CENTRO SELVA ARTISTS IN RESIDENCY PROGRAM July - August 2012
En la Residencia
Photo: Mwamba
Mulangala
Workshop on Shipibo-Conibo Art ( at the farm)
Artist Talk (Centro Cultural, Pucallpa)
Visit to the Shipibo - Conibo community of Panaillo
Working at the residency
Artists Experience
Alexander Mackenzie
Before Centro Selva I
never had been involved with an artist residency program. My impressions of
what these sorts of programs should contain and consist of was based entirely
on an outsiders perspective and hearsay. Having just graduated from university,
all my previous experience came from a strong studio background and I suppose I
somehow thought that that setting would be replicated in the amazon as some
sort of microcosm of the "art world" that I was already accustomed
to. My expectations, though vague to begin with, were not met in the way that I
had imagined but on the contrary were exceeded through activities and
experiences that I never thought I would experience in an art residency (or in
my life in general). Moments like the trip to the Shipibo Conibo community and
the events that preluded the opening of our final exhibit really struck me. The
cultural offerings and the people (both local and the artist in residence) are the
strongest assets of the Centro Selva program in my mind. It was in these areas
that I will have the fondest memories.
In terms of my work, I
pursued two projects while being involve with the residency. One that was based
around my interest in this sort of playful proliferation of imagery and form. I
felt it had something to do with the relationship between architecture and
landscape and justly I made an installation of the small and quirky
objects/images that I constructed over the 2 week work period.
The second project I
created while at Centro Selva was a process piece based on ideas of labor,
intention, negation, and finality. Building a Wall on the Only Flat
Space I Could Find, is to some extend a self explanatory title. To
elaborate, the project consisted of a four hour performance in which I
attempted to enclose a space (with a wall) using only 150 bricks that I found
on the farm. In order for the wall to progress I had to take bricks from the
rear and transport them to the front thus that as the wall advanced and grew it
was constantly negating itself. While I have done performative pieces in the
past I have never worked with video. Fortunately for me nearly have the
residents were video artist (or something of the like), so I decided to document
the performance in this way and present it as a video installation during the
final exhibit.
Images of the work can
be found in the links below
Ofri Lapid
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My project is a
reflection of the process in which Shipibo-conibo design is undergoing a
change, from its traditional ritualistic pictorial language to being used as a
contemporary commercial product, relying on pattern as a decorative element
rather than a narrative tool.
Traditionally, each
pattern of the Shipibo-Conibo is completely unique and in that sense it can be
called art, yet this art is not based only on the imagination of an individual
but rather rooted in the collective consciousness of the whole Shipibo-Conibo
tribe.
In my work I follow
this approach and wish to create a work of art that is not individual but
utilizes multiple perspectives.
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For this installation I have invited different members from the Shipibo-Conibo community to apply their own unique design on top of mass produced commercial merchandise, and intervene in the printed or duplicated patterns. In this way a layered image is created, one that will attest to the historical and visual evolution of the Shipibo-Conibo art.
The term Thick
description in the terminology of anthropology stands for the
contextualization of cultural phenomena, placing the action or gesture in a
broader spectrum of understanding so that it is read alongside its cultural
implications.
The highlight of the residency was the moment when we were swimming in the river, alongside Panaillo- the shipibo village in the jungle. Never before have I felt so welcomed, so exhilarated and yet so foreign, this really concludes my experience in Centro Selva. The most unfamiliar feeling of being at home.
Mwamba Mulangala
My project at Centro Selva
is accomplished using the knowledge I acquired through intimate investigations with
my immediate residency environment.
Through walks and looking
around the residency areas, I allowed the environment to inspire and
dictate to me what direction
my creations would take. This journey was finally realized through experimentation
using an assortment of organic forms of specific found materials that I assembled
together with the aim of creating three--‐dimensional assemblages. In this quest,
multiple fragments evoking different forms are combined together to establish holistic
works whose themes are both whimsical and pensive.
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