Still

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To listen about the project on BBC click---- To listen about the project on BBC click

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Female artists respond to the theme of female birds

Female birds have evolved to lose their singing voices and colourful plumage in order to fulfil the role of motherhood. Some species of are named after the appearance of their male counterparts (female blackbirds are brown, not black), and how this resonates with us female humans. Initial responses by the invited artists were rather profound.

This projec centredt around the International Women's Day 2018 (08 March), will show works by 15 (mostly Belfast based) female artists , working with sound, visual arts, performance art or poetry. 

About the artists

Bernarde Lynn worked as a social and community worker in projects relating to the empowerment of women, before turning to study art and photography. She took a photography undergraduate degree at Blackpool Le Fylde College and then secured a Masters in Photography from Manchester Metropolitan Art School. She has subsequently exhibited in The Cube, Manchester, The Holden Gallery, MMU, Down Arts Centre, Higher Bridges Gallery, Fermanagh and Belfast Exposed. Her current work is mostly in still life and landscape, where she is less interested in panoramas and much more concerned with the small details.

Catherine Gaston is painter who graduated with a masters in fine art. Her works are in the collections of Ulster University, ACNI, Arts Care and The Irish News as well as numerous private collections . Recent work has focused on landscape as inspiration with a particular interest with light, creating atmospheric works capturing fleeting moments in time as observed. Her most recent exhibition took place in The Higher Bridges Gallery, Enniskillen in collaboration with poet Maria McManus.

Daniëlle Hooijmans

In my work the subject is the body and therefore I work with dancers. I exaggerate daily situations to highlight our role in the system. I search for rawness and look for other forms and formats that negotiate a new world without limitations, thereby broadening our scope on multiple layers of identity and sexuality. With my work, I want to create new forms of expression that I call fluid sexuality. This means that my work has to play, tease, stir and shake, becoming an entrance to another world and inspire the viewer to pursue an intense and beautiful life. daniellehooijmans.tumblr.com

Isobel Anderson is a Belfast based singer, musician & sound artist originally from East Sussex, England. Her work explores identities of self and place through voice, performance & field recording. She is currently enjoying playing scrabble and regularly watches Eastenders.

JJ Devereaux is an artist, usually working with storytelling, embodiment and Virtual Reality; Massage therapist, writer, costume designer and SpaceCat.

Lyndsey McDougall

I’m fascinated by physical and cultural landscapes. I make work that investigates the parallels between the formation of natural forms and the formation of beliefs and symbols. I do this by drawing and adapting geographical and symbolic imagery through the craft of hand embroidery. Tying everything together is my interest in how the passing of time equals the movement of land and ideas. I’m currently a PhD student at Ulster University, researching the symbols and motifs in Irish embroidery.

Maria McManus  is a poet and the author of Available Light (Arlen House, 2017), We are Bone (2013), The Cello Suites (2009) and Reading the Dog (2006) (Lagan Press). Her writing for theatre includes work with Kabosh, TinderBox, Red Lead, Replay, Big Telly and Off the Rails, a dance company. Her passion is poetry in public space, and she has collaborated extensively to create Cirque des Oiseaux, DUST, and LabelLit. Her awards from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland include ACES in 2015 and the Artists’ International Award 2016. She is artistic director and curator of Ireland’s only Poetry Jukebox.

Okseon Lee is an artist who mainly works with Korean traditional handicrafts such as decorative knots and Korean quilts and patchwork, as well as Western embroidery.

Una Lee is an artist in perpetual pursuit of found sound and ways for alternative storytelling. She sings, narrates, writes stories, collects field recordings and makes things and performances, exploring time, memories and representations.

Zeynep Bulut is a theorist of voice and sound, artist, and singer-songwriter. Her scholarly and artistic work explores how sounds of the voice interact with the concrete sounds of physical environment and material culture. She is currently completing her first manuscript, titled, Building a Voice: Sound, Surface, Skin. Bulut is a Lecturer in Music at Queen’s University Belfast, and Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London.

Zoë Murdoch lives in Belfast and has been based at QSS Studios since 2001. In 2012 she was elected as an Associate Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy. Her work has been shown in a wide range of exhibitions throughout the U.K, Ireland and internationally. She has received awards from Arts Council Northern Ireland, the British Council and was granted the 'Tyrone Guthrie Residency Award for an artist from Northern Ireland working in any medium' in 2017 and the 'Robinson McIlwaine Architects “Original Vision” Award' from the RUA in 2010 and 2007. Her work is part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's Collection and numerous private collections.

Thursday, 08 March, 7.30pm: International Women’s Day Special Performance with Franziska Schroeder, Elvira Santamaria, Paula Guzzanti, Una Lee.
As part of the exhibition ‘Still’, three acts of music, dance + voice and performance art inspired by the theme of female birds will be performed by four artists reflecting on womanhood, motherhood, the unheard, the unremembered and all things defined as female.

Elvira Santamaria

Torres (1967), originally from Mexico City, is currently based in Northern Ireland. She is an experienced performance artist. Since 1991 she has presented her performances at different international festivals, public spaces, museums, galleries and theatres worldwide. In 1994 she won the First Price of the 3de Performance Art Month Award in Mexico City. In 2007 she made Urban Actions project in Bogotá and form 2014-2016 Parables of Eviction and Regeneration, Performance in public Spaces in Mexico and some Latin American countries. She was nominated for the ARTRAKERS Award 2013 (Awarding Creativity in Art and Conflict) in London. She has organized and curated various performance art events in Mexico and abroad. She has been a committee member of Bbeyond since 2010. Her artwork has been published in books, catalogues magazines and Internet, such as Inter Review, Art Actuel 2011; Art & Agenda, Political Art and Activism, Gestalten 2012; Double Exposures 2014 and Arte ‘Acción y Performance en los Muchos Méxicos’ 2017. elvirasantamariatorres.co.uk

Naming the change (2018) is a song of womens' names that are lost in time, filtered by history and blurred by memory, but present in the palpable everyday reality.

Franziska Schroeder is a saxophonist and improviser, and currently lectures at Queen’s University Belfast. She is obsessed with weird sounds and good quality chocolate!
Humming: Work for Tenor Saxophone, feedback system and humming giraffes (2018) is a combination of pre-recorded (usually unheard) giraffe humming soundscapes, using sources from a recent research project by Austrian biologists who recorded giraffes in the Vienna zoo. After hundreds of hours of recording giraffes during the night, the biologists managed to extract a few seconds of giraffe humming sounds.It is unclear why giraffes hum or whether the sounds comes from male or female animals, but researchers say that these hums are very unusual.I was intrigued by the fact that these beautiful animals indeed make sounds and that they make these in almost secretive ways (or at least not easily picked up by humans).The piece “Humming” wants to give voice to these unusual sounds and I have combined the mostly ‘unheard’ giraffe sounds with a feedback system for tenor saxophone. It that plays on the idea of exploring sounds that are usually non-existent, or that only exist if I make them heard - though physical movement using my tenor saxophone. The work ties in with tonight’s theme of “still” and of ‘lost voices’, and my hope is that artists will always find ways of making unheard voices come to the fore!

Paula Guzzanti is a dance artist and scholar based in Northern Ireland. She is currently undertaking a practice-as research PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, exploring the relationship between affect and conscious awareness in dance improvisation practice. Her performance work includes dance improvisation, site specific, screen-based dance and children’s dance theatre. Her artistic portfolio is available in www.paulaguzzanti.com.
Silence Pact (2018) is a performance of dance improvisation and voice. The piece unfolds the story of a mother’s silenced voice. This piece is dedicated to all women that are discriminated for becoming pregnant or giving birth outside the institution of marriage.

HIVE is a new artist collective based in Belfast. Inheriting its membership and ethos from recent experimental choral projects in Belfast – Bird on a Wire and Belfast City Choir – HIVE is a testing ground for alternative musical notation, text scores vocal improvisation and sound games.
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