(RE) SHAPE at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC Parque Forestal):International exhibition gathers artistic processes and exercises after virtual co-creation residency

Inauguration|MAR August 22, 4:00 p.m. An exhibition open to the public between Tuesday 22 and Sunday 27 August will be held in room 14 of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC Parque Forestal), from (Re)Shape, a virtual co-creation artistic residency that had place the first semester of this year. The instance sought to become a way to promote experimentation among artists from different countries, who performed works in pairs format at a distance.

At the opening, the national artist Sebastián Mejia will be present, who in his career has addressed natural life invisible in cities. The photographer, who was part of the residency together with performance artist Oliver Roth, will share his experience in (Re)Shape: “We will show the process that gave rise to the various dialogue formats that were generated together with Oliver when thinking about how unite photography and performance in relation to the question: when does art occur?

Strengthening reflections and habits around creative processes, forms of communication and collaboration beyond territorial and physical borders, were some of the objectives of (Re)Shape, an initiative managed by Fundación Mar Adentro, Work it Out, cheLA , The Art Corner of Tehran, and Wixutta Knowledge Center, along with ten artists from various territories.

In the creative route of this residency, multiple approaches were present from bodily sounds; scriptwriting; interaction with new technologies; synchronization of movements and exploration of shared personal experiences; as well as talks; narratives; songs and mapping techniques.

“How are artistic collaborations developed and materialized at a distance?” is one of the questions that prompted the implementation of the creation processes, says the Director of Art and Publications of Fundación Mar Adentro, Maya Errázuriz, who added that the initiative also sought to question and expand the ways of thinking and making collective works in order to expand the possibilities and resources of traditional creation that face-to-face implies.

Through the asynchronous space of virtuality, works were created that addressed various topics, such as human and non-human relationships; notions of intimacy and pleasure; feminism; escapism; and the challenges of translation at the level of intercultural codes, languages and languages. These long-distance links have given rise to paradoxically intimate reconnections and opportunities to discuss differences, similarities, and possibilities, leading each artist to explore new forms of communication and collaboration beyond territorial and bodily boundaries.

Local artist Claudia González, who has explored media art and was also part of (Re) Shape, pointed out that “together with my duo, Jamuna Mirjam, we created an audio guide designed to generate parallel dialogues between two places, me from a forest in Chile and she, in Switzerland. She prepared a text for me to find water and I did the same for her to find land.” After this process, what will be revealed in the exhibition is the result through a video that brings together the soundscapes and movements of both artists, who, at the same time, reworked a joint script with GPT chat for the audio guide that you will hear the public at the show.

(RE)SHAPE is an international collaboration between partners Work it Out (CH/DE), Fundación Mar Adentro (CL), Wixutta Knowledge Center (MOZ), The Art Corner of Tehran (IRN) and cheLA (ARG). It is supported by an international collaboration grant “To-gather” from Pro Helvetia: the Swiss Arts Council, Südkulturfond, Fundación Mar Adentro and Tanzhaus Zürich.

The following projects developed by the artist duos will be presented at the exhibition:

Behind the eyes: Video-performance and story.
Pantea Shayesteh (IRN) + Lizette Chirrime (MOZ)

M e t a R o u t e s : Performance, mapping and cartography.
Juan Pablo Margenat (ARG) + Gökçe Uygun (TUR)

Not being in the city without leaving it: Video installation.
Oliver Roth (CH) + Sebastian Mejia (COL/CHL)

I will always take you with you: Sound installation.
Eliana N´Zualo (MOZ) + Tati Cuoco (ARG)

Earthly Flux: A Study of Transitional Clay Bodies. Video installation.
Claudia Gonzalez (CHL) + Jamuna Mirjam Zweifel (CH)

About the artists:

Sebastián Mejía, born in Lima, Peru, he is a photographer and teacher based in Santiago de Chile whose work focuses on the primitive life that commonly goes unnoticed in the modern metropolis. He earned his bachelor’s degree in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York and his Master’s degree from Finis Terrae University in Santiago, Chile. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Chile and abroad including Nous les Arbres at the Fondation Cartier (2019) in Paris, Urban Impulses at the Photographers Gallery in London (2019) and Quasi Oasis at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago (2013), amongst others.

Claudia González Godoy is an independent media artist and manager of educational projects on art and technology. Since 2006 she has developed works on the notion of materiality in analog and digital technological supports in the form of sound installations, electronics and engraving to reflect on technological developments and materialities and their effects on our natural and artificial environment. She has participated in various festivals and biennials, where she has given countless workshops and talks on Art, Open Hardware, electronic experimentation and DIY Culture. She was also co-director of the Chimbalab Art and Technology Laboratory Project between 2008 and 2012. Currently, she works as an independent artist, manager of educational projects in Art and Technology and professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile.

Jamuna Mirjam Zweifel uses the question “Where does the body end and the world begin?” as a starting point for her practices and the development of new questions. As a dancer, conceptual designer and movement researcher, she is interested in how we humans can digest and transform information. One of Jamuna’s current main concerns is to think and engage non-human actors in artistic processes to invent an alternative future. She is co-founder of the interdisciplinary collective Zookunft.Project and is part of the scenic dance company The Field, closely linked to Tanzhaus Zürich. Collective work is an important part of her artistic practice. 

Oliver Roth is a performance artist, playwright and curator living in Zurich. His works are situated between dance, theater, performance and literature, and have been exhibited in Switzerland and various places around the world. Under the title “Social Conventions“, he developed performances that stage conventional rituals, such as a funeral, a birthday party or a ghost exorcism, using media from autofiction and pop culture. In 2017, she was in the finals of Premio, Switzerland’s promotional award for dance and theater, with her piece ME TIME! In 2019 she received the Werkstipendium of the Dance Department of the City of Zurich and in 2021 the Freiraumbeitrag of the Canton of Zurich. Since 2022 she also co-directs the laboratory department of the Hora Theater. 

Eliana N’Zualo is a Mozambican storyteller based in Maputo. Through her work she explores the themes of feminism, Africa and literature/art, as well as history and politics. In 2019 she released her first book, titled O Elefante Tendai E Os Primos Hipopótamos (The Tendai Elephant and the Hippo Cousins) and has appeared in anthologies in Brazil and South Africa. She has also been exploring audiovisual media with works such as Margens (2019) and Cartas de Amor para Meninas Mal Comportadas (Love Letters for Misbehaved Meninas) (2021). Eliana is also a feminist and deeply interested in words: how words stretch and break, sometimes betray us, sometimes run away from us; that is, how words are such a big part of us.

Gökçe Uygun is an Istanbul-based composer, performer and sound designer and one of the co-founders of It’s Us: Ophelia, an international artist-run collective, as well as a member of NOD, a multidisciplinary art collective. His academic background comes from classical music and jazz in piano and composition theoretically since 2000. Since 2018, her work has focused on body, sound, space and movement relations, pursuing sound dramaturgy in live performance, transmedial performance/composition and new storytelling media. She is currently producing work with theater communities, laboratories and exhibitions as a live performer, multimedia artist and sound designer. 

Juan Pablo Margenat is an artist-designer and architect born and based in Buenos Aires. He is also a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and the National University of Avellaneda. His architectural work has focused on the urban scale, for which he has won awards and collaborated on public space projects for the city of Buenos Aires. As an artist-designer, he is dedicated to the research and development of devices for sound and audiovisual installations in collaborative contexts, such as his project Umbrasonicas. He has also been part of collaborative art projects such as Pedaludico, Vinanois, Nocturama and Estrategias Murales, among others. He is currently working on an urban performance with bicycles, and is also working on his master’s thesis on city planning and management in relation to mobility, transformation and new urban social movements.

Tatiana Cuoco is an image and sound designer, as well as a producer of audiovisual, performative and interactive pieces with electronic media. She is currently a professor of audiovisual projects, photography, expressive media and futures design at the University of Buenos Aires. She is also developing her thesis “Cyborg Social Networks” for the Master in Interactive Design at the same university. She deeply believes in the potential of hacking technology and life to create alternative hybrid futures based on our collective desires. Cuoco also enjoys sharing workshops and audiovisual experiences that blend gender studies with new media.  Recently, guided by her curiosity about systems, flows, myths, social networks and collective fictions, she is studying to become a full stack developer.

Lizette Chirrime was born in Angoche (Nampula), Mozambique, and grew up in Maputo, currently residing in Inhambane Tofo. She has always enjoyed creating artwork using painting and sewing, and has never received formal art training. In 2004 she participated in her first solo exhibition in Mozambique, and in 2005 she accepted a residency at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town. Her work consists of the creation of large-scale textile canvases depicting abstract forms represented in a collage of printed fabrics ranging from tshwe-tshwe to other African dress prints. The interplay between textiles, abstraction and art as a therapeutic and spiritual tool make Chirrime’s art unique and distinctly African.

Pantea Shayesteh, born in Tehran (Iran) and based in Cyprus (Turkey), is a performance artist with a degree in psychology and an advanced diploma in animation and film. She has had many solo and group performances, including her first solo performance in 2018, at the International Festival of Tehran, Iran, with her work entitled Willow Tree that I know. Later that year she participated as part of Marina Abramovic’s performance team at the Bangkok Art Biennale. She has also performed at the Antwerp Art Pavilion with his work Where Are You From, and has participated in BOZAR in Brussels and the SPAMI residency in Italy. Her latest collaboration has been in an online format with a group of international performers called Endlessly Performing Artists.