露丝艺术节｜艺术家介绍 —— 实验表演

"When creating new work, a performance, film or installation, I like being tactile with the physical material and the practice of sitting down while reflecting. My process leads me to the path of development and distill."

Abid Hussain is a contemporary artist based in Aberystwyth, trained at the Aberystwyth University School of Art in North Wales. His work spans multiple disciplines and lingers ‘outside’ or ‘in-between’ the established boundaries of sculpture, performance, installation, experimental media and painting. Hussain’s artistic exploration is influenced by the human form, its physical properties and beyond. His recent performance was presented at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, where he scrutinises and reflects on human materiality and transformation.

Anne Bean was born in  Livingstone, Zambia, 1950. In a monograph on her work, Self Etc., 2018, the writer Dominic Johnson wrote: 'Anne Bean is a noted international figure who has been working actively since the 1960s. The art of Anne Bean makes strange our sense of time, memory, language, the body, and identity, particularly through solo and collaborative performances along a vital continuum between art and life. '

In 2022/23 she had work commissioned and shown at Turner Contemporary, Margate, the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, Somerset House, the Whitechapel Gallery, Matt’s Gallery, Paris Photo, Photo London, as well as a solo show with England & Co at Frieze Masters. In 2023, a major work ‘Reflect’ was commissioned for Lumiere, Durham and 'In Search of the Miraculous,' was part of Norfolk and Norwich Festival with a resulting exhibition at England & Co in London. In 2024, she had work at 'Women in Revolt!' Tate Britain and 'This is the Zambian Pavilion' at Venice Biennale

Ansuman Biswas is Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London and a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His key research interests are in improvisation and meditation. He has an international, inter-disciplinary practice which has included directing Shakespeare, translating Tagore, designing underwater sculptures in the Red Sea, living with wandering minstrels in India, being employed as an ornamental hermit in the English countryside, touring with Björk in New York, surviving blindfolded in an unknown place, travelling with nomadic shamans in the Gobi Desert, playing with Oasis, collaborating with neuroscientists in Arizona, and so on.

With, Two performers in a blackout with a candle between them. They make vocal sounds which disturb the candle flame and occasionally extinguish it. It spontaneously re-ignites repeatedly. The piece ends when there is no more candle left.

"ArtCouple is a collaboration between Sula Troche (environmental artist) and Simon Bradley (ambulant sound artist). 

We work bot together and individually, wit Simon specialising in Displacements, and Sula setting up the 'Pick Up the Pieces project – bot of us write, perform and make videos. We have frequently coincided in our work around trees, first bringing our concerns and practices together in a performance for the Becoming Tree Festival in 2021. We have focused on trees, shores, borders, boundaries and pollution for many years, constructing performances and installations from found objects and sounds. We have produced work along the West Cumbrian coast with RE Drift, Cumbria Wildlife Dynamic Dunescapes, and Cumbria Community Foundation.

The process of the installing and de-installing are two sets of durational performance, and consist of Sula walking around a tree with yarn, thereby adding a new layers to it with each time she encircles the tree. Simon engages with the circling with a portable synth and sampler, sampling contextual sounds and combining them during the performance. During the tree ringing, people will be invited to participate by reflecting on the ideas concerning the provocation: ‘time, hiraeth, elsewhere’, writing down their thoughts and memories on pieces of waste cardboard retrieved from local supermarkets. These words will be read out and incorporated in the sound performance.  

Blanc Sceol are an artist duo who work in the expanded field of listening, sound, and performance. They instigate participatory gatherings to foster a reciprocal relationship with ecological communities. Their work is a spiral within the space-time continuum. "Kinetic Resonance: a performance with ‘Orbit’.

Orbit is a 10-stringed instrument, created by Blanc Sceol. The decagon body is spun by one set of hands, as the other hands hold a bow to the ten strings. As the two players work together the Orbit leads them into a cosmos of dynamic, pitch-shifting drones and harmonic rhythms. " 

Gao Shuyi, an interdisciplinary performance artist from China based in London, delves into the exploration of the human body and sensations within the resonance of objects and spaces. Her artistry is rooted in body art, performance art, and site-specific performances, where she employs her craft as a medium to examine the ephemeral nature of existence. Shuyi's performances are a canvas where she navigates the fluid boundaries of consciousness and the interplay between real time, performance temporality, memories, and dreams, creating an immersive experience that invites introspection and a reimagining of the physical and metaphysical.

A Conversation with Water is a durational performance art that extends the inquiry of my previous work, Time and Water, from 2022 and 2023.  This piece continues in the thematic exploration of materiality and movement; distinct from this previous work, I intentionally forgo practiced techniques, such as Butoh and Peter Brook’s methods, that I often employ, and embrace an approach of unchoreographed simplicity, immersing myself in the organic responses of my body and the ensuing shifts in emotion that arose as the performance unfolded.

This performance acts as a cleansing of my trained body, which over time, had become conditioned to respond to viewer expectations and stylized motions. I found that with every moment of performance, I was losing touch with the primal instinct of my body, which became just a vehicle for a performative routine. In the act of futilely transferring separated water and soil into a jar nurturing a green plant, the exhaustion and inherent desires of the performing body collide with the impulse to revert to routine. It is within this struggle that I seek to reawaken my body, to rediscover its own voice amidst the staged act.

Joan Low (London/Singapore) is an interdisciplinary artist whose works explore the intersections of discomfort and power through the lens of the abject, untrained bodies, voyeurism, and failure. Drawing from her diverse background in fine arts, cultural policy, and culinary arts, Joan utilizes moving images and performance to navigate these themes. Compelled by intuition and a wry dissonance, Joan’s artistic process is guided by movement, visual, or sound scores that act as a fluid choreography. Embracing the inherent untrainedness of the original body, this fractured corporeality finds resonance in bodies of sound, objects, landscapes, and space.

Credible Breaths unfolds as a swirling vortex of discomfort and intrigue. The performer becomes a vessel, channelling the essence of capsaicin – a potent spice that dances on the edge of exhilaration and discomfort. The air itself transforms into a living entity, its rich spice morphing into a mischievous phantom, a playful antagonist that I engage in a spontaneous back-and-forth. Guided by a movement score, I coax forth its ever-evolving scent, a dynamic interplay between myself, the capsaicin, and the shifting olfactory landscape that permeates the space.

Across her practice, Li Li Ren negotiates the constantly morphing relationships between objects in space. In her built environments, which expand beyond the physical exhibition space into imagined realms situated between the biologically understood or plausible, and the highly-fantastical, she approximates certain shapes, subjects and environments, while also subverting them through unexpected material applications and abstractions — for example, hard glass cosplaying as soft jelly. In this world-building exercise, the artist often incorporates forms associated with the Anthropocene, the ocean, biology, altered states and maternity, ultimately desiring to queer and elude those connotations to flatten and destabilise humanism through an amplification of the similarities, as well as the strangeness, of human and non-human existence.

Her recent works continue her interest in the formation and application of memory; how fragments are forgotten, material associations are formed, and histories are layered. These become vital tools for building narrative within her visual language."

Dreams 4 Seasons" promises to be an immersive journey co-created by artists Li Li Ren and W.H.Y. Through a blend of audio and visual elements, they invite audiences to embark on a unique exploration where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur. This experiential performance focuses on the intriguing state of sleep, highlighting the transformative moments that occur during this transitional phase of existence. By delving into the rich tapestry of dreams, the artists aim to captivate audiences and take them on a mesmerising voyage through the landscapes of the mind.

Mengting Zhuo and Li Song is a London-based, China-born duo. With a series of sonic happenings, Zhuo and Li explore a new way of sound making. The collision of Zhuo's live art background and Song's experimental music practice results in a dynamic interplay of found objects, subtle movements, and unexpected sonic textures. "The choice of a small speaker dictates the spectatorship between us and the audience.  It is the physicalisation of sound and vibration.

Departing from conventional methods, the duo utilises portable speakers instead of traditional PA systems, a choice that allows them to delve into the complex dynamics between performers, spectators, and the surrounding space. They will presenet a new piece responding to Ruthin's provided environment.

"It was extremely common for Druids to throw votive offerings into the river, coins, swords etc as water was very important spiritually to the Celts and symbolises a gateway/portal to the Otherworld. "

Olivia Hicks (b1971, Kent, UK) is a London based visual artist, lecturer in Fine Art, art educator and curator of the Rented by the hour art exhibitions. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in Fine Art Printmaking in 2010 she has appeared in numerous exhibitions including The Derwent Art Prize, The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, The Mann group Drawing show,  and The RWA where she won The institute of Directors prize. She has also lectured at The Ruskin School of Art and The Croydon School of Art. Her practice and research is focused on the relationships between drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, performance and print and often draws from architectural theory and the natural world/landscapes to explore the permeabilities between the body, complex emotional states and architectural and transient spaces. 

I will complete a drawing performance in the Ruthin Landscape by making a drawing of some extremely rare Ritual Spoons which were discovered in the local landscape near Ffynogion (known as the LLanfair Dyffyn Clwyd pair of spoons).

It will be a combination of drawing the collage I have prepared of the spoons in advance from elsewhere (London) and also looking at the landscape in Wales and drawing elements of it from life as I am in it, and also meditating of the spoons possible ritual uses in transferring liquids like blood, water, honey and wine in religious ceremonies.

As I draw I will rub any excess graphite on the robe to show the labour involved and the materiality, mess, labour and energy of making it. After the drawing is completed I will set the drawing down the River -  hopefully with the help of the audience/people watching who are around at the time.  

The Family Secret will be presenting a new collaborative duo performance 'Monstra', written and performed by Theodora Laird and Stella Pearce. We co conspire to make multi disciplinary, site specific performances, daring ourselves and eachother to work with our personal fears. The making process is an unravelling, channeling and reclaiming of fears in relation to perception, power and identity, particularly relating to gender dynamics. The performance space becomes a site of confrontation between performer and audience, performer and self, self and fear. Working with sound, movement, puppetry and storytelling, we build the highly charged space that we need to take on such a challenge and accept the dare. Fear is valuable; a charged thing. We do not need to overcome fear, but instead collude with or even become fear itself.

Fear is valuable; a charged thing. We work with sound, movement, puppetry and storytelling to create a performance where we dare each other to unravel, channel and reclaim our fears.

Tomasz Szrama (b. 1970 in Poland) graduated in 1998 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland.  He has practiced Action Art since 1993 and contributed actively to the development of Finnish Performance Art. Characteristic features of his actions are the active use of spectators and improvisation.  Such a strategy embeds his presentations into the tradition of understanding performance art as a process art, where the very moment of creation is essential.  His work touches on themes of travel, trust in interpersonal relationships, and the ever present potential for personal failure.

For the last 20 years Szrama has been regularly performing locally and internationally in numerous events and festivals in 36 countries across Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America, including venues such as the Museum Reina Sofia in Madrid, Göteborgs Konsthall, Scandinavia House in New York, Bangkok Art Centre, Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, Helsinki Kunsthalle, Ulster University in Belfast, Adam Art Gallery for Victoria University in New Zealand etc.

Vida Vojić is a music and performance artist, 'alchemical drummer', writer and curator from Gothenburg, Sweden.

Her current performance work focuses on drumming as a means of amplifying input, triggering physical vibration and awakening alternate states, most notably with the drum / vocal solo "Timing is Divine" (2022). In pursuit of detecting the flow between structure and freedom - Vida uses music as a method for investigating "fluid structures" as bodily and intuitive wisdom combined with practice and the mind's processing of information, and the potential healing effects that this undoing of the "Cartesian split" may produce. This accompanies her vocal, scenographic and poetic output that draw upon her research into theology, posthumanism, music as magic, alternative conceptions of time and the nature of change.

Her music has been released on labels such as First Terrace Records, Cultivated Sound and Rhythm Büro, and she has toured Europe multiple times, as well as Japan in 2020.

TIMING IS DIVINE = A DRUMMING RITUAL;  a performance of LOUDNESS, RHYTHM and DRIVE.  Inspired by sexy stars = rock stars / celestial deities - this 35min drum / vocal solo springs from the desire to tell another story, which ultimately may not be understood on top of the chaos - but rather felt. 

Since its premiere in June 2022 - Timing is Divine has been performed a total of 28 times in 9 different countries.  Some of the performance venues include Kulturhaus Helferei in Zürich, Siobhan Davies Studios in London, Zentralwerk in Dresden, Antoniuskirche in Graz, Skladišče Libertas in Koper and Atalante in Gothenburg.  Regardless of its time/space context, this piece uses the ancient performance methods of drumming, singing and speaking to amplify the body in conversation with space and time - thus creating a simple yet powerful way of engaging with its exact moment and place;  in short, Timing is, always, Divine.

Zara Truss Giles, known professionally as W.H.Y., is an innovative cross-disciplinary artist and the driving force behind Distribution of Power—a pioneering educational collective dedicated to empowering individuals from marginalised backgrounds. Through this initiative, W.H.Y.'s performances delve deeply into analogue audio/visual design, synthesisers, and circuit-bending techniques, all while advocating for sustainable and socially responsible artistic practices. W.H.Y.'s artistic contributions expand the horizons of experimental and analogue performance, production, and music, emphasizing inclusivity and diversity within these creative domains.

As a black, working-class, queer artist, W.H.Y. brings a distinctive and valuable perspective to their artistic endeavors, which encompass sound, live performance, and participatory art. They specialise in utilising analogue synthesisers to craft immersive experiences that critically engage with themes such as quantum field theory, witch histories, and West African folklore, all through a lens that scrutinizes power dynamics—examining logistics, politics, and history.

W. H.Y. will audio/ visual analogue synthesisers to create a live performance exploring quantum field theory, witch histories, west african folklore and power (logistics, politics and history) from a black feminist perspective. "the nightmares have gone and the dreams are" will be a quantum sound/ videoscape exploring sounds and archival video from horror films and stretching the sounds to dissociative tones.

Violet Yue Cao is a spatial designer, with a focus on exhibition design, performance, stage design, and spatial research. She developed the research topic, visual art, and curation of the project.

Yuchen Yolanda Wu is a Taiwanese independent dancer who graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School. She works in the fields of contemporary dance, ballet, improvisation, Chinese folk dance, partner works, heels, and more.   She is the choreographer and solo dancer for this project.

Xuanni He, is an independent Chinese experimental musician as well as a violinist currently based in London. Her works have featured improvisations, experimental music, industrial dance beats, and psychedelic noise. She is the music creator and live music performer in this project.

The performance explores the competition of competing values that seek to define our landscapes. We present audio-visual material from East Africa where local indigenous people, mining companies, environmentalists and states have been engaged in a debate over extraction, protection, preservation and inhabitation of the land. The performance uses socio-material choreography to unpack the relationships between our bodies and the raw materials of the landscape. Interactions between the dancer's movements, the musical soundscape and the live sculpture that takes shape throughout the performance tell a story of the motivations and maneuvers of monolithic value systems as they collide.