August 20 - September 2, 2023

“Northern Human” by Alexander Prisyazhnenko + Maria Belen Robeda

Above stills from “Northern Human"

Tell us about the artwork. What makes it unique?

“Northern Human - documentary essay, video poetry, author's rethinking of life facts. The theme of the war in Ukraine, the first shelling of Kharkov, Northern Saltovka - the area most affected by the aggression of the Russian invaders. The audiovisual image is expressed through borrowed ready-made shots that come from the media, taken from the TV screen. Black, deserted, burned, broken - Northern Saltovka, spring during massive artillery attacks, almost every house here is with traces of shells. The mobile phone footage captures the complex experiences and emotions of living in a city engulfed by war, and how this affects one's own audiovisual creativity and self-expression. Freedom, gives hope for the changing situation of the landscape of the city, the hope of the "northern man" do not fall, and do not break, live and survive in the war.”

About the artist:

Creativity is based on the philosophical issues of seeing the world. Created on the principle of associations and metaphors causing an ambiguous reaction in the viewer. The goal is to study and search for new visual forms and images with various methods and techniques of video editing. Prisyazhnenko’s work focuses on experimenting with documentary video and directing audiovisual projects. Area of interest include contemporary media art, video art and conceptual photography. He actively participates in collective and author's projects in Ukraine and international exhibitions of contemporary media art.

“Natural Fiction” by Maria Belen Robeda

Above stills from “Natural Fiction”

Tell us about yourself and what makes this artwork unique:

“My full name is María Belén Robeda and I was born in 1991 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am a Fine Arts teacher specialized in scenography and painting; I graduated from the Fine Arts College at UNLP in 2015. I received a master's degree in living arts from the University of Seville in 2019. I worked as an art director and a costume designer for independent film projects and theater productions. My personal work currently deals with artistic production, scenography, drawing and diverse and interdisciplinary processes. In the last years, I have been part of exhibits, presentations, festivals and artistic residences in several places in Argentina and other countries. Among them include: ‘Forma y Sustancia’ Performance International Festival in Costa Rica; ‘Videodance Festival’ in Brazil; ‘Tudanzas’ Festival in Barcelona in Spain; ‘Art Basel Cities’ in Buenos Aires; ‘Vitrine01’ in Germany; ‘Imaginarius Festival, ‘Festival Internacional de Teatro de Rua’ in Portugal; ‘Confluencias’ Festival in Argentina; ‘Circuitos’ in Spain, among others.”

“The relationship of the body with nature is constantly intertwined, in these planes we are not able to identify which is part of the natural world and which is part of the artificial one, the pure geometric forms corrupt that natural, organic order and the body inhabits them, but could it be? that nature has grown tired of this coexistence, of the artificiality proposed by humans?”