swaantje güntzel & jan philip scheibe |
#residency
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plastisphere
Interventions & performances around the city
22 February - 22 March 2016 (scroll down for photo calendar)
Exhibition
Opening: 22 March, 20:00 / Artists talk & exhibition tour: 23 March, 18:00
Duration: 23 March - 13 May 2016 / Opening hours: Monday-Friday, 10:00-22:00, Saturday, 11:00-13:00
Venue: Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki (66 Vasilissis Olgas Ave.)
22 February - 22 March 2016 (scroll down for photo calendar)
Exhibition
Opening: 22 March, 20:00 / Artists talk & exhibition tour: 23 March, 18:00
Duration: 23 March - 13 May 2016 / Opening hours: Monday-Friday, 10:00-22:00, Saturday, 11:00-13:00
Venue: Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki (66 Vasilissis Olgas Ave.)
about plastisphere
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Plastisphere investigates the pollution of the oceans and the presence of plastic in our everyday lives. The project includes a series of performances and interventions in public space, a site-specific ephemeral installation built especially for the Old Slaughterhouse building of Thessaloniki, and an accompanying exhibition to be presented at Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki, also including site-specific works. The interventions have been designed to include the audience either in the preparation or the performance process itself. The project aims to raise awareness among the public (both adults and children) on our dependency on nature (globally and regionally) and to playfully engage the people of Thessaloniki to reflect our consumer and waste management habits, as well as to question the state of our surrounding environment and whether it calls for improvement suggestions. PLASTISPHERE/Thessaloniki deals with the very characteristics of the city of Thessaloniki, a place whose history and identity is clearly linked to the proximity to the Mediterranean Sea and emphasizes the responsibility resulting from this dependency.
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about the artists
Beyond their individual work, the two artists often collaborate for the creation of common projects, as the artists couple “Scheibe & Güntzel”. “Plastisphere” can be seen as a synergy between their practices. The two of the first collaborated in 2009, when they joined to carry out a project in public space building an allotment garden in the middle of the park of Brundlund Castle in Aabenraa Denmark (Aabenraa ARTweek 2009). Since then, their collaborative work became an integral element of their individual artistic practices. Most of the projects they have realized so far as a couple (performances and installations) deal with man’s perception of nature and our concept of modeling/shaping it – urban landscape as well as cultivated landscape.
Güntzel, whose work addresses the alienated relationship between humanity and nature initially started to cover the topic in 2009 after reading an article on rotating plastic carpets in the Pacific Ocean and its effects on marine life. In the following months she established a cooperation with marine biologists working on the most remote of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands KURE ATOLL monitoring the impact of marine debris on a rare breeding colony of Laysan albatross phoebastria immutabilis. The atoll lies in the path of a major Pacific current, resulting in tons of debris floating in the area causing an enormous hazard to sea life especially to seabirds mistaking the debris for food. The biologists agreed to provide Güntzel both with debris items found in the boluses of dead Laysan albatrosses and collected on the beaches of the atoll on a regular basis for her work. In the course of the following years she started collecting garbage herself on different beaches all over Europe to create sculptural works and conceptual series and to analyze the correlation between human consumer behavior and the state of the oceans. In 2011 Güntzel extended her practice to experiment with performance and intervention in public space especially dealing with the role of garbage/plastic in human civilization and man’s self concept. Much of her work is inspired by scientific research.
Jan Philip Scheibe’s individual artistic work is basically characterized by installations and performances in the public space and in the open landscape, often linked to light. His main focus lies on the artistic analysis of the transformation of built and natural environments under the impact of global development, rising population and human conduct in general and the distress it causes to people (→ solastalgia/eco-psychology). At the same time he reflects why and in which way the reception of nature/landscape is often defined by idealization and romanticization. Since one of the main themes Scheibe has been dealing with in the past are the disturbances in landscapes (urban, cultivated and natural) caused by garbage it seemed natural for the couple to join and create a project combining both artists approaches on the subject.
Güntzel, whose work addresses the alienated relationship between humanity and nature initially started to cover the topic in 2009 after reading an article on rotating plastic carpets in the Pacific Ocean and its effects on marine life. In the following months she established a cooperation with marine biologists working on the most remote of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands KURE ATOLL monitoring the impact of marine debris on a rare breeding colony of Laysan albatross phoebastria immutabilis. The atoll lies in the path of a major Pacific current, resulting in tons of debris floating in the area causing an enormous hazard to sea life especially to seabirds mistaking the debris for food. The biologists agreed to provide Güntzel both with debris items found in the boluses of dead Laysan albatrosses and collected on the beaches of the atoll on a regular basis for her work. In the course of the following years she started collecting garbage herself on different beaches all over Europe to create sculptural works and conceptual series and to analyze the correlation between human consumer behavior and the state of the oceans. In 2011 Güntzel extended her practice to experiment with performance and intervention in public space especially dealing with the role of garbage/plastic in human civilization and man’s self concept. Much of her work is inspired by scientific research.
Jan Philip Scheibe’s individual artistic work is basically characterized by installations and performances in the public space and in the open landscape, often linked to light. His main focus lies on the artistic analysis of the transformation of built and natural environments under the impact of global development, rising population and human conduct in general and the distress it causes to people (→ solastalgia/eco-psychology). At the same time he reflects why and in which way the reception of nature/landscape is often defined by idealization and romanticization. Since one of the main themes Scheibe has been dealing with in the past are the disturbances in landscapes (urban, cultivated and natural) caused by garbage it seemed natural for the couple to join and create a project combining both artists approaches on the subject.
PLASTISPHERE / THESSALONIKI PRODUCTION TEAM
Residency assistant: Katerina Vougiouka
Video documentation: Grigoris Tsolakis - MIMO
Photo documentation: Giorgos Kogias
Poster & postcard design: Konstantinos Tzeiranidis - 707 Designers
Video documentation: Grigoris Tsolakis - MIMO
Photo documentation: Giorgos Kogias
Poster & postcard design: Konstantinos Tzeiranidis - 707 Designers
