Goethe-Institut Boston announces spring and summer events by its 2022 Studio 170 Artists-In-Residence. An initiative to feature New England-area artists, Studio 170 provides artists and audiences an open, lively place for inspiration, experimentation and open discourse in the heart of Boston.

Taking place in the Institut’s newly-renovated space in Back Bay, this spring’s Studio 170 events open with a new video and sound installation by artists Liu Wa and Yang Bao May 2-10 that calls attention to the impact of nuclear weapons on plant life. The next event, by artists Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts, calls attention to issues around climate change, plant species adaptation/extinction, and personal mortality through a focus on/engagement with soil/dirt as the base of existence, June 1-15. The final installation by artists Stratton Coffman & Aaron Powers seeks to broaden the definition of what roles a street tent can host beyond commercial use through a series of modifications in their “Poly Pockets” installation.

Studio 170 director Annette Klein explains “Beyond just another gallery or concert venue, Studio 170 was created to offer artists and creatives in New England a space to experiment and try out ideas that feel too risky for more formal venues. We are looking forward to this year's new cohort of artists and working with them to connect with our very unique space and realize their ideas.”   

Liu Wa and Yang Bao, “Savage Confessions” Multi-sensory Visual-soundscape

May 2-10, 2022
https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/bos/ver/stu/22st/liu.html

170 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02116
Opening hours: May 3-5 & 9, 10am-5pm

Opening Reception: Friday, May 6, 4pm-7pm

Panel Discussion with artists and MIT faculty guests: Sunday, May 8, 5pm

Free admission to all events

The exhibit Savage Confessions by Liu Wa & Yang Bao creates a multi-sensory and ever-evolving visual-soundscape through video, music and painting, seeking to heighten our sensuous receptivity to the more-than-human world.

The first part of the exhibit features two-channel video Late Night Savage which focuses on the day and night of three plants at nuclear sites in the United States, the former Soviet Union and China during the Cold War. The two artists embarked on an 11,000-mile journey to conduct field research in Washington State, U.S. and Gansu, China, and lived among the plants. As a symbol for the American West, tumbleweeds, propelled by the force of the wind, travel around to spread radioactive seeds at the nuclear reactor in Washington State. Sunflowers are now planted at Chernobyl, as a cheap corrective method to clean up the contamination. Camel grass at the nuclear city in Gansu, China, embodies the patriotic zeitgeist for dedicating one’s life to the motherland. However, both camel grass and tumbleweeds are invasive species from Russia that disregard land borders, freely traversing the landscapes. Genetic mutation caused by ionizing radiation speeds up the plants’ aging process, leading to an increase in its entropy. While living means fighting a losing battle against nature, the short-lived plants still display incredible resilience and savageness.

As a continuation of the video work, an installation of paintings titled Savage Confessions by the two artists captures their impression and imagination of the plants that they encountered on their journey. In the daytime, the plants dedicate themselves to fulfilling the obligations assigned by humans, but in the nighttime, they morph into phantoms and savages, dancing till the end of the world. The intent of these works is not to anthropomorphize the plants, but to “vegetalize” our human perceptions and question the man-made boundaries amongst ourselves.

The silent carnival of these nameless actors has never been alien to us. We are all savages.

This exhibit has been made possible by the generous support from the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT and the Council for the Arts at MIT.

Liu Wa is a multimedia artist who explores questions of boundaries, power and intersubjectivity through installation, video, painting and assemblage sculpture. Trained in anthropology, she seeks to decentralize human’s dominant role in knowledge production and world-making through a multi-species lens. Her works create multi-sensory experiences that heighten the audience’s sensuous receptivity to the more-than-human world. Liu’s research draws on the subjectivity and plasticity of human perception in neuroscience, and reimagines human agency at a time when emotions and desires could be quantified, predicted and affected through technology. Built upon post-humanism, her interdisciplinary practice interrogates the power dynamics between humanity and technology within a broader web of life.

Liu Wa (b. 1994) received her B.A. in Anthropology and Art from Yale University and is pursuing her M.S. in Art, Culture and Technology at MIT. She won the International Emmy Awards Young Creatives Award, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, Porsche Young Chinese Artist of the Year, among other honors. She was nominated to participate in international exhibits, such as Busan Biennale (2020) and Guangzhou Triennial (2018). Her works have been globally exhibited at prestigious institutions including UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, TANK Shanghai, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Javits Convention Center of New York, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, M Woods Museum, Today Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Guangdong Museum of Art, etc. Liu’s solo presentations include: Late Night Savage (Cc Foundation, Shanghai, 2021), SOUNDMASS (TANK Shanghai, 2021), Hear A Century Ahead (No.1 Waitanyuan, Shanghai, 2021), Moon Milk (MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, 2020), Glimpse (Asia Now, Paris, 2019), Glimpse: a passing look (Sabsay Gallery, Copenhagen, 2018).

Yang Bao is a cross-disciplinary artist, composer and pianist based in New York, classically trained in piano performance at The Juilliard School and New England Conservatory of Music with Wha-Kyung Byun and Bruce Brubaker. Bao’s multi-media works create an experiential “synthesis of the arts” that is precise in texture while hypnotizing in motion. Inspired by classical music and post-human minimalism, his sensory-based “physical music” condenses complex emotions into poetic fables. Further enhanced by film and technology, Bao’s visceral and immediate music takes the audience out of their everyday life into a boundless void where anyone can design one’s own reality and live it.

In his live performance SOUNDMASS at TANK Shanghai, Bao created a site-specific and ever-evolving soundscape that transformed the gigantic oil tank into an architectural instrument. He materialized the intangible music into a sonic monument that constantly devours and regenerates itself. In his sound installation Hear A Century Ahead commissioned by LOUIS XIII, Bao’s spatial-audio composition Infinity Music—GODSPEED mutates and refracts in infinity according to the progression of time and chance within the large metal installations. His original soundtrack The Kitty Knight for the major feature film I Am What I Am was globally released and well-received in 2022. His film DUALISM for composer Kaija Saariaho’s Graal Theatre was exclusively featured on Apple Music. Bao’s solo shows and projects include: Hear A Century Ahead (No.1 Waitanyuan, Shanghai, 2021), SOUNDMASS (Tank Shanghai, 2021), Late Night Savage (Cc Foundation, Shanghai, 2021).

Bao has frequently performed at prestigious venues, such as Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Lincoln Center in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, and Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. His recent concerts include Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 with China Philharmonic Orchestra in their Spring 2022 Concert Season.

Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts, “Autolysis” Installation and Participatory Artwork

June 1-15, 2022
https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/bos/ver/stu/22st/hkwt.html

170 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02116
View the installation through activities with the Artists (free admission to all events):
Guided walking experience with artists, Saturday, June 4, 1-3pm

Open Studio Drop-in Hours: Tuesday June 6 and Friday June 10, 5:30-7:30pm

Finissage with Artist Talk and Dirty Karaoke: Wednesday, June 15, 6-9:30pm

“Autolysis” (self-splitting), by artists Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts, is named after the first stage of decomposition when a body is buried, and from the Greek roots of that word. Autolysis is a poetic and visceral exploration of issues around climate change, plant species adaptation/extinction, and personal mortality through a focus on/engagement with soil/dirt.

Dirt/earth is the very base of our daily existence and also where we return to when we cease to exist. It nurtures us, and then we disappear into it. In the Covid-era, when we have become profoundly oriented towards the digital, and where cleanliness has felt like a life or death imperative, “Autolysis” offers an immersive, tactile and olfactory experience of re-connection with the earth and to dirt.

Autolysis also opens conversations about personal relationships with the earth in a way that emphasizes the actual material of the earth rather than earth with a capital “E”, and creates space for gentle contemplation of end of life/end of species issues.

Come immerse yourself in stories and scents unearthed from Boston’s past and present soil and imagine our future flora with conceptual artist Heather Kapplow and artist and game designer Walker Tufts!

Heather Kapplow (no 3rd person pronouns preferred) is a self-trained conceptual artist. Kapplow creates participatory experiences that elicit unexpected intimacies using objects, alternative interpretations of existing environments, installation, performance, writing, audio and video. Kapplow’s work has received American and European government funding; support from numerous private foundations; and commissions from galleries, film and performance festivals including the MIT List Visual Arts Center, ANTI-Festival, and ISEA International.

An avid collaborator, Kapplow has co-created ensemble projects at the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (DK), Guggenheim Museum (US), Institute of Contemporary Art (US), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (US), Museo Arte Moderno (MX), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (US), and the Queens Museum (US), and performed within live artworks by La Pocha Nostra, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and On Kawara. Kapplow is also an active member of two international art communities that produce work collectively: Flux Factory and Mobius Artists Group, and an affiliate artist at metaLAB at Harvard University.

Walker Tufts is an artist and game designer. Walker’s work explores our relationship to others (human and more-than-human) through games, exhibitions, dinner parties, and performances.  With various collaborators, Walker makes games that playfully place player’s bodies in physical relationship with global systems, dirt, bodies, and microbiomes. His work has been shown internationally including: MassMoCA, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, and Flux Factory. His projects have received funding from the Danish Arts Council, the Arts Council of Wales and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Walker has created commissioned public works and participated in residencies from Saint Petersburg, RU to Portland, OR. He is currently collaborating with bacteria to grow experimental concrete in the Emerging Practices MFA at University at Buffalo.

Stratton Coffman & Aaron Powers, “Poly Pockets” Installation

Late Summer 2022, Dates TBA
https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/bos/ver/stu/22st/apsc.html

170 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02116

Buildings have turned inside out. Things that used to happen inside now happen in the street. The tent is the enclosure of choice for this new zone, but it’s used almost exclusively for dining. Poly Pockets is a set of modifications made to generic tent materials to expand what the street tent can host. A standard roll of poly sheeting is subdivided and velcroed into pockets that take on versatile roles when stuffed with whatever is on hand. Sand or crushed aggregate to make weighted pockets. Insulation to make conditioned interiors. Soft stuffing to make comfy pads for resting. Or mostly anything else. Through cutting, stitching, attaching, and filling, the building enclosure is deconstructed into pockets with particular talents that can be linked together and recombined into different arrangements, from stage to gallery to lounge to [   ].

Aaron Powers (he/him, @aaeon_poeer) and Stratton Coffman (they/them, @bagstrat) are friends who collaborate on design projects. They both received Masters of Architecture from MIT in 2020. Individually and jointly their work has appeared at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the Multimedia Anthropology Lab at UCL, and the Serpentine Pavilion in London.

About Studio 170

Studio 170 was established in 2019 to open the Goethe-Institut Boston’s unique, flexible space to New England artists and creative minds as a “laboratory” for ideas. A jury made up of curators and cultural advocates from New England selects a new cohort of artists per year from received applications.  Since its founding, five artists and artist collaboratives have developed projects within 2 week residencies. The plan is to expand the program to promote transatlantic dialogue and exchange between artists through single and joint residencies in New England and Germany.

The next call for artists will open in September 2022. Learn more: www.goethe.de/boston/studio170

About Goethe-Institut Boston

The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany and is dedicated to promoting international cultural dialogue and exchange. The Goethe-Institut Boston was the first Goethe-Institut in the United States and founded in 1967. It is located in the historic Back Bay/Beacon Hill area and provides services for the six New England states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. The Goethe-Institut Boston is the contact point for anyone interested in German culture and for those who want to study or teach German.

For over 40 years, the Goethe-Institut Boston has been promoting an ongoing dialogue and exchange between American and German artists and experts in order to present German culture abroad and help shape a current understanding of Germany today. In order to achieve this goal, we collaborate extensively with our partners at the local universities (Harvard University, MIT, Boston University, among others).

The program department organizes a broad range of events and supports projects in the fields of film and new media, arts, theatre and dance, music, literature, architecture and more. Events take place in our auditorium as well as at partner venues. Beyond this, the Goethe-Institut arranges thematic trips to Germany for experts in the arts and media.

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