Laurita Siles
17 Feb - 22 Mar 2015
LAURITA SILES
helARTE es morirse de frío
17 February - 22 March 2015
Sala Rekalde presents "helARTE es morirse de frío", an exhibition by Laurita Siles (Málaga, 1981), included in the barriek 2015 programme, whose purpose is to display work by artists who have been awarded Grants for Artistic Creation by the Regional Council of Bizkaia.
The work presented forms part of an audiovisual project geographically located in three different locations: Bizkaia, the place where I live; Marbella, my home town; and lastly, Iceland, where I completed an artistic residency, in Gullkistan, a creative farm situated in a small town called Laugarvatn. The common objective in each place was to create a series of documentary videos showing interviews held with 19 people all told, amongst whom were artists, curators and cultural managers. Each of these documents present explorations around the expression "freezing is to die of cold / helARTE es morirse de frio", highlighting the cultural, social, climatological, physical and other resources of each place. The final work, composed of a total of 9 chapters, was published monthly on the internet www.helarteesmorirsedefrio.blogspot.com between October 2013 and June 2014.
These conversations provided me with great personal enjoyment and enriched me with new knowledge, circles and contacts. Plus, it was such a treat to be able to interview Inés Bermejo, Fredi Paia, Ainhoa Ortells, Mikeldi Pérez Urquijo and Izaro González Ieregi about the needs of a whole reservoir of artists in Getxo (Bizkaia), which led shortly afterwards to the creation of Garrobi www.garrobi.com.
After the invitation to put on this show, I decided to film a new video, conceived for the purpose and comprising a selection of takes from the chapters. It was a research job packed with humour and irony, steering clear of any conclusions and leaving new doors open to creative introspection, exploration and journeying. This is evidenced by the ending of the film, which preludes the beginning of a new project entitled Mutur Beltz, whose lead players are black-faced sheep from Karranza, and which will be developed from July onwards this year, 2015, thanks to a grant awarded by the Bilbaoarte Foundation.
I came across the Icelandic saying “Neyðin kennir naktri konu að spinna”, which in English means: “Necessity teaches the naked woman to spin”. That brought together cold, and the idea of wool spinning, which had been going round my head for some months. And, just when I got to Iceland, it all made sense. What a pleasant surprise to discover that a spinning wheel was awaiting me in the studio along with a load of sheep on the farm next to us.So I also thought it fitting in this show to offer a selection of drawings, sketches and wool pieces with which, on 19 February, starting at 18.00, I shall mount, in situ, along with Joseba Edesa (life partner, educator and activist) a participatory action with the title Lurra iruten (Spinning the earth) that reinforces the artistic work developed to date, where all these works and situations are spun between two words: FOLKLORE NOMAD.
Laurita Siles
THE ARTIST www.folklorenomada.com
Laurita Siles (Malaga 1981) has been engaged in undisciplined roving visual production. Her attention firmly fixed on the language of popular folklore. Perhaps it was all determined by a nomadic background in Fine Arts between Faculties and Art Schools in Valencia, Iceland, Vancouver (Canada) and the Basque Country. Since then she has been awarded artistic grants and residencies in Arteleku, Donostia/San Sebastian; a Leonardo Da Vinci Scholarship carried out in the traditional animation production company Marlouflims in Bordeaux, France; MA Studio in Beijing, China; The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada; Gullkistan, a residency for creative people in Laugarvatn, Iceland.
Having moved house 24 times, she now lives and works between Enkarterri and Uribe Kosta, (Bizkaia), bringing to an end a PhD research project in the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, as the result of funding for research staff training provided by the Basque Government. Under the title La utilización del Folklore como búsqueda de identidad en la creación artística de la era global. Desde una perspectiva diferencial entre los casos vasco y andaluz en obra de carácter sonoro / The use of Folklore as a search for identity in artistic creation in the global era. From a differential perspective between the cases of the Basque Country and Andalusia in work involving sound, the thesis is directed by Doctors Josu Rekalde and Iñaki Martínez de Albeniz.
Laurita has been engaged in a whole number of individual and collective activities of different kinds as a member of the Komando Trini, always involving artistic practice and investigation both in the Spanish State and abroad: exhibitions, actions, visual projections, conferences, etc.
helARTE es morirse de frío
17 February - 22 March 2015
Sala Rekalde presents "helARTE es morirse de frío", an exhibition by Laurita Siles (Málaga, 1981), included in the barriek 2015 programme, whose purpose is to display work by artists who have been awarded Grants for Artistic Creation by the Regional Council of Bizkaia.
The work presented forms part of an audiovisual project geographically located in three different locations: Bizkaia, the place where I live; Marbella, my home town; and lastly, Iceland, where I completed an artistic residency, in Gullkistan, a creative farm situated in a small town called Laugarvatn. The common objective in each place was to create a series of documentary videos showing interviews held with 19 people all told, amongst whom were artists, curators and cultural managers. Each of these documents present explorations around the expression "freezing is to die of cold / helARTE es morirse de frio", highlighting the cultural, social, climatological, physical and other resources of each place. The final work, composed of a total of 9 chapters, was published monthly on the internet www.helarteesmorirsedefrio.blogspot.com between October 2013 and June 2014.
These conversations provided me with great personal enjoyment and enriched me with new knowledge, circles and contacts. Plus, it was such a treat to be able to interview Inés Bermejo, Fredi Paia, Ainhoa Ortells, Mikeldi Pérez Urquijo and Izaro González Ieregi about the needs of a whole reservoir of artists in Getxo (Bizkaia), which led shortly afterwards to the creation of Garrobi www.garrobi.com.
After the invitation to put on this show, I decided to film a new video, conceived for the purpose and comprising a selection of takes from the chapters. It was a research job packed with humour and irony, steering clear of any conclusions and leaving new doors open to creative introspection, exploration and journeying. This is evidenced by the ending of the film, which preludes the beginning of a new project entitled Mutur Beltz, whose lead players are black-faced sheep from Karranza, and which will be developed from July onwards this year, 2015, thanks to a grant awarded by the Bilbaoarte Foundation.
I came across the Icelandic saying “Neyðin kennir naktri konu að spinna”, which in English means: “Necessity teaches the naked woman to spin”. That brought together cold, and the idea of wool spinning, which had been going round my head for some months. And, just when I got to Iceland, it all made sense. What a pleasant surprise to discover that a spinning wheel was awaiting me in the studio along with a load of sheep on the farm next to us.So I also thought it fitting in this show to offer a selection of drawings, sketches and wool pieces with which, on 19 February, starting at 18.00, I shall mount, in situ, along with Joseba Edesa (life partner, educator and activist) a participatory action with the title Lurra iruten (Spinning the earth) that reinforces the artistic work developed to date, where all these works and situations are spun between two words: FOLKLORE NOMAD.
Laurita Siles
THE ARTIST www.folklorenomada.com
Laurita Siles (Malaga 1981) has been engaged in undisciplined roving visual production. Her attention firmly fixed on the language of popular folklore. Perhaps it was all determined by a nomadic background in Fine Arts between Faculties and Art Schools in Valencia, Iceland, Vancouver (Canada) and the Basque Country. Since then she has been awarded artistic grants and residencies in Arteleku, Donostia/San Sebastian; a Leonardo Da Vinci Scholarship carried out in the traditional animation production company Marlouflims in Bordeaux, France; MA Studio in Beijing, China; The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada; Gullkistan, a residency for creative people in Laugarvatn, Iceland.
Having moved house 24 times, she now lives and works between Enkarterri and Uribe Kosta, (Bizkaia), bringing to an end a PhD research project in the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, as the result of funding for research staff training provided by the Basque Government. Under the title La utilización del Folklore como búsqueda de identidad en la creación artística de la era global. Desde una perspectiva diferencial entre los casos vasco y andaluz en obra de carácter sonoro / The use of Folklore as a search for identity in artistic creation in the global era. From a differential perspective between the cases of the Basque Country and Andalusia in work involving sound, the thesis is directed by Doctors Josu Rekalde and Iñaki Martínez de Albeniz.
Laurita has been engaged in a whole number of individual and collective activities of different kinds as a member of the Komando Trini, always involving artistic practice and investigation both in the Spanish State and abroad: exhibitions, actions, visual projections, conferences, etc.