4 young emerging artists from Asia and Spain were given the opportunity to work together during 6 weeks thanks to the project AT HOME/BEING HOME eresidency launched in July 2021 by Casa Asia and ASEF through its arts website culture360.ASEF.org.
The residency explored the non-physical and barrierless concept of “home” and sought to understand how its nature had been altered against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has restricted movement within this space and changed the boundaries of home, the opportunities for encounter, dialogue, reflection, and creation. Throughout their 6-week virtual residency, the selected artists have worked in pairs around the theme of home, responding to this through the lenses of their artistic practices. The selected artists worked online under the mentorship of Jayachandran Palazhy, choreographer & artistic director of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts.
Do you want to know more about the process? Check the weekly reports of the artists:
Luvenia – Malaysia / Lucas – Spain:
Week 6
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1
Jo – Vietnam / Eva – Spain:
As part of the e-residency At Home/Being Home dedicated to young emerging artists from the performing arts and new media, culture360 and Casa Asia have organised an online conversation with the artists and mentor to discuss the 2 projects developed in response to the theme of “home”.
After 6 weeks of collaborative work in pairs, the four participating artists from Spain, Viet Nam and Malaysia were invited to share their experience and their projects together with their mentor, Jayachandran Palazhy, Choreographer & Artistic Director of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore, India.
Jo & Eva’s 3D interactive video game:
“We created a virtual neighborhood containing buildings from Vietnam and Spain, flooded by water as it floods the Earth and our hearts. We added the voice of people who are not there, neither will be there, making them soundscape of a pixelated dwelling, making it more human, making it as alive as it could be. Virtual as in possibility.
It was a positive challenge to try and find a way of working together and making our interests meet, as we were complete strangers to each other at the beginning of the residency. Finally, we ended up with this 3D environment which enabled us to combine very different disciplines in a single place. It also allows us to display both the process and the final result.”
Play here
To enter, just click on “create a room with this scene” and then “join room”. Choose a name for the avatar and play!
Luvenia & Lucas – Hogarku work in progress
Hogarku is a work in progress built from an intercultural collaboration between two dancers from across the globe. It presents the point of view of a guest in our home. It reveals our relationships with the spaces present in our home and how the concept of home has informed our bodies. This film reveals the contrast of experiences living in different countries and how the pandemic has shifted our concept of home.
Know more about the artists and the mentor
Mr Jayachandran PALAZHY (India)
Choreographer & Artistic Director, Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore
Jayachandran Palazhy is a changemaker, a visionary leader and the Artistic Director of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore. Trained in Contemporary Dance, Ballet, Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Indian folk dance forms, Kalarippayattu, Yoga, Tai Chi, Capoeira and African Dance forms, Jayachandran’s strategic interventions and initiatives has impacted the development of contemporary dance in India. An acclaimed choreographer and teacher, he has collaborated with reputed international artists to create some very exciting multimedia dance productions such as City Maps, Beyond the Walls for Men, ScannedV, TransAvatar,Purushartha, Chronotopia, MeiDhwani,
AadhaaraChakra – a Dancelogue and Bhinna Vinyasa, which have received widespread critical acclaim, and toured extensively within India and internationally. Jayachandran is the Director of Attakkalari India Biennial festival, FACETS Choreography Residency, Incubation Centre for Arts & Media (ICAM) and the Attakkalari Culture Port (a digital arts house). Jayachandran has participated in artistic residencies internationally, presented papers and lecture presentations and directed an exhaustive research and documentation project NAGARIKA – an interactive digital information system on Indian physical and performance traditions. He has worked as director, consultant and mentor for dance residencies and festivals across the world and is a guest faculty in few reputed universities in India and abroad.
Pair 1: Jo Ngô Kỳ Duyên (Vietnam) & Eva Antelo Mata (Spain)
Jo or Ngô Kỳ Duyên is a Saigonese visual artist whose work is associated with moving images, virtual reality, augmented reality, new media art. She aims to reach more audiences in a stronger and appealing narrative form with high-tech support and advocate for the creative community to go beyond the traditional mediums. Her main focus is healing art, meditation, and spreading positive energy for a safe mental outlet which is even more crucial than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eva Antelo is a young Spanish artist who builds her work as if it was a home; using space, speech, and inhabiting as its major backbones. Nowadays she delves into the concept of habitability, traversing through the relationships and meanings contained inside it: to inhabit in a who [identity], a what [body], a where [belonging], a when [zeitgeist], a how [privacy], a why [shelter]. Also, the bond between house and home: being the house an object that may be subjected to commodification, and the current situation of home due to urban speculation. It is now, thought, not as a fundamental right of every human being, as it is written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; yet as a trading item for individual enrichment. She aims to investigate through various artistic fields, from performing to media.
Pair 2: Luvenia Kalia (Malasia) & Lucas García Álvarez (Spain)
Pair 2: Luvenia Kalia (Malasia) & Lucas García Álvarez (Spain)
Luvenia Kalia is a multidisciplinary artist with dance as her primary art form. Aside from her ongoing independent artistic career, Luvenia is also the Arts and Culture Producer at Maitree House, an immersive storytelling XR company based in Australia and Asia. She co-founded the Multidisciplinary Arts Collective (MAC), an organisation based in Slippery Rock that serves as a networking platform to encourage artists to collaborate across disciplines on a student level. She advocates for the devising process and incorporation of improvisation techniques in performance making and choreography. Luvenia has worked internationally with artists from Malaysia, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Laos, Philippines, Singapore, France, and Spain with intentions of building a borderless artistic community.
Lucas García Álvarez graduated in Tourism by the University Of Oviedo (Spain), co-director of Meraki Cía. performing arts. He started dancing in 2009 with bboying. Afterwards he studied Contemporary Dance at Zig Zag Danza. He has completed his education through different workshops and classes at The Place(UK), Impulstanz(AT), La Caldera (ES), Marameo (DE), Almadanza (IT), Tanzfabrik (DE), Danza180(ES) to name a few. Meraki Cía. He has taken part in different festivals and spaces in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Portugal, Germany, USA, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina amongst others. As a performer he has worked with Dana Raz Dance Projects, Izadora Weiss/ BTT (Poland) and Cia Nishelma. He has worked for Campoamor Theater Operetta and Opera and different TV spots and he was one of the dancers of the Spanish TV Show Fama A Bailar! 2019. Nowadays he is working with Rober Gómez in the duet “Genzai”.
The conversation was presented as part of the ASEM Cultural Festival 2021, titled ‘Asia and Europe: Cultures Connect’ and it will be also featured in the forthcoming Attakkalari India Biennial.
Casa Asia and ASEF intend to join efforts again in 2022 to offer new opportunities for young artists from Asia and Spain to meet, dialogue and work together.
Contact for this project:
ASEF: Valentina Riccardi [email protected]
Casa Asia: Gaëlle Patin Laloy [email protected]
