viernes, 21 de diciembre de 2012

Destination Berlin.


 Last chance to visit destination Berlin

Destination Berlin will be ending soon, next Sunday 23 December. I would like to invite everybody from here to go to 1a Space and have a look at these six international artists' work. 
©DestinationBerlin. 2012

Futhermore, I would like to say thank you to Wai Kit Lam for her big effort to make Destination Berlin possible. I would like to thank Michelle, Anki and Chris from 1a Space for all their support. And to end, I would like to thank each one of the artists  (Shirley, Kit, Monti, Susana, Thea and Jacqueline) for taking part in this exhibition and for their work.

lunes, 10 de diciembre de 2012

Last Chance to visit Destination Berlin before next 23 December


1a Space: Unit 14, Cattle Depot Artist village: 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan, Kowloon. 

DESTINATION BERLIN: the search of identity.

1a Space is pleased to introduce Destination Berlin, a group exhibition about the search for individual and collective identity through the work of 6 international artists: Jacqueline Kooter, Shirley Wiebe, Susana López F., Thea Jentjes, Wai Kit Lam and Wai Yi Lai. 

The concept of identity has been an ongoing discussion between artists and philosophers from the early centuries to the present. We define identity as “the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones under varying aspects or conditions”.

This exhibition reveals six individual glances and expressions on the theme of identity, through a common platform: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the German city.




       The nomadic and fluctuating qualities that define contemporary life often require us to relocate to another city, a different country, with a new language and cultural background that are different from our own.

Connections between environment, memory and identity form a continuous thread of questioning in Shirley´s work. Much of it is transient and migratory, reflecting our ability to move and relocate, to shift our lives into new settings.

In Destination Berlin, Shirley exhibits two large-scale drawings, the first one created in Berlin, and second, upon returning to Vancouver. The works vividly reflect the experience of being immersed in a new environment and culture through fragmentary elements that appear to float and drift across a surface.




As a result of her constant international trips Wai Kit Lam thinks about who She is very often. she feels as Chinese when she is abroad and when she comes home she feels closer to Western culture than Chinese Traditions. During her stay in Berlin in 2009, Wai Kit continues to examinate her identity in this foreign city through a language she does not speak and is not able to understand.

Wai Yi Lai´s work. She is a Chinese artist, which work is about the relationship between the environment and people. She looks for her identity through the sorrounding environment, but for her sorrounding environment refers to the correlation between humans and the entities embracing us. In Destination Berlin she shows us a tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Gu . . . and all who have lost their home in China. 



     Susana López F. shows in her work a reflection of many hours spent at airports waiting for flights. She explores how airports are places where identity is scrutinized and we become anonymous, but at the same time is the centre of contemporary culture.

In Destination Berlin, Susana show us Letzter Aufruf. This project is a convergence of both topics from the show: Identity and the reunification of Berlin. In November 2011, Susana travelled to Berlin to give graphic testimony of two airports: Tegel and Schönefeld, which are still memory of that Wall that some day ago divided the city and also the whole world into two: West and East.
Visit: LastCall


And perhaps Identity, that we consider so valuable nowadays, was something people from East Berlin wanted to lose in order to have an anonymous life that let them be free.
Jacqueline Kooter reflects on the lack of freedom to move around using three videos: “Walled in”, “Blocked off” and “Trapped in the city”. These videos are based on her stay in Berlin during the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009. 


Jacquelline Kooter:Trapped in the city


Thea, shows us a series of drawings mostly with architectural elements, a reflection of her long walking tours in the formerly divided city. A reflection about how absurd history can be in a city where most of the official buildings are duplicated because of its old leaders´ search of identity.





domingo, 25 de noviembre de 2012

Destination Berlin: The search of identity



DESTINATION BERLIN: THE SEARCH OF IDENTITY

Destination Berlin, the exhibition “curated” by Susana López F that takes place at the 1st Space gallery (Honk Kong), proposes Berlin as axis of the discourse, understood as repository of our collective imaginary, which allow the artists to set up a dialogue about the specific geographical position, cultural transgression and the creation of identity.

Jacqueline Kooter, Shirley Wiebe, Susana López Fernández, Thea Jentjens, Wai Kit Lam and Wai-Yi Lai. Six heterogeneous women going through a same space of interchange that gives the chance of opportunity to rise a conversation in which affinities and differences are being identified. In this case, Berlin configures a geographical model which allows us to think about identity from an expanded perspective including concepts as liberty, nomadism, landscape, the public/private confrontation, the construction of subjectivity, the “other”, the distance.

One of the main attractions of Destination Berlin is to have a look that does not search for the assimilation nor the translation, a mixed look that evidences a thin line between exclusion and integration. Besides, Destination Berlin is an invitation to overcome what Appadurai calls “ geographic characteristics”; that is, impels us to widen up our way of understanding the world and to dissolve the stereotypes about the people who inhabit on it.

This presentation in Honk Kong thanks to the 1st Space gallery, give us the opportunity of creating new interpretations over these joint of works linked all together through the ideas of location and identity.

Susana Martínez Ximénez
PhotoArte Komite Gallery





Visit our dossier online: Destination Berlin


jueves, 22 de noviembre de 2012

Before open the doors
Settinp up last things.

Outside.
Inside / Outside

Sunday. 

Gijon on Sunday



jueves, 15 de noviembre de 2012

Destination Berlin 9 November

Last Friday we did a small presentation of Destination Berlin in Gijon (Spain) to introduce our show in Spain. Remember Destination Berlin is a still on 1a Space in Hong Kong, you can visit it till next 23 December. 

1a Space Gallery, Unit 14, Cattle Depot Artist Village.

63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan. Kowloon 
Hong Kong



Elogio del Horizonte by Eduardo Chillida. Gijón (Spain)


The event took part in a small art space: Ezcurdia30.bajo.






Thea Jentjens came to Gijon to the opening on 9 November and helped with the staging. 




We did a special stage open to the street so everybody can enjoy it from outside. We opened at 19.00 on 9 November and remain open till 11 Sunday at midday.




Some impressions from Gijon by Thea.

All photos belong to Thea Jentjens.


martes, 6 de noviembre de 2012

Destination Berlin on TV

Destination Berlin: Interview at 1aSpace by Hong Kong cable TV and Steven Wong.
The exhibition is now available.
Program: Close to Culture
Channel: i-CABLE Finance Info Channel 8




You can find the online on: 

miércoles, 31 de octubre de 2012

Remember next 3 November.


Destination Berlin: Interview at 1aSpace by Hong Kong cable TV and Steven Wong.
The exhibition will be available next 3 November, 2012
Program: Close to Culture
Channel: i-CABLE Finance Info Channel 8

Time: SAT 1900 /2330 /2630 /2830
SUN 0630 /0830/ 1100/ 1400/ 1830/ 2230
NEXT SAT 1030

The program will be uploaded to the i-cable website on 4 November, you could find the online program review on http://cablenews.i-cable.com/webapps/program/culture.php



And some music from Berlin to wait till Saturday: