Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Oxford Brookes University
River Runs - Residency at Modern Art Oxford, August 2012, by Urbonas Studio consisting of Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas (based at MIT), Tracey Warr, and Giacomo Castagnola.
Residency at Modern Art Oxford (MAO), August 2012, by Urbonas Studio consisting of Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas (based at MIT), Tracey Warr, and Giacomo Castagnola.
We investigated the future of rivers and inspiring inventions and adaptations artists might propose, drawing on aquatic flora and fauna biomimicry, and multidisciplinary dialogues with climate change specialists, environmental scientists, biologists, architects, immigration researchers, historians, boatbuilders. We constructed sculptures including a river raft; made sixteen
research films focussing on a stretch of the Thames in Oxford, engaging with policy makers at Environment Agency and Canal & River Trust, and with river organisations and individuals; organised a symposium in the river; workshops;
open studio days. MAO residency was preceded by workshops, seminars and residencies in Oxford and MIT, Boston 2010-2012.
River Runs and its associated projects were funded by Creative Campus Initiative (£11,000), Arts Council England (£8,600), Canal & River Trust (£4,500), Modern Art Oxford (£2,000), Oxford Brookes.
A book on the project, edited by Tracey Warr & Emily Korchmaros, including interview with Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, essays by Tracey Warr, Bridget Anderson, Russell Robson, will be published by Modern Art Oxford in 2014.
As a consequence of River Runs I have been appointed as one of eight lead artists for Frontiers in Retreat, coordinated across eight European countries by HIAP, awarded five years EU funding: http://www.hiap.fi/project/frontiers-retreat. I will develop a future fiction novel, The Water Age, continuing
research through multidisciplinary dialogues.
I have collaborated with Urbonas Studio since 1990s including Twilight exhibition at Centre for Contemporary Arts, Vilnius, 1998, and Splitnik at 2011 Moscow Biennale (in Molok, N., ed. (2011) 4th
Contemporary Art: Rewriting Worlds, Moscow: Moscow Biennale, pp. 178-179). Splitnik was extensively covered by Russian and English media and is documented, including my texts, on http://www.vilma.cc/splitnik
