Lecture Archive

27.11. 2023 | 18h | 6PM CET | TREE OPERA with Roberta Fišere

The lecture will introduce the process behind the venue design and scenography for the Tree Opera, which took place in Mustarinda, Finland in 2019. Tree Opera is a collaborative event between musicians, artists and architects, which encourages reflection on the relationship between humans and the forest. The venue was located in the north of Finland, an area known for some of the oldest natural forests in Europe. The main consideration was to design a forest amphitheatre without damaging the natural habitat. The event venue was designed as a biodegradable structure, which will decay and become a forest in several years. As one of the architects from Mailitis Architects who worked on the project as one of the lead designers and scenographer, Roberta Fišere will walk you through the process of creating sustainable, bio-degradable platforms which serve multiple purposes; as a backdrop and stage for the 2 day opera event, as well as a nature trail connecting existing structures in the forest. In Tree Opera multiple art forms and incentives merge; architecture, music, nature preservation and sustainability.

WEBSITE: https://mailitis.lv/

Join us via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82879415277?pwd=eGNadDFaem11aWZ2MWlzTWVPR2V6dz09&fbclid=IwAR0jub2xHOX3Nzab6V_QjnRUk_hMt1FQm5dqeIaGApGJ7loz7MGG0_9gC5E#success

Musicville is a project between Slovenia, Croatia and Austria that aims to transform the classical European musical form of Opera into a new, innovative, and creative collaboration inspired by environmental awareness, nature, local crafts, and traditions.
______
This project is co-funded by the EU.
Supported by: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia
Project partners: Glasbarium Institute, LAB852, Artikel VII
For any questions contact us at info@musicville.org

5.11.2023, 16:30 | 4nd MUSICVILLE LECTURE

CELIA STROOM – THE ENCLOSED GARDEN

Over the past decade, I’ve scaled back my activities as an opera singer and museographer to focus on researching experimental formats for artistic performances and collective processes, exploring ways to create more ecological shows that strengthen the bonds between artists and audiences. I first imagined a show format where all decors would be created by the artists themselves using recycled and natural materials. Performances would take place only in non-institutional spaces such as apartments, courtyards, forests and abandoned buildings. It was communicated solely by word of mouth, inviting the public to a show that weaved together opera, performing arts and visual art installations. After four years of experimentation in Berlin and Paris of “L’OEIL ECOUTE” project, I moved to Georgia and discovered a need for experimental arts festivals. The performance project became a festival.
I’ll be presenting in detail how the project economics developed, how the project was set up in partnership between people from different cultures and artistic backgrounds, how the methodology of this show format was experimented in Georgia (2019) and Thailand (2021). A new series of field investigations took place last year in Uzbekistan (2022) and Kyrgyzstan (2023), and we are developing a new iteration of the project there. I look forward to sharing the learnings and mistakes that often result from projects based on a multidisciplinary approach, multiculturalism, ecology and healing processes.

Project website: www.heroineswave.com/theenclosedgarden

Biography:

Celia Stroom is multidisciplinary in the full being. She first studied dance as well as opera singing at the Conservatory of Paris. She also graduated in Art History, Museum Studies, and Cultural Management at La Sorbonne University. In parallel to working for museums, as a collection care consultant, a museographer, and an exhibition designer, she co-founded the Paris-based musical ensemble La Tempête which aims to challenge the traditional formats of classical music performances through the use of contemporary dance techniques.. After moving to Berlin, she started to develop a format of shows, following principles that are rooted in her practice of collection care, such as ecology and sustainability, applying these principles to the protocols of live performance creation. In this perspective 2016, she founded “Oeil Ecoute, (The Eye Listens), a series of Gesamtkunstwerk made of upcycling and natural materials that intertwine textile art, digital art, polyphonies, dances, drawings, poetry, perfumes. They are staged in intimate spaces to bring people close to each other and attempt to awaken all the senses. In search of expanding her research about intimate and multisensory artistic formats and taking women as its centre, she initiated in 2019 in Georgia where she was living The Enclosed Garden (TEG), a nomadic, transdisciplinary biennale for women artists. In parallel, she initiated the international platform of cultural managers Heroineswave. Conceived as a beehive, each member aspires to fire up emancipatory art shows, residency programs and podcasts on ecology, care and gender in places where artists feel isolated and invisible. In the framework of this platform, she has conducted fieldwork on women artists’ struggles in Georgia, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. She is currently preparing the 4th iteration of the biennial TEG in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In the meantime, she is designing a residency space in Athens, Greece with upcycled materials. The place will be dedicated to creators of experimental formats of shows in need of isolation and silence to come back to a fertile, innovative process of creation.

ZOOM LINK:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82879415277?pwd=eGNadDFaem11aWZ2MWlzTWVPR2V6dz09

Meeting-ID: 828 7941 5277

Kenncode: 772812

Website: https://musicville.org/

______
Musicville is a project between Slovenia, Croatia and Austria that aims to transform the classical European musical form of Opera into a new, innovative, and creative collaboration inspired by environmental awareness, nature, local crafts, and traditions.
______
This project is co-funded by the EU.
Supported by: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia
Project partners: Glasbarium Institute, LAB852, Artikel VII
For any questions contact us at info@musicville.org

12.10.2023, 18:00 | 3nd MUSICVILLE LECTURE

“Art is given to us to prevent us from dying of truth.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)

In the presentation, we want to discuss the very social and epistemological framework in which mental and physical health and art come into relationship. Today, we are witnessing an increasing number of online articles on the topic of the positive impact of art on holistic well-being, stress reduction and emotional resonance. On the WHO website thus, we can read the following: “The use of artistic media in health care and in communities can have a variety of benefits for health outcomes. They can be used to communicate valuable messages across cultures and political divides, help affected communities understand the risks of certain diseases or behaviours and provide ways for affected populations to process and learn from their individual and collective experience to improve their wellbeing among other benefits.” This raises the question of whether the “medical status” of art is socially conditioned and whether it can be explored through a genealogical and epistemological analysis of the potential relationship between medical knowledge, social power, and art. Are we witnessing today the process of “medicalization of art”? In the presentation, we also want to address a critical question: Is the therapeutic discourse of art a special form of social control over the subversive power that art has had since its beginnings? To answer these questions, we will go to the extreme and check whether art is closer to death or healing.

Magdalena Germek, PhD is an assistant in the field of philosophy, she received her doctorate from the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana). Her areas of interest are epistemology of science and epistemology of art.

ZOOM LINK:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82879415277?pwd=eGNadDFaem11aWZ2MWlzTWVPR2V6dz09

Meeting-ID: 828 7941 5277

Kenncode: 772812

Website: https://musicville.org/

12.09.2023, 18:00 | 2nd MUSICVILLE LECTURE

Jay Springett – https://www.thejaymo.net/
Topic: Art and Sustainability; the Solarpunk Movement
Jay Springett is a consultant strategist and writer from London, UK. He works with individuals and organizations to create cohesive worlds. Hybrid environments that create a culture via the interaction of people, place, and technologies. He is recognised as an articulate voice in the emerging speculative genre of Solarpunk. A movement that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilisation look like, and how can we get there?” He has described Solarpunk as a memetic engine – a tool to power the ‘refuturing’ of our collective imagination. His Solarpunk short story ‘In The Storm, A Fire’ was long listed for the BSFA Award for Short Fiction and Chanticleer International Book Awards Short Story Award Semifinalist.

30.05.2023, 18:00 | OPENING LECTURE

Lecturer Ana Ablamonova | Operomanija
Operomanija is a production house based in Lithuania, dedicated to the creation and promotion of new music theater through diverse cross-disciplinary artistic collaborations. Since its formation in 2008, it has produced about 50 contemporary operas and various multidisciplinary art projects. Organization runs Contemporary Opera Festival NOA (New Opera Action) – one of the leading international new music theater events in the Baltic region. It also holds creative residencies related to contemporary opera, organizes production and release of sound recordings, along with domestic and international promotion of produced works.