Modeling Resilience with Art with Aviva Rahmani
Type
Residency
Category
Activism, Installation, Video
Status
Archived
Deadline
July 1, 2022
Application Fee
$1299
Host
CAMP Fr
Location
Lyon, France
CAMP is a residential arts facility in the French Pyrenees. It's a place where great art is made, new movements are formed, new ideas are explored and groundbreaking people are nurtured. CAMP is located in Aulus les Bains, the last village before the France/Spain Pyrenean frontier chain. The location is spectacular - we are nestled at 750m above sea level, surrounded by snowcapped peaks over 3000m high, ancient forests and cascading waterfalls. There are eagles, lammergeiers, vultures, ibex and bears. Walk out of the residency, and within ten minutes you are completely alone in one of the most beautiful mountain landscapes in Europe. Aulus les Bains is also a spa village - there are hot water springs, and a thermal spa in the village to take advantage of the healing and relaxing properties of the water.   

Workshop dates: 05/07/2022 - 11/07/2022   

Aviva Rahmani is one of the most important artists contributing to the current movement of environmental art. Her public and ecological art projects have involved collaborative interdisciplinary community teams with scientists, planners, environmentalists and other artists, and her projects range from complete landscape restorations to museum venues that reference painting, sound and photography.She began her career as a performance artist, founding and directing the American Ritual Theatre (1968-1971), performing throughout California. In 1971, she collaborated with Judy Chicago, Suzanne Lacy, and Sandi Orgel on Ablutions, now considered a groundbreaking feminist performance work on rape. After graduating from California Institute of the Arts and getting her PhD from Plymouth, Aviva began presenting workshops on her theoretical approach to environmental restoration, and her transdisciplinary work has been exhibited internationally. Aviva's video documentation Gulf to Gulf sessions have made international impact, and it's precursor "Trigger Points/Tipping Points" premiered at the 2007 Venice Biennale. In 2002, her pioneering community action project "Blue Rocks" helped restore degraded wetlands on Vinalhaven Island, Maine (triggering a USDA investment of over $500,000). "The Blued Trees Symphony" (2015 - present) has received numerous awards and had huge impact around the globe."Ghost Nets 1990-2000", one of Aviva's best known works, includes her original theories of environmental restoration and trigger point theory. In 2012, she applied trigger point theory and the "Gulf to Gulf" webcasts to "Fish Story Memphis," a multi-part public art project. In 2006, she initiated a series of podcasts, "Virtual Cities and Oceans of If", which segued into webcasts on climate change. She is currently an Affiliate with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado (UCB), where she has been collaborating with the Director, James White since 2007 on "Gulf to Gulf", a series of webcasts on global warming with other scientists, artists and thinkers. Their first collaborative work premiered with Cultura21 in the Joseph Beuys Pavilion of the 2007 Venice Biennale.In 2007, in collaboration with White, Aviva appeared in the collective exhibition Weather Report, debuting her work "Trigger Points, Tipping Points". She displayed a series of digital prints that superimposed satellite imagery with textual warnings on the morphing and changing of climate change on the global landscape. Her work embodies a discourse that focuses on the power dynamics of disaster and how rising sea levels will not only effect landscape, but also result in the relocation of communities and refugee migration. She seamlessly ties together climate change with the themes of class, power, and justice - a conversation frequently not as prevalent in the global warming conversation.This workshop will combine work in the landscape and at our facilities to examine the themes present in Aviva's work, and to explore how artists can address urgent environmental challenges. Scientists predict outcomes by creating algorithmic models of predictability. Arguably, artists do the same thing when we consider complex problems with the skills of an aesthetic practice. Aviva's workshop will apply the rules and premises of trigger point theory as aesthetic activism, as a means to create models to survive the challenges of the Anthropocene, and to model resilience.Activities will include guided walks, mindfulness exercises and meditations, journaling of ideas, discussion and making work.    Email: hello@campfr.com | FB: www.facebook.com/campfr | Twitter: www.twitter.com/camp_fr | Instagram: www.instagram.com/camp_fr