On view: June 14 – 16 & June 21 – 23 | 11am – 5pm
Opening: Saturday June 15, 2024 | 11am – 5pm
Location: RU House at Colonels Row, Building #404B on Governors Island (map)
Details on how to get to Governors Island here
In the RU House on Governors Island, Residency Unlimited opens the group exhibition Fear, Feet and Fire, presenting the works of three international artists: Ana Biolchini (Brazil), Bojan Stojčić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Adam Vačkář (Czech Republic). This exhibition is organized by RU’s artistic director, Lu Solano.
Ana Biolchini offers a new installation of her series Feet of the World. During her residency, Biolchini developed a site-specific work that invites viewers to immerse in an experience within themselves, deepening their connection with the work and the contemplative ambiance of Governors Island.
During the period of the exhibition, Biolchini will perform a durational performance with choreographer Mark Bankin and members of his company (click here to see details of the performance). The process of generating movement vocabulary recreates the meditative and ritualistic processes through which Biolchini creates her artworks. In this collaboration, Biolchini will guide Bankin’s dancers into a new state of consciousness by psychically promoting connections in their bodies in movement while they interact with her installation. This way Feet of the World aims to foster a profound dialogue between the artwork and the site.
Bojan Stojčić introduces Two Fears, an installation that consists of two mirrors placed opposite each other in an empty room. Each mirror has a mirror writing sentence, readable as reflections in the opposite mirror:
Fear of America.
Fear for America.
Two Fears was conceived during Stojčić’s residency program in NY. For him, the perception from the outside is that America’s foreign policy and its military, financial and political support to certain countries have tragic consequences for other nations. Meanwhile inside, its internal politics present times of extreme polarization, and even division between its two political parties. A reality that surpasses American territories to parts of the world under its influence. Both outside and inside America are reflecting within each other.
Placed on historical Governors Island, Two Fears aims to establish never ending relationships of exchange between two fears: that of giving and that of taking.
Adam Vačkář presents the 15 min film Burning Ground.
Burning Ground was recorded just after a fire was ignited by a park ranger in the Czech Switzerland National Park, a natural reserve in the Czech Republic. The images leave the viewer with a burnt apocalyptic landscape. Through an original interview written and filmed by the artist with the botanist, Dr. Michal Hejcman, the film explores the very different, biological dynamics and processes of the fire, which remains one of the fundamental regenerative processes of a landscape. The film reveals the complexity of the biological processes with a positive narrative about the significance of wildfires, while portraying burned landscapes commonly perceived as a natural disaster. By doing so, it shows an unexpected biological narrative to events commonly perceived differently through emotions and cultural stereotypes. Burning Ground original soundtrack was composed by Natálie Pleváková.
Click above to see images from the opening reception.
About the artists
Ana Biolchini’s practice integrates visual art and body healing and delves into the interconnections of mind, body, and environment, aligning with a philosophical exploration of holistic artistic expression. Biolchini investigates space, memory, ancestry, religious traditions, meditation, and systems of archetypes related to dimensions of the collective unconscious in relation to the body as an integrated system of forces. Ana Biolchini lives and work in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Click here for full bio.
Bojan Stojčić is a Bosnian visual artist. Expressing himself through humor, poetics and geopolitics, Stojčić explores the traces and transformations of the present. Most recently, he won the ZVONO Art Award for Young Visual Artist (2023), the WHW Academy scholarships for an emerging artist (2022), as well as the Revizor scholarship for engagement and achievement in science and art (2022). He lives in between Sarajevo and Berlin. Bojan Stojčić’s residency is made possible with support from the Trust for Mutual Understanding and KRAK center. Click here for full bio.
Adam Vačkář is an artist and researcher based in Prague who is currently working on a doctoral thesis on the understanding of art as a part of biological evolution. His projects address various aspects of human interaction with nature. Vačkář currently writes a scholarly book focused on the relation between invasive plants and alternative spirituality, botany, history and human migration. Adam Vackar’s residency is made possible with support from The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, The European Union and Czech Recovery Plan. Click here for full bio.
Graphic design by Tom Lescure and Marie Escargeul
This program is supported by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, The European Union and Czech Recovery Plan.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
RU is grateful for the partnership with Governors Island Arts.
