Polina Medvedeva + Andreas Kühne
20:00
Following a three-week residency at BEK and two weeks at Bergen Kunsthall’s Live Studio as part of the Open Call 2023, artist Polina Medvedeva will present a work in progress as well as the collaborative work “The Informals I” with Andreas Kühne at Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall.
Working on the intersection of film, audiovisual installation and live performance, Polina Medvedeva explores practices often considered ‘informal’ or ‘non-conformist’, embracing the complexities through which vernacular and lived experience transcend rigid categories of inside/outside, belonging/exclusion and formality/informality. Her focus on the tactics of civil disobedience and mechanisms of self-sufficiency – improvised, passed through generations as oral histories, smuggled through migration – speaks of the (im)possibilities of existing within while being against systems of oppression. In both work stays at BEK and Bergen Kunsthall, she further explored the scope of storytelling formats, combining narration, live looping, sound compositions, text and video.
“The Informals I” is an improvised performance by artists Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne that researches decentralisation, non-conformity and digital community networks. Through audiovisual material collected by means of field improvisation, this work from 2019 zooms in on the experiences of young ‘digital natives’ in Murmansk. In order to escape the norms and constraints of their region, they gravitate to deserted areas, where they improvise with space and create new stories through their digital community and culture. The collected data, prepared for live triggering and processing, is assembled live on stage, producing new unscripted versions with each live performance and adapting to the presentation context.
Performances start 20:30
Polina Medvedeva was born in Murmansk region (RU), raised in The Netherlands and is currently based in Norway. She was a resident at de Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam (2020-2022), with works exhibited at among others Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; WIELS, Brussels; Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem and Lighthouse, Brighton. Performances include Baltic Circle Festival, Helsinki; HYBRID Biennale, Dresden; Sonic Acts festival, Amsterdam and Lofoten International Art Festival, Svolvær.
Multi-media artist Andreas Kühne utilises electroacoustic music, collaborative audiovisual performances and interactive installations to explore non-idiomatic field improvisation as a methodology for interdisciplinary and site-specific art production, presentation and participation. Kühne’s work has been exhibited and performed at HYBRID Biennale (DE), Baltic Circle Festival (FI), Sonic Acts Festival (NL), Inversia Festival (RU), Lofoten International Art Festival (NO), Lighthouse (UK). He is a research fellow at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø.