What to look at, listen to, and experience this month at World Event Young Artists 2012...
Dongyuan Lv, China
If you think videogames are for bug-eyed teenagers and comatose stoners dribbling over Call of Duty, investigate the work of this man - a game designer and one of many groundbreaking artists who bring button-mashing out of the bedroom and into galleries. This project - brought together by a huge team of volunteers from around the world - allows viewers to interact with his work via the net, allowing users to build their own independent financial system and see what sort of effect it has on the world. The aim, in his own words, is to “question the disaster caused by the root cause of the monetary and financial systems.” Lv’s hope is that we all have the means to solve this perplexing global mess before it really is Game Over.
The Cutting Room, Nottingham Playhouse, NG1 5AF
Lauren O’Grady, UK
One of the talents representing Notts is a sculptor who’s worked with Tether since 2007, who has been selected to join forces with another local creative powerhouse; a certain Sir P. Smith. The private garden of the flagship store next to Broado will be the site of three sculptures that reimagine present day disasters as relics rediscovered in the distant future. It’s littered with satire, ripping apart the hysteria of the news and how we like nothing more than to mither about impending doom. A bit of a sombre affair, this, centred round rebuilding hope from an earth-shattering disaster yet to be seen.
Paul Smith, Low Pavement, NG1 7EA
AN Attempt
Marwa Adel Attia Mohamed Seida, Egypt
Some of the ugliest reports to emerge from the Arab Spring were the incidences of sexual and physical violence to women, committed by both government and resistance forces. Far from earning the opportunity to engage in protest, some women found themselves the victims of vicious abuse often at the heart of the swelling crowds. Seida, part of the vanguard of Egypt’s photography world, is one artist brave enough to tackle this abhorrent social division in her work. Although speaking from personal background, the potency of her experiences has reverberated across the globe, leading to her exhibiting across Europe as well as scooping up the 2011 prize for “Best Arab Photographer”. WEYA marks yet another accolade for her acutely confrontational art.
New Art Exchange, Gregory Boulevard, NG7 6BE
Untitled
Farniyaz Zaker, Iran
Graduating from university in Tehran in 2005, Zaker has gone on to study at several universities in Iran and the UK, and is on course for a doctorate at Oxford too. Since 2002 she’s put on over two dozen exhibitions and garnered awards both here and at home. In this wallpaper-based piece, she aims her sights at the thorny matter of the Muslim veil. Far from worthy dry talk, however, Farniyaz uses pop art printing that is not only a visual delight, but fluently forces the viewer to consider how the veil compartmentalises the personality and vivre of the individual. A bit clever-clever as well; she deploys a well-worn Warhol motif to make a point far more incisive than he could with a entire supermarket of canned soup.
Bonington Building, Nottingham Trent, NG1 4BU
The Big Dinner
Alejandra Alonso de Noriega, Spain
Making Festen look like a teddy bear’s picnic, this video project - which takes a succession of scathing digs at the frustrating social mores we’re forever bound to whenever society sits itself down at the dinner table - might put you off your tea. As a camera pans around a dining room, a naked woman serves out and eats the meals of six people, who carp and bray at her every action. Projected for the audience against a recreation of the film’s setting for even more disquieting immersion, it might be wise to grab a nibble beforehand.
Location TBC
Dessins d’Espaces
Mathias Isouard, France
Unsatisfied with keeping course on a single dimensional plane - and let's face it, who is? - Mathias' work flits between graphics and installation, built to adapt each space it occupies. His work not so much trick of the eye as throw about the senses with the tactical manipulation of a juggler, bringing impossible structures from page to reality, transforming each environment as he sees fit. This unpredictability makes each new show a different performance between architecture and perception. Just make sure you don’t trip over an impossibility by accident.
New Art Exchange, Gregory Boulevard, NG7 6BE
Ashley Peevor, UK
A rural re-imagining of those naff and presumably defunct living statues that knocked about Lister Gate for yonks, Peevor’s piece has him garbed head to toe in garden matter as a human topiary. Now this might still sound like little more than a novelty knock-off, but the presentation as Peevor describes it is of controlled engagement and mythological symbolism, adapting to the environment around him. The result is a highly skilled performance artist channelling the spirit of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the organic portraiture of Arcimboldo. No bodypopping or making-a-phone-call gags.
Lakeside and Nottingham Castle
Tzion Avraham Hazan, Israel
While nosiness and moral piety seems to be the name of the game among our blessed political landlords, at least we can give them the boot if they start getting a bit too snotty with us. For someone like Tzion however, it’s never been that simple. For an artist growing up in Israel, art for him has been about finding a personally liberating release from the iron boot of autocracy. Creativity, for him and many others, is a journey that takes him beyond his country’s history and landscape, so what better way to explore this world than on a guided tour? This in-depth video project escorts the audience along the barriers of an omnipotent military complex in Tel Aviv. Embarrassing its hostility with a self-penned love song to the facility, Tzion makes the government’s barbed omnipotence seem, well, a bit sucky.
New Art Exchange, Gregory Boulevard, NG7 6BE
Music Editor Paul Klotschkow spits out a selection of the musical highlights of WEYA
Let's start in Africa; Rwanda's Mujyambere Abdoul is a young artist and contemporary dancer who combines traditional Rwandan styles with other pan-African dance influences. His continental compatriot Itoko sings in the different languages spoken in his home country of Cameroon, mixing soul, afro-beat, acoustic and world beats, blending them together into a polyrhythmic stew. Zambia's Francisca Margaret Msisha explores different cultures and traditions within performing arts, using music as a medium to address important issues that affect lives in third world countries.
South and Central America are properly repped with a melange of styles and genres. José Miguel Ando Alvarez is a classical guitarist from Bolivia who has won three of the country’s most important guitar competitions, and will be presenting his work From Dominguez to Prodencio as a solo guitar piece. Because from Chile is a space for audio-visual improvisation inspired by the lyrics and structure of The Beatles’ song Because. Separated into four sections related to the four classical elements from antiquity, the piece aims to explore the link between popular music and electro-acoustic improvisation - new sounds generated by stochastic rhythms, soundscapes, textures. José Guillermo Puello explores the cultural heritage of the carnival rhythms of the Dominican Republic with three separate pieces at WEYA, while Jose has been involved in hip-hop culture in Panama since 2003, as a graphic designer and visual artist.
Possibly the most intriguing musical acts come from the Middle East. Taht Ahl El-Hawa descend from Beirut and are accomplished in the interpretation of the musical traditions of the ‘Levant’ - they'll be performing their work Classical and Traditional Arabic Renaissance. Toot Ard are a mountain reggae band from the mountainside village of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights, Palestine. They sing in Arabic, and weaving classical Arabic motifs into funky African inspired reggae and ska grooves.
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