Kaeto Sweeney (31 Jul–11 Aug 2023)

Kaeto Sweeney is particularly interested in symbols of freedom from a queer lens. As a filmmaker, party maker and performer whose work is shaped around the ways we tell stories and the way we receive them, often referring to queer and trans narratives, creating intimacies and understanding society from a personal point of view is crucial. His work revolves around the queer club both as a subject for reflection and as a platform for living and experiencing. He relates these intersections and explores how the public’s body moves in it, often involving the notions and portraits of “otherness” and “togetherness”. Focusing on ways to perform empathy in expanded media and mediums using deconstructed cinematic tools of “prosthetic memories” (Alison Landsberg), he builds upon the idea to combine film with installations, performances, and events.

At Bergen Kunsthall’s Live Studio, Kaeto will be developing the first filmic elements IBIZA. This immersive film installation is based on the commissioned performance iteration IBIZA by Nora-Swentji Almes for Bergen Kunsthall in June 2022 as part of Cruising Utopia. IBIZA centres around two portraits of crisis and displacement- one of a queer figure, Gus; the other of a landscape, Ibiza. It is an exploration of identity, belonging, fantasy and failure. Gus is desperately seeking a queer Utopia on the island parallel to the water crisis on Ibiza in the mid-2010s when local authorities failed to provide safe and sustainable water to the Island.

With the support and participation of Tormod Skår Midtbø & Arthur Antoine Hureau.

Image: IBIZA, film still, work in progress (2023-), Kaeto Sweeney