Visitors 2015

Eglė Budvytytė received her education from the Vilnius Art Academy in Lithuania, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Piet Zwart Institute, both in The Netherlands. In her work she creates performative and cinematographic situations in which she explores the body's ability to challenge conventions of conduct formed by public spaces. Authentic movement contrasts with the rational homogenised layout of the city. Her work manoeuvres between scripted and ordinary behaviour, and searches for unseen gaps and cracks where groups of unusual codified behaviour can be found. In resisting documentary (both the clichés of film language and the realities of the city or social groups born out of urban processes), she creates poetic commentaries through her films and events that defy the usual expectations of the audience, and reminds us that the potential for change lies in the imagination.

Selected projects and exhibitions include 'You must change your life', Artefact Festival, STUK Art Centre, Leuven, Belgium; 'Le Mouvement, Performing the City', 12th Swiss sculpture exhibition, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland; 'Society Acts – The Moderna Exhbition 2014, Moderna Museet Malmö, Sweden; 'The forgotten pioneer movement', District Kunst und Kulturförderung, Berlin, Germany; 'You imagine what you desire', 19th Biennale of Sydney, Australia; 'Buildering – Misbehaving the City', Contemporary Art Centre, Cincinnati, OH, USA; and 'Literacy/Illiteracy', the 16th Tallinn Print Triennial, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia.

Eglė Budvytytė's residency is part of 'Climbing Invisible Structures. Curated Residencies and Exhibitions in Norway, Iceland and Lithuania', a visual arts residency exchange and exhibition programme organised by the Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (NAC) (Lithuania), in collaboration with the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), the Nordic Artists' Centre Dale (Norway), the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art (Iceland), and the Ars Communis Residency Centre YO-YO (Lithuania).
The programme is financed by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 and Nida Art Colony.

The work of Spanish artist Lara Almarcegui often explores neglected or overlooked sites, carefully cataloguing and highlighting each location's tendency towards entropy. Her projects have ranged from a guide to the wastelands of Amsterdam or London, to the display – in their raw form – of the materials used to construct the galleries in which she exhibits. Recently Lara filled the interior of the Spanish pavillion of the 55th Venice Bienniale with massive piles of building ruble similar to those used by workers during its construction. Working at a time of widespread urban renewal in Europe, she has remained a champion of overlooked, forgotten sites — creating guides for the cities’ wastelands and even instigating their legal protection. Her projects analyse the urban space thought showing the origine of the constructed and its building materials.

Recent group exhibitions include the Spanish pavilon, 55th Venice Biennial (2013); Manifesta IX, Genk, (2012), Radical Nature, Barbican Art Centre London, Shenzhen and Athens biennale (2009), Taipei and Gwuangyu Biennale in 2008, Sharjah Biennale (2007), The 27th São Paulo Biennial, San Paulo (2006), the 2nd Seville Biennial, Seville (2006), and Liverpool Biennale (2004). She has lectured in many art and architecture centers as well as Universities such as the London School of Economins, South California University, Madrid Architectural Faculty, Creative Time New York, Institut für Kunst und Architektur, Vienna, and Tate Britain in London.

Spanish artist Dora García uses a range of media including performance, video, text and installation. Her practice investigates the conditions that shape the encounter between the artist, the artwork and the viewer, focusing more particularly on the notions of duration, access and readability. García’s pieces often involve staging unscripted scenarios that elicit doubt as to the fictional or spontaneous nature of a given situation, setting rules of engagement or using recording devices to frame both conscious and unconscious forms of spectator participation. García’s work also explores the political potential rooted in marginal positions, paying homage through several works to eccentric and often anti-heroic personas. Dora García has participated in dOCUMENTA13 (2012), Biennale di Venezia (2011), São Paulo Biennial (2010), Lyon Biennale (2009), the Biennale of Sydney (2008), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007) and Istanbul Biennial (2003) among others.

Apolonija Šušteršič is an architect and visual artist. Her work is related to a critical analysis of space; usually focused at the processes and relationships between institutions, cultural politics, urban planning and architecture. Her broad – ranging interest starts at phenomenological study of space and continues its investigation into social and political nature of our living environment. She usually makes extensive researches into specific situations found on location, which she uses as a starting point of her project. The result isn’t only presented as analytical criticism but it produces in itself already a suggestion for the future. She pursues new possibilities and makes proposals from a hybrid point of view that ranges beyond art and architecture, making socially committed works naturally taking the form of everyday life activity. Her practice is imbedded within interdisciplinary discourse and usually includes collaborations with other professionals such as architects, urban planners, curators, sociologists, and local population. Together with architect and professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm Meike Schalk, she formed an operative unit which occasionally produces research, projects, actions and discussions. Apolonija Šušteršič participated in a number of internationally published and exhibited projects and exhibitions within and beyond the international contemporary art institutions around the world, like Moderna Museet Stockholm, Berlin Bienale 2, Luxembourg City of Culture, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, Marian Goodman, Paris, De Appel, Amsterdam, Generali Foundation, Vienna, Art Museum, University of Memphis, USA, Tirana Biennale 3, Tirana, Muhka, Antwerp, Edinburgh International Festival, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Galerie für Zeitgenossische Kunst, Leipzig, 12th Architecture Biennale, Venice and Artes Mundi 5, among others. She has a PhD from University of Lund, Malmö Art Academy, Sweden; and runs her own art / architecture studio practice in Lund, Sweden and in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Recently she was appointed as a professor in visual art at Oslo National Academy for the Arts, to build up the MA studies under title Art & Public Space.