Since 2010 I have been developing a series of art projects focussed on rivers.
30 July – 19 August 2012 I am working with Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas and Giacomo Castagnola in Oxford on RIVER RUNS at Modern Art Oxford. http://www.vilma.cc/river
Gediminas Urbonas testing a Mist Projection Screen at MIT
RIVER RUNS
Urbonas Studio
30 July – 19 August 2012
Modern Art Oxford Project Space
30 Pembroke Street, OX1 1BP Oxford
Bookings: 01865 813800
http://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/
RIVER RUNS is a project that has been evolving over the past two years between artists Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas who live near the River Charles in Cambridge and Boston, US, and writer Tracey Warr who lives near the River Thames in Oxford, UK. Since 2010 we have engaged in residencies, workshops and symposia exploring relationships to rivers and waterways. This summer we are in residence at Modern Art Oxford where we will build sculptures to encapsulate our research, make films of river journeys, run workshops for children and adults and edit a book on the project. We are exploring how rivers in the local landscape define a sense of individual and collective belonging. There are Open Studio days when visitors can come and talk with us about our work and about their own experiences and engagements with rivers.
Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas have established an international reputation for socially interactive artworks. They develop models activating local communities’ cultural and political imagination and their work often takes the form of ‘devices for action’. Nomeda is a Researcher at the Norwegian University for Science & Technology, Trondheim; Gediminas is Associate Professor, Art, Culture & Technology at MIT; Tracey Warr is Senior Lecturer in Art Theory at Oxford Brookes University.
Urbonas Studio: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Tracey Warr, Giacomo Castagnola
Open Studio Days
Friday 3 August, Saturday 11 August, Tuesday 14 August, Thursday 16 August, Friday 17 August 10am – 5pm
Free, just drop in
CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP: INVENTIONS FOR THE WATER AGE
FOR 8 – 14 YEAR OLDS
Wednesday 8 August, 1 – 4pm
Join artists Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, writer Tracey Warr and an aquatic life expert to explore how we might imitate water-based birds, animals, plants and fish to adapt to an environment with rising water levels. Participants will be able to make films, models, paintings and drawings proposing solutions for living in a future ‘water age’. Workshop designed by Julie Turley.
£5, £3 concessions, booking essential
ADULTS’ AQUATIC BIOMIMICRY WORKSHOP
Thursday 9 August, 1 – 4pm
Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas will be joined by Tracey Warr, Senior Lecturer in Art Theory at Oxford Brookes University, and an aquatic life expert, to lead an aquatic biomimicry workshop for adults. The workshop will consider how we might imitate water-dwelling birds, animals, plants and other life to adapt to an environment with rising water levels. Participants will have the opportunity to make films, sculptures and drawings proposing new solutions for living in a ‘water age’.
£7, £5 concessions, booking essential
Thanks to the River Runs ‘crew’: Giacomo Bruno Castagnola Chaparro, Mike Blow, Adrian Pawley, Laura Degenhardt, Ieva Kausteklyte, Julie Turley, Tazeem Majid, Rachel Cheer and Haavard Helle.
RIVER RUNS is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, Modern Art Oxford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford Brookes University, Canal & River Trust and Environment Agency.
FUTURE RIVERS SYMPOSIUM
March 2012, Oxford Brookes University at the Isis Farmhouse, Oxford
A one day symposium at the Isis Farmhouse on the River Thames at Iffley Lock organised by Tracey Warr. FUTURE RIVERS brought together a small group of people working in different disciplines to discuss rivers from a range of perspectives. Rivers shape us and we shape rivers. A consideration of the future of rivers raises a host of issues including their impacts on human quality of life and well-being, water quality for drinking and swimming, water shortages, rising water levels, climate change and climate justice, public access, management versus adaptation, high tech versus low tech and aquatic biomimicry solutions, river-based structures and mobilities, aquatic wildlife and habitats, river-based leisure, sport and transport and more. Research on a particular river in a specific place can have resonances for rivers, locales and communities elsewhere.
The participants were Tracey Warr (Fine Art, Oxford Brookes University), Alan Boldon (Bristol University & Winchester School of Art), Michael Blow (Artist, Oxford Brookes University PhD Student), Mark Davies (Local Historian, Oxford Water Walks, River Boat Resident), Laura Degenhardt (Artist), Colin Priest (Interiors & Spatial Design, Oxford Brookes University), Cookie Scottorn (River & Rowing Museum, Henley), Elizabeth Wilson (Reader in Environmental Planning/Acting Director Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development: Impact Assessment Group, Oxford Brookes University), Jane Wafer (Artist), Richard Bailey (City Barge Rowing Club). We shared our favourite quotations on the river. There were short presentations by Alan Boldon, Tracey Warr and Richard Bailey. The day ended with Richard Bailey rowing the group down the river in his Venetian Rowing Boat.
In Richard Bailey’s Venetian Rowing Boat on the Thames, Oxford
AQUATIC BIOMIMICRY STAMMTISCH
January 2012, Port Mahon Pub, Oxford, Presented by OVADA
Tracey Warr presented a Stammtisch evening at the Port Mahon pub in Oxford for OVADA (the Oxford Visual Art Development Agency) in which she talked about rising water levels and how we might use biomimicry to find ways to adapt to living with more water in the future. Then the artists present made drawings and models responding to this idea.
THE CULTURE OF ROWING & SWIMMING
July 2010, Oxford
Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas were in residency at Oxford Brookes University for a month investigating the river. They filmed interviews with people at Falcon Rowing Club and the Environment Agency and took part in a one day symposium at the Isis Farmhouse speaking alongside artists engaging with water – Joel Cahen, Luce Choules, Tine Bech, and Olympic swimmers and rowers – Dervis Konuralp and Rowley Douglas and other writers, artists and sportspeople. Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas gave a talk and screened some of their film work at Modern Art Oxford. They also took park in a Wild Swim with 60 people in the River Thames at Radley, organised with the Outdoor Swimming Society, and they learnt to row in an eight with Oxford Academicals Rowing Club. We also organised a Wet Sounds event at Temple Cowley Pool in Oxford. The Culture of Rowing & Swimming was organised by Tracey Warr and Rob La Frenais and funded by the Creative Campus Initiative and Oxford Brookes University.
Wet Sounds, presented at Temple Cowley Swimming Pool, Oxford
