Artist in Residence Programme
- ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
- Artist In Residence Programs
- Fresh A.I.R. #1
- Videos
- September 17, 2018
Urban contemporary art scouts out its place in the city. But art also craves freedom, space to let ideas grow, where talent is honed, and style and technology experience encouragement.
With the Artist in Residence Programme, brought to life by the museum’s curator Yasha Young, URBAN NATION offers artists a chance within the scope of a unique programme to freely unfold their creativity. These upcoming artists have access to eleven flats where they have the opportunity to fully focus on their creative process. In this way, URBAN NATION enables artists from all over the world to stay in Berlin, one of urban contemporary art’s creative centres. They are invited to network, socialise and bounce around ideas, supported by professional mentoring sessions with Yasha Young.
The keyfacts of the Artist in Residence Programme
Saturated urban living and gentrification are making it more and more difficult for artists to find affordable space in cities. Dedicated to its own social commitment – CONNECT. CREATE. CARE. – URBAN NATION is countering this development with its Artist in Residence Programme.
Spanning three floors and 1,100 square metres, the Berliner Leben foundation set up eleven flats in the building of the URBAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART. They provide space for up to 33 artists annually across a time span of three or six months. The grant, comprising accommodation and 900 euros a month, enables artists to work on their pieces on a temporary basis free from economic constraints. Each artist who participates in the programme must realise a social art project during their time at URBAN NATION, which focuses on and integrates the community.
CLASS OF 2018 // These are the first artists of the Artist in Residence Programme:
Little is known about SellFable, other than the fact that the Installations, objects such as “Machine Relic Boxes”, images, murals, cut outs, illuminated engravings but also documents, letters, audio recordings, videos performances and virtual reality have appeared all over the world as manifestations of this dark realm. A poetic self-description states: “SellFable is a machine noir universe world that thrives on the energy of its inhabitants. Like an ink stain, it slowly creeps into our world, tainting systems, and often leaving evidence of its existence: Machine Relics, Lost Mechanic Orphans, SFC System Bugs or fragments of machine language poetry. A possessed solitary person called The Archivist arranges the archival materials about the SellFable Universe. He travels around the world to do research, and to collect and assess materials linked to SellFable. Evidence has been found on- and offline, and in the streets of cities worldwide. Machine Relics can be found in any location, shape, or form – you will recognise one when you see one.” More info
Onur is a photorealistic painter and muralist, based in Solothurn, Switzerland. Intense colours and an organically shaped curve characterises the large-format screen of this artist. More info
Born in Biel, Switzerland as Remo Lienhard, WES21 has started artistic endeavours in 2001 when he began to take an interest in painting. After graduating from College of Art & Design in Biel, the artist became a freelance illustrator and designer, engaging in such projects as large scale murals, canvases and 3D sculptures, adding an unpredictable side to what’s typically expected of contemporary artists. He is part of SCHWARZMALER, a collective of outstanding artists, and illustrators. Successfully capturing a moment, whether real or imaginary, his detailed works are unquestionably stunning in nature, taking us to an artistic world like no other. He is constantly working on developing his unique visual language which separates his work from the rest. More info
Together, the Hanover and Berlin-based artists Thomas Granseuer und Tomislav Topic constitute Quintessenz. Starting out as students at the University of Applied Science and Arts in Hildesheim, they developed a unique and unmistakeable signature style. With roots in both graffiti-culture, graphic design and chromatics, Quintessenz combine paintings, moving images, and installations. Space is the fundamental inspiration for Quintessenz. Their work not only uses shapes and patterns found in architecture, it interferes with its environment, changing the spectators’ perception. Quintessenz use old factory buildings as their canvases, with their murals covering entire facades. In every medium they use, both in public spaces and galleries, their abstract work shares one thing in common: their art makes/creates space for its colour. To Quintessenz, colour is more than form. It is the content itself. More info
Mia Florentine Weiss, is a German performance and conceptual artist., Born in Würzburg in 1980, Mia works in the field of tension bordering between object art and multimedia. The works she has produced shows the sheer impact she makes upon society from the LOVE HATE sculpture and more recently, the NOW WON sculpture, a temporary installation in front of the Berlin Reichstag and is now in the permanent exhibition of the URBAN NATION Museum. More info
Louis Masai is a London-based painter, sculptor and muralist. He uses his art in the form of murals, paintings and installations as a way to highlight the 6th mass extinction, climate change and species equality. Louis has worked with URBAN NATION on a wealth of projects from URBAN NATION @ Lollapalooza 2017 to his artwork contribution at Project M/13 ‘The Monster Project’. More info
Ludovic Vernhet, known by the name Ludo and sometimes even referred to as Nature’s Revenge, is an artist born and raised in Paris. As an ever-changing character of urban contemporary art, Ludo’s art is expressed through diverse mediums, from giant murals on streets, to canvases, installations, drawings, sculptures and photographs as gallery and museum exhibition pieces. More info
For over a decade UK-based duo Snik have been working across the globe as traditional stencil artists. Where others have moved on to the digital techniques, using laser cutting and computers to support their work, Snik have remained true to the origins of their craft. They still painstakingly hand cut their complex multi-layered stencils. Snik’s bold aesthetic is characterized by frozen scenes of dynamic action. Their work focuses on the ordinary. These subtle aspects are elevated to hint to a deeper meaning. A meaning that remains elusive, for the viewer to draw their own meaning from. More info
Aaron Li-Hill, born in Canada, based in Brooklyn, is an artist who implements painting, illustration, stenciling, and sculptural elements to his works. Through the western perspective, Li-Hill’s works attempts to decrypt the complexities of rapid development in the modern age and points towards the devastating effects of capitalism on the essence of the individual. More info
Herakut is the artist due consisting of the two artists Hera and Akut who merged their names and styles in 2004. The collective goal has been to beautify the darker places of a city and plant positive signs of life and thought with a humanitarian approach. More info
NeSpoon is a Polish artist. Beginning in 2009, her works that have been created range between street art, pottery, painting, sculpture and jewellery, most of her works consists of traditional laces, either made in clay or painted on walls. More info
DOT DOT DOT is a visual artist from Norway. With foundations in graffiti since the 90’s, the mediums utilised by the artist range from installations to etchings to drawings. From the mid 2000s, his focus was on stencil work and in the last few years he has stepped back to his oil paintings and has become regarded as one of Norway’s leading and most well known artists. More info
