CopenhAustin
Warehouse9 (Copenhagen, Denmark), Unlisted Projects (Austin, TX) and The Museum of Human Achievement (Austin, Texas) have come together to offer a residency exchange of one artist from Texas and one artist from Denmark. This international residency opportunity is intended for queer artists working within live performance and designed to support network building, the creation and sharing of new work in an international context. Residents are given the time, space, freedom and financial support to concentrate upon the development of their own work. This residency programme is funded and has a fixed duration of one month. This residency opportunity will be awarded following an open call and application process. Residency artists will be selected in partnership with participating organizations and host a public sharing of work created during their residency at both their host and home organization. The purpose of this residency programme is to support artistic development and facilitate cultural exchange, and long-term connections between artists, organizations and the greater communities of Texas and Denmark. A unique dimension of the call is a commitment to the intersection of LGBTQIA+ issues and environmental sustainability practices.
Summer 2024 Updates from the first round of artists:
Linh Le Completes residency in Austin:
During her month-long residency, Linh Le hosted a public performance ritual that incorporated collaborations with Austin artists Sir Beau Elliot and Andie Flores, collaborated on a “Becoming Species” riso-graph print with artist Laura M. Cañas P., led multiple mask making workshops as well as guided meditations exploring variations of screams and flying as part of Fusebox Festival, and actively volunteered and organized with the Austin Bat Refuge.
In Linh’s words:
“Dance on top of a bus in the middle of a parking lot and scream for the survival of bats? Yes, anything can happen at MoHA. This is the place where dreams come true – thanks to a fully funded one-month of freedom to nurture wild ideas and a strong, inclusive and empathetic community to back up, in this case, my desires and longing for societal transformation, respect for bat species and planetary boundaries. I grew wings and made friends. MoHA and Austin Bat Refuge bring people together. Their leaderships are authentic and the genuine care for the community are inspiring and spreading around the world like a batnado.”
Austin Artist Andie Flores Selected:
The residency program has selected Austin artist Andie Flores from the 2nd round of Austin applicants. Andie’s work uses embarrassment as a medium for investigating hypervisibility in a racialized body across barriers of border, history, and capital. She is interested in unsettling categorical, site-specific expectations of genres of performance and recontextualizing the mechanisms required to do the work of the absurd, particularly as it pertains to the urgent task of world-building at the edge of the limits of art-making. She will visit Copenhagen in June as an embarrassment artist and host events and collaborative open studio hours at Warehouse9 and a workshop during this year’s Roskilde Festival.
Whilst in residence, Andie Flores will explore where failure fits into the revolution. In her words:
“I’m obsessed with failure as an artistic practice and see a continuous cycle of embarrassment and failure as a means to our only way out – to revolution, deeper into ourselves, and otherwise. I want to know where a clown might fit in the revolution, or what a clown could learn from failure for the long con.
During this residency, I’m looking forward to getting to know other experimental performers in Copenhagen, sharing imagination and solidarity practices, as well as learning more about the neighborhood of Freetown Christiania and its various performances of power, the realities of living outside of or against the state, especially throughout Christiania’s storied history and now, in a moment of potential change, in relation to ideas like ‘queer world building’ or imaginings of utopic living. I’d love to meet with residents of Christiania, as well as with local interventionists, performance activists, clowns, sculpture artists, drag artists, costumers, etc.
My goal is to spend time writing artistic research models and performances informed by what I learn, as well as playing with costuming and interventions in support of local actions.”
About the artists:
Linh Le (she / her) works with performative activism and fights for a just world for life on earth. At the moment, she explores the sensuousness and philosophy of species, making rituals for the diversity of life.
Linh Le is of a new generation of artists who with their own bodies are exploring the possibility of finding a balance between a growing desperation in a world of polycrisis and maintaining the belief in a different way of being human / species.
As a child of freedom fighters who came to Denmark as boat refugees from Vietnam, and as a witness to their struggles in Danish society, Linh Le is strongly called to free herself through dance, to challenge the norms, to transcend boundaries and explore how the body can act, transform and demand space for the less heard voices.
Linh Le is educated in Aesthetics and Culture from Aarhus University and Performance Design & Planning from Roskilde University. She is co-founder and member of the performance climate activist group Becoming Species which in close alliance with Extinction Rebellion and Embassy of the Species Copenhagen has made several performative actions in public space to amplify nature’s diverse voices.
Linh Le is also a member of Dance Cooperative, an artist-run platform and association with a physical work- and event space in Valby Copenhagen, organized by 14 local performance artists.
ANDIE FLORES (b. 1990) (she/her) is a performance artist in Austin, Texas, who uses embarrassment as a medium for investigating hyper, almost obsessive, visibility in a racialized body across barriers of border, history, and capital. Her practice works to unsettle categorical, site-specific expectations of genres of performance (femininity, Latinidad, drag, citizenry) and aims to recontextualize the mechanisms required to do the work of the absurd. Flores creates experimental live performances that pair identity and comedic culture moments with over-exaggerated, often grotesque shapes and sounds. She is fascinated by the urgent task of world-building at the edge of the limits of art-making.
Her work has been shown at Bushwig South, Presa House Gallery, The Museum of Human Achievement, Ivester Contemporary, MASS Gallery, Future Front Film Fest, Contrast Film Festival, Fusebox Festival, and The Dallas Latino Cultural Center; and her writing has appeared in fields, Precog, Jezebel, and Remezcla. She was named one of Remezcla’s ‘40 Emerging, Texas-based Artists to Know’ in 2020, and made Glasstire’s ‘Best of 2021’ list. She debuted her first solo stage show, To Get There… You Must Undergo… A Radical Transformation at OUTsider Festival in February 2023 and produced a sold-out 6-show run at Crashbox in November 2023. She was voted best performance artist and among the top three art writers in Concept Animals’ Community Favorites poll of December 2023.https://www.andieflores.com
Supporting Info:
This residency is funded with the support of the Embassy of Denmark Washington D.C., The Consulate General of Denmark in Houston, Scan Design Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation, the Cultural Arts Department in Austin and The City of Copenhagen.
About Warehouse9
Warehouse9 (WH9) is a multidisciplinary arts and performance organisation based in Copenhagen (DK) that supports the development and presentation of work and ideas by LGBTQIA+ artists and cultural practitioners. By supporting radical and innovative arts practices and ideas, Warehouse9 nurtures new thinking, unique collective experiences and community building. They strive towards sustainable processes and accessibility in the arts, and create spaces for queer art year round. https://warehouse9.dk/
About The Museum of Human Achievement
The Museum of Human Achievement of East Austin is a community-driven space grounded in affordability, inclusivity and access for artists. MoHA’s vision is for an empowered, resilient creative community where each member has the resources to foster well being, prosperity, and a self-determined future. We provide affordable space and professional support to individuals and organizations that have historically lacked access to institutional resources. This support is tailored to meet people and organizations where they are and ranges from grant writing, legal assistance, production assistance, affordable or free office space, administrative assistance, financial planning, and individual micro-grants and commissions.
About Unlisted Projects
Operating since 2014, Unlisted Projects (UP) is a residency program that hosts international and local artists at The Museum of Human Achievement (MoHA) in Austin, TX. Residents work alongside a thriving community of 40 in-house creatives and 22 organizations. Artists are provided studio space, living accommodations, professional support, and an unrestricted stipend. Each resident collaborates with the local community on a public workshop or open studio, a community project, and a final event. The organization’s mission is to support, sustain, accelerate and grow interdisciplinary collaboration between Austin & national/international artists. https://www.unlistedprojects.
IPAF
IPAF is a biannual international performance festival produced by the multidisciplinary art organisation Warehouse9. The festival is an extension of the organisations focus to support LGBTQIA+ artists and cultural practitioners practice. The festival supports development opportunities, live performance encounters, and creates spaces for dialogue and gatherings.
The Festival unfolds across the city of Copenhagen and presents genre-blurring work that engages with identity politics, sexual expressions and body representations. The Festival is based on the belief that performance can provide different perspectives and ways to understand reality, inspire collective imagining and advocate for better and more just futures.
The next festival will take place in 14th – 17th March 2024.
Read more here: https://warehouse9.dk/event/ipaf/
