Disruptive human activity continues to threaten the Earth's ecological balances, eradicating biodiversity, and our planet’s shared resources. This digital exhibition highlights artists working across diverse media to preserve nature, reveal environmental devastation, and speculate on future life forms. Curator Tina Sauerlaender (peer to space) presents artists Aviv Benn (ISR/UK), Laura Colmenares Guerra (COL/BE), Reiner Maria Matysik (DE), Sarah Oh-Mock (DE), Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes (CAN), Sabrina Ratté (CAN), Tamiko Thiel (US/DE) in an immersive online exhibition. Echoes from the Future renders current environmental issues visible in virtual reality, inviting audiences into an immersive alternative future for hybrid lifeforms.

ECHOES FROM THE FUTURE
Laura Colmenares Guerra

In 2016, Tromsø Kunstforening got some new cohabitants out of the blue – a flock of seagulls occupied the façade of the old museum building in Muségata 2. We learned that these were kittiwakes. A species of seagull that normally nest in the steep cliff walls of enormous mountains far out at sea. The kittiwake is, like several other seagulls and species of seabirds, highly endangered. Huge colonies of nesting grounds along the coast are not merely on the verge of extinction anymore – they have gone completely quiet.

In the following years, the colony on our façade and in the rest of the city has grown, and the same is happening in other populated and urban areas along the coast. The reactions from people and news media in Tromsø have been characterized by a wish to – as quickly as possible – get rid of the problem that this poses for us humans. But other voices have also made themselves heard. Scientists and artists have said: Hey, listen! The kittiwake has important things to tell us. The kittiwake is a climate refugee – they bring with them a message about an ecosystem in imbalance, which needs our attention. It is the actions of humans that have caused these birds to seek shelter among us.

The beginning of the breeding season of 2022 marked a transition in the debate and the local effort. Tromsø municipality took action, and in dialogue with the seabird researchers, Tone Kristin Reiertsen and Kjell Otto Jacobsen at NINA, they erected temporary nesting installations for the kittiwakes.

For the next season, the municipality gave Kjeld Nash and AT Arkitektur the task of coming up with mitigating measures, and in collaboration with the artists Lawrence Malstaf and Kåre Aleksander Grundvåg, and in close dialogue with the previously mentioned researchers, they developed the mobile kittiwake hotels that can be found outside Kunstforeninga today, where the kittiwakes are now incubating their eggs, which at the time of writing are in the process of hatching.

We are proud to present an exhibition that collects artistic, activistic, and science-based practices that have actively related to these issues since a long time before we and the city of Tromsø got to know the kittiwakes. From different angles of approach, the artworks dream of a better coexistence between people and birds, in poetical, practical, and long-term ways.

Curated by Kåre Aleksander Grundvåg and Camilla Fagerli.

With Ingvild Austgulen, Eva Bakkeslett / Conference of the Birds, Kåre Aleksander Grundvåg, Søssa Jørgensen & Geir Tore Holm, Irene Kaltenborn, Gabriel Johann Kvendseth, Lawrence Malstaf, AT Arkitektur / Kjeld Nash, Camilla Renate Nicolaisen, Georgiana Dobre & Kjersti Vetterstad, and Elin Már Øyen Vister

Tromsø Kunstforening
Lawrence Malstaf

OVERVIEW 02016 - Astronauts who were able to observe planet earth from outer space for the first time, all experienced a strong emotional reaction later called the overview effect. A euphoric feeling of oneness with the planet and all living beings as a collective biotope where 'my molecules are yours' and vice versa and individuality seems an illusion.

The work of Lawrence Malstaf is situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. He develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on movement, coincidence, order and chaos, and immersive sensorial rooms for individual visitors. He also creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation, often using the visitor as a co-actor. His projects involve physics and technology as a point of departure or inspiration and as a means for activating installations. 

Topologies of the Real: Techne Shenzhen 2023
ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe | Art in Motion: 100 Masterpieces with and through Media (China edition)

Curated by Zhang Ha

EXTRACTIONS 23 is an exhibition that brings together different artists who work along the themes of extraction and landscapes. The selection of installations, new and mixed media, photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures, performances and music, sketches an image of humankind that seems to have no other choice than to exploit its environment. Extraction does not only mean destruction, or at least not right away. It can also mean cultivation, making land available for growing crops. Nowadays, extraction has degenerated into consumption, a devastating process that is wreaking havoc at micro and macro levels, from our intimate thoughts to the layers of the Earth. EXTRACTIONS 23 is the third edition of this annual exhibition organised by Kris Verdonck / A Two Dogs Company and takes place in the company’s atelier.



EXTRACTIONS 23
2 - 17 September 2023
Saturday & Sunday
14:00 - 18:00


A Two Dogs Company 


Adolphe Lavalléestraat 41


1080 Molenbeek (B)


PHOTOGRAPHS, SCULPTURES, PAINTINGS, INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES

Stephan Balleux

Noemi Iglesias Barrios

Judith Nangala Crispin

Frederic Fourdinier

Hermann Nitsch

Sabrina Ratté

Kris Verdonck

Maxime Denuc

Ictus Ensemble


With the support of:

The Flemish Community, The Flemish Community Commission, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

tele-present water - This installation by David Bowen draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected and updated from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy station 51003. This station was originally moored 205 nautical miles Southwest of Honolulu on the Pacific. It went adrift and the last report from its moored position was around 04/25/2011. It is still transmitting valid observation data but its exact location is unknown. The wave intensity and frequency collected from the buoy is scaled and transferred to the mechanical grid structure, resulting in a simulation of the physical effects caused by the movement of water from this distant unknown location. This work physically replicates a remote experience and makes observation of the activity of an isolated object, otherwise lost at sea, possible through direct communication.

David Bowen
Scopitone

The Ríos Trilogy by Laura Colmenares Guerra is an extensive project consisting of three chapters exploring the Amazon Basin from local and global perspectives. It offers a perspective on the region that aims to understand how people within traditional Western thinking relate to Amazonia. Through different approaches, the Trilogy attempts to understand the meanings and definitions attributed to this territory. It also sheds light on the history of colonisation and how it has impacted Amazonia, providing insights into the current socio-environmental threats facing the region.

The Ríos Trilogy is composed of three chapters:

CHAPTER N.1: RIVERS // AMAZONIA GEO-LINGUISTICS
Interactive, experimental research tool that allows mapping information related to the Amazons Rainforest on social media.

CHAPTER N.2: SPECULATIVE CARTOGRAPHIES
21 ceramic 3D printed speculative cartographies emerging from the digital hybridisation process of Amazonia-related data and the actual topography of the Amazon basin.

CHAPTER N.3: R€¥€R$€
Virtual Reality (VR 30') piece that underlines the existing tensions where human, cultural and environmental aspects rub with power, economics and multinational interests in a context of climate stress.

CAPTURE #2 is the second in a series of exhibitions devised by KIKK to showcase the diversity and creativity of digital arts in Belgium. The exhibition presents recent projects by artists who all use new technologies to capture the world in their own way.

Curated by Marie du Chastel

Le Pavillon
Laura Colmenares Guerra

SHRINK 01995 - Two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them leave the body (in this case the artist himself) vacuum-packed and vertically suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, which vary from an almost embryonic position to one resembling a crucified body.

At L.E.V. Matadero there will be 6 Shrinks and the bodies of 6 performers.

L.E.V. Festival
Lawrence Malstaf

NEMO OBSERVATORIUM 02002 - Styrofoam particles are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by 5 strong fans. Visitors can take place one by one on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe.Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise as a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one's sense of time deludes.

CAPTURE #2 is the second in a series of exhibitions devised by KIKK to showcase the diversity and creativity of digital arts in Belgium. The exhibition presents recent projects by artists who all use new technologies to capture the world in their own way.

Curated by Marie du Chastel

Le Pavillon
Lawrence Malstaf

Annelies Van Parys honours her former teacher Luc Brewaeys, who died far too young, with a work commissioned by the Concertgebouworkest. Her astounding style makes Van Parys a totally original voice in contemporary music.

The world premiere recording of Eco... del vuoto by Annelies Van Parys is now available on Apple Music Classical in hi-res stereo and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos (from July 28 in stereo only on other platforms).

Written for & performed by  the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, conductor Kristiina Poska.

The app can be downloaded from the App Store: https://apple.co/3TFdbqD and Android’s Google Play: http://bitly.ws/IrcL

Annelies Van Parys

ISCM South Africa (NewMusicSA), the organizer of the 2023 ISCM World New Music Days, has announced the works that have been selected for performance from the call for scores.
From the Flemish entry for ISCM's Call for Works, the international selection committee chose Shades of Light by Annelies Van Parys.

Statement from the jury: 
"How Annelies Van Parys continues to discover new paths and worlds in her musical language is greatly admired. In Shades of Light, the cello and electronics fuse together very beautifully. With limited material, a lot happens in this composition."

Shades of Light was created by Séverine Ballon during the previous edition of Transit

Shades of Light will be performed during the 2023 ISCM World New Music Days in South Africa (24 November – 3 December 2023), the first ISCM festival ever held on the African continent.

2023 ISCM World New Music Days
Annelies Van Parys