Tag: virtual residency

Vital Capacities: Gateways – new exhibition

by Vital Capacities

A handpainted image of a white toilet spewing brown liquid into a giant fountain holding high a large white spotted egg on a yellow and orange background.
Sammy Paloma, The Flowering Milk of the Boghead, 2023 (screen shot from artwork)

New work by Vital Capacities resident artists from the May 2023 residency, including work by artists Shaima Ali, Bassam Issa, Sammy Paloma, and Su Hui-Yu & XTRUX.

In May 2023, four artists took part in residencies on Vital Capacities – Shaima Ali (Palestine), Bassam Issa (Ireland), Sammy Paloma (UK), and Su Hui-Yu & XTRUX (Taiwan) – to explore and develop new work, supported by partnerships with Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), Shubbak Festival, Videotage and Wysing Art Centre.

Throughout the month the artists did research, tested ideas and created new work, working with our partners, web designer and digital inclusion specialist. Gateways is an exhibition of new work resulting from May 2023’s residency.

See the exhibition now: vitalcapacities.com/exhibition/

With thanks to Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), Shubbak Festival, Videotage, and Wysing Art Centre. Thank you to Arts Council England for their support.

Guts

by Sammy Paloma

A animated gif of a crossroad of white guts on a black background. The guts are pulsing, like they are either breathing or in the act of digestion.
Gif from Surface of Scum, a character generator computer game made by Sammy Paloma & Uma Officer

I’ve been thinking about guts. Or rather, I’ve been thinking about thinking about guts. It’s more of a hunch that there is work or attention needed in that area, both of my life and my art. Guts have appeared in my work for at least the past 5-6 years, if not longer, and yet I feel like at some point they became a kind of stand-in for an unfinished thought. When it started I think the thought was around unseen processes happening in the background (like how wallpaper can function like an engine to the actions inside a room even though u may not consciously notice it). But it’s evolved to take on digestion, and waste, and mess, and desire, and grief. And in a funny way, guts were also always there almost as a reminder to myself to actually listen to my own guts. But there’s some other stuff there too – appropriately – beneath the surface of the image of guts. The guts of the guts. And this post is a kind of note-to-self to feel into that. To get on up inside those guts again. Sorry not sorry.

Call out: online residency for 2 disabled, D/deaf and/or Neurodivergent artists based in Brighton & Hove

by Vital Capacities

Installation shot of Laura Lulika's virtual exhibition Body Builder which is made up of several images including a leaping football mascot with a sunshine head, a TV with football on in an old style wood walled pub, another leaping mascot with a parrot head and wing arms, a wooden pub bar with a glowing blue server, and an android with multiple heads sat down holding a glowing ball.
Laura Lulika, Body Builder (installation shot), 2021

We are delivering a month-long online residency exchange in collaboration with Videotage in Hong Kong as part of videoclub and Videotage’s seventh Both Sides Now programme.

Residencies will take place on Vital Capacities and on Videotage’s Minecraft residency. Residencies will take place in February 2022. Deadline for submissions is: 12 January 2022. Work will be shown as part of Third Thursdays in March 2022. 

To submit a simple expression of interest and to find out more click here.

Reverberation – latest exhibition

by Vital Capacities

Image represents four artists work, top left: a still image from Siphenathi Mayekiso’s film Echoes of Identity, which shows a man with bare chest and arms across his face against a blue sky; top right: a still image from Rebekah Ubuntu’s film Ecologies of Belonging (a Meditation in Progress), which shows a person standing in the centre of a sandy footpath with long grass either side, in the distance to the left if the sea and clouds in the sky; bottom right: a still image from Nadine Mckenzie’s film A Will, My Wheels and a Way, which shows a young woman sat in a wheelchair reflected in a mirror, a wall of windows shows buildings and blue sky outside; bottom left picture: a dirt track footpath leads into the distance through a field, the ground is a deep red, making the grass on the sides of the path almost black in colour, trees can be seen on the horizon in the distance with clouds and a little blue sky above.
All four artists’ work, beginning bottom right clockwise: Nadine Mckenzie, A Will, My Wheels and a Way, 2021; …kruse, Directionsgreat to Storyplace, 2021; Siphenathi Mayekiso, Echoes of Identity, 2021; artwork still, ‘Ecologies of Belonging (a Meditation in Progress)’ by Rebekah Ubuntu, courtesy of the Artist. Find Rebekah online @rebekahubuntu.

Our latest exhibition includes new work by August’s resident artists Nadine Mckenzie, …kruse, Siphenathi Mayekiso and Rebekah Ubuntu. Each artist has produced work that resonates with the work they did throughout their residency, reflecting on memory, personal narratives, experience, and movement. See the exhibition from 30 September at 11am.

Intertwined – exhibition of work by June 21 artists

by Vital Capacities

Three images in a composite represent three artists' work. Top left: Seo Hye Lee's film Sound of Subtitles - a hand is inside a stone coloured round pot on a spinning wheel, the insides of the pot are shiny. A subtitle reads: sound of reminiscing. Bottom left: Linda Stupart's film Watershed 2.0 - green plants are growing in the foreground, they look like tall weeds. In the background a blurred image of a person in white, a curled claw with red nails is held ahead of the person. Right of the image: Laura Lulika's Body Building film - a sad android sits in a blue room on a blue block, women's heads grow out of the android's back, their body is made up of body massager tools, which are grey, black, purple and pink plastic. A glowing pink ball is held in the android's scalp massager hand.
Artworks from top left, clockwise: Seo Hye Lee, [Sound of Subtitles], 2021; Laura Lulika, Body Building, 2021; Linda Stupart, Watershed 2.0: Pandemic CYOA Cyberspace Edition 2021, 2021 – images courtesy of the artists.

Intertwined is our new exhibition on Vital Capacities, presenting new works by resident artists – Seo Hye Lee, Laura Lulika and Linda Stupart. The works have been commissioned in collaboration with our partners: Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), Phoenix and University of Salford Art Collection. Intertwined opens on 22 July. See the exhibition now by clicking here.

Studio intro

by Linda Stupart

A collage of green leaves, white daisies with yellow centres, and stripes of yellow and red streak across the image.
Linda Stupart, Watershed, 2020 (video still) – image courtesy of the artist

Two Summers ago, I went on a boat to the Arctic Circle and swam in the sea and crawled through the ice as a virus and an alien and myself. It was very cold and intense, but I finally felt close, really close, to the melting polar Ice Caps.

2020 Summer and the virus was suddenly something really tangible and terrifying for everyone in the world. We were stuck inside, but were allowed to take a daily walk. I wanted to carry on thinking about ecologies and nature and bodies and intimacy, so I decided to get into the River Cole – a river in Birmingham that runs really near my house. Because it’s in Birmingham, the river is dirty and full of the run-off of people’s lives and this felt/feels important. So, I started the process of walking down it.

In the last year I have done five walks down the river, moving further towards the mouth each time.  In this residency I hope to do a lot more walks, getting further away from my home and deeper into the river. I want to also spend time editing, writing, and collaging with the footage of walks I have shot since I made this film in 2020. In the Arctic we didn’t have any access to the internet. Now, cyberspace has become one of the only places we can be together and it’s been both horrible and warm – the way that everything is connected online – like root systems or rivers, even though a lot of the internet (like root systems or rivers) is rotten.

It’s good to reside here for a month and work inside this ecology, too. Look around and get in touch using comments if you’d like.

Interview with Jaene Castrillon

by Vital Capacities

Installation view of an exhibition. On the left of the image is a tree-shaped collage of many, many black and white images (it's not very clear as the images are small, but some are portraits of people) - they are lit in a sunshine yellow light. The floor of what is assumed to be a gallery is chrome, and reflects the rest of the room. 12 TV monitors make a wall on the right of the image, on 2 screens are an animation of a man drinking from a bottle, on another is a hand touching the screen, other screens are whited out or unclear. On a On the wall and written over the photos in large handwriting is written: I don't want to alarm anyone but I think there's a lil alkyhol in the..." unreadable from there.
Jaene F. Castrillon, Perpetual, 2015 (installation) – image courtesy of the artist

Jamie Wyld (Vital Capacities director): Thanks for being part of the Vital Capacities residency programme! Can you say a little about yourself and your work, perhaps in relation to what you’re thinking about doing during the residency?

Jaene Castrillon: I am a 2Spirit interdisciplinary artist, activist, author & award winning filmmaker who explores my relationship to the world through Indigenous teachings, ceremony and the wisdom of the land. I describe myself as a settler to Turtle Island of mixed heritages (indigenous Colombian & Hong Kong Chinese) who was raised on the teachings of Elder Isaac Day of Serpent River First Nations.

Continue reading “Interview with Jaene Castrillon”

Join our mailing list

Click here to subscribe for news about Vital Capacities

Follow us