Curator
The Private Eye / The Public Ear // 2021
Solo Exhibition of Bernardo Zanotta at VHDG
THE PRIVATE EYE: THE PUBLIC EAR is an installation by artist Bernardo Zanotta. In the work, the stories of characters from the play 'Equus' by Peter Shaffer from 1973 intertwine with the personal experiences of Frisian participants from the queer community, who read pieces from the play. THE PRIVATE EYE: THE PUBLIC EAR is about concealing or confessing, and how sharing the personal story contributes to the rewriting of a shared (queer) history.
The original theater play Equus (1973), which serves as inspiration, is a fictional psychoanalytic play set in a provincial town in England. A stable boy in his teens has committed a crime; six horses were blinded by him. The piece may have been inspired by a well-known case by Freud, where a horse phobia symbolizes repressed sexuality.
The installation, created by artist Bernardo Zanotta and made in collaboration with Frisian participants, brings the piece from ’73 back to life in a Frisian context and can be experienced as an installation in exhibition space H47 in Leeuwarden.
Bernardo Zanotta website: https://bernardozanotta.com/
Stichting VHDG website: http://www.voorheendegemeente.nl/
Queer Diasporas // 2021
Group exhibition // Nieuwe Vide
Where is home? How do we carry our experiences with us? How do we (re)connect with our roots? These are questions everyone has to grapple with at times.
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Having cinema as a common ground for discussion, the project examines, through research and practice, how queer experiences of diaspora have been portrayed on and off-screen and the emergence of “queer diaspora” as an aesthetic practice. The 9 participants of Cineclub are creatives that come from across the globe and are currently based in the Netherlands. Each participant has developed their own project that is presented in the exhibition alongside an online program of screenings and talks. Their work is based on the group’s encounters during a year long research in which intersectionality and cross-cultural experiences were key.
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In our discussions we touched upon subjects of home, the body, migration, colonial violence and the archive. Each participant brought their own questions and interests to a series of workshops departing from readings of writers, theoreticians and filmmakers, for example Trinh T. Min-ha, Audre Lorde, José Esteban Muñoz, Gayatri Gopinath and Rabz Lansiquot. Guest workshops were also given by filmmaker Zara Zandieh and scholar Beshouy Botros.
PARTICIPANTS:
Storm Vogel
Clarice Gargard
Liang-Kai Yu
Aileen Ye
Fileona D-khar
Ana Bravo Pérez
Tammam Azzam
Devika Chotoe
Najiba Yasmin
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Guest artists and scholars:
Zara Zandieh
Domitila Olivieri
Vika Kirchenbauer
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Find out more about the separate programmes HERE.
Queer Diasporas was co-curated with Bernardo Zanotta.
In partnership with WORM Rotterdam.
Featured Images: Stills from the films of Clarice Gergard, Devika Chotoe, Zara Zandieh, Ana Bravo Perez, Fileona D-khar, Aileen Ye & exhibtion photos by Bogdan Bordeianu, Nia Konstantinova and Devika Chotoe.
Who Am I Becomming // 2019
Natalia Paparva & Yasunomi Kawamatsu Exhibition // WORM Rotterdam
‘Who am I Becoming’ is a dialogical artistic research between Natalia, Japanese artist Yasunori Kawamatsu and five other people, who all identify as immigrants living in Rotterdam.
The project is dedicated to the notion of being an immigrant and the process of finding a new home in the city.
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The immigrant is a troublemaker in politics. We are difficult to integrate. It is a painful process of leaving things behind and accepting new rules. Newcomers have to break themselves in order to reshape and add new pieces to their identity.
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'Who am I Becoming' uses experimental mixed techniques of artistic research by combining the philosophy of Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique of repairing broken objects, interviewing and performance. By connecting the participants' daily routines in Rotterdam to the ones they had in their previous homes and draw on those frictions and similarities, the project resulted in six raw and emotional video performances which show the beauty and the pain of integration. Making the works, on one hand, delicate and vulnerable, on the other, strong and resilient.
PARTICIPANTS:
Larissa Monteiro
Najendra Caldera
Hugo Lopez
Marichel Boye
Johana Molina
Watch Trailer HERE
ARTIST:
Natalia / Natasha Papaeva wesbite: https://cargocollective.com/natashapapaeva
Yasunori Kawamatsu website: https://www.instagram.com/kawamatsuyasunori/
The project is made with the generous support of CBK Rotterdam ( O&O Research) and WORM Rotterdam.
Images: Pedram Pourghasem & Yasunori Kawamatsu
The Repossessed // 2020
Bernardo Zanotta Performance // WORM Rotterdam & VHDG for Rotterdam Art Week & Not For Profit Art Party
'The Repossessed' starts from Djuna Barnes' 1936, Nightwood, a story about love and obsession in which the boundaries of class, religion and sexuality disappear before your eyes.
The characters of Djuna Barnes are haunted by their own alliance with the night and its vices. In the story, we are confronted with Nora Flood's journey in search of her lover, Robin Vote. Re-animating this historical text, a range of references such as pop music, feminist pornography and gothic horror are tackled on stage.
performed by: Sissi Venturin, Bernardo Zanotta, Mavi Veloso, Patricia Janeiro, Leonie Kuipers
live sound by: Lennart Smidt
Watch trailer HERE.
Bernardo Zanotta website: https://bernardozanotta.com/
A collaboration between WORM Rotterdam & VHDG during Rotterdam Art week 2020.
Images: MINT Rotterdam & Pedram Pourghasem.|
