineer. For the past decade he has been releasing music and performing in international festivals and concerts with his projects Deep In Mind and Bjorn Alpha. His sound consists of synthesizers, acoustic elements and found sound. https://www.instagram.com/bjornalpha/
Forrest Forrester – is the alias of Ola Baldyga, a cellist and composer from Poland now based in Reykjavik, Iceland. Over the years she has collaborated with numerous musicians e.g. as a cellist in folk band “Saint NIcholas Orchestra” or as a session cellist in “Percival” group which made a soundtrack for “The Witcher” game. She was co funder and composer in experimental music project “Transilvia”. In her solo performances she uses a live looping effect which can give an impression of a whole string quartet playing live. She’s experimenting with an unusual timbre of cello along with vocal and backup of a bass guitar. https://www.instagram.com/forrestforrester/
Verena Faisst - Germany
I am filmmaker, photographer, stagedesigner for invisible elephants, expert for languages yet to be found, and sound engineer for the unheard of. My favorite collaborators are kids because they are the most courageous travel companions.
One cannot see light without darkness, so I am looking very much forward to finding tender bright cracks within northern nights and I am excited to encounter some adventurous children of Skagaströnd to join my endeavor.
We will make winter‘s black the canvas for our fantasy using cameras and microphones; we’ll dance with the good ghosts and listen to the whispering stories they have to tell.“
Verena Faisst is holding a MA in fine arts and a BA in arts education. Currently she is PhD in Art candidate at Zentrum Fokus Forschung / University of Applied Arts Vienna. She has been studying at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG), Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Fotoschule Friedl Kubelka. Her artistic research and work are focused on collaborations with children and have been exhibited and presented at group shows in Vienna and abroad. https://www.verenafaisst.com/
Suzanne Giroux - Canada
Instagram: suzannegirouxstudio
Katharina Kamph - Germany
Katharina Kamph is an artist living and working in Berlin, Germany. Her work is object-based and performative, with a strong affection for paper. It unfolds in a process-oriented manner by meditative repetitions and by the means of collaboration. Through cutting and folding paper, she examines her environment and everyday life for its basic characteristics, for example, spatial expansion, multidimensionality, gravity, time, and light. She is working on finding personal models of what our common world could be like and invites you to join in.
Katharina develops and presents her works in the context of exhibitions, festivals, workshops, and community projects. She is a founding member of the artist initiative N-leben and is active in the AG Minimales Reisen (minimal travel group) in Berlin. In the course of the Kunsthalle Below Summer Residency Program, she holds workshops on the topic of performative book art. Her most recent solo exhibitions include Ovoid (Planet) in the io lux project space, Berlin, 2021, and Timaios in the gallery einBuch.Haus, Berlin, 2018. She participated at festivals such as 48h Neukölln, Berlin, 2021; altonale, Hamburg, 2021 + 20 and Pop Up, Worms, 2016. She exhibited her works internationally in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and USA. https://www.kamph.net/