The work of London-based artist Marianna Simnett incorporates video, performance, music, and fantastical literary parables to investigate the body and its limits. FD13 residency for the arts presents The Midden, Simnett’s first fully live work and very first work for stage.

The Midden
Tuesday, May 22, 7pm
TEK BOX stage at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts
528 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403
Book your free ticket here.

Written for three characters – a girl, a witch, and a sorter – The Midden is a contemporary fable about a young girl who wakes to find her voice is rotten. Set in a fictional dumping ground, the play mines voices of the living and forgotten, calling on myths, allegories, and a swarm of intoxicated bees to examine noise, filtration, and systems of controlling waste.

Over the course of three weeks, Simnett has been drafting a script and cacophonic sound collage which pulls from babbling exercises, objectionable and honey-sweet sounds, interwoven with hard categorizations of material (corrosive, ignitable, radioactive, pesticides, sharps, batteries, oil…). The production casts actors and employees from a local, hazardous waste center. It incorporates newly composed songs, fabricated costumes, salvaged props, and handmade instruments – produced by Simnett with the help of the FD13 team.

Marianna Simnett (b. 1986) lives and works in London. Trained in classical music and theatre from a young age, its influence on her work endured as she turned to film, installation, and performance during her BA at Nottingham Trent University in 2007 and her MA at the Slade School of Art in 2013. Simnett’s work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions including a current exhibition at the Zabludowicz Collection (London, UK); Wing-sleepers (Art on the Underground, London, UK) in 2018; Worst Gift, Matt’s Gallery (London, UK) in 2017; Lies, Seventeen Gallery (New York, NY) and Valves Collapse, Seventeen Gallery (London, UK) in 2016; Park Nights, Serpentine Pavilion (London, UK) and Blue Roses, Comar (Isle of Mull, Scotland) in 2015. Simnett was a winner of the Jerwood/FVU Award (2015), the Adrian Carruthers Award (2013) and the William Coldstream Prize (2013). She was shortlisted for the Jarman Award and Paul Hamlyn in 2017.

Image courtesy the artist and Jerwood / FVU Award. The Udder, 2014 (video still).

Screening: The Needle and the Larynx and Worst Gift
Wednesday, April 18, 2018. Doors open 7 pm.
The White Page
3400 Cedar Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55407

Book your free place here.

The work of London-based artist Marianna Simnett (b.1986, Kingston-upon-Thames, UK) incorporates video, theatrical performance, choral music and fantastical literary parables to investigate the body and its limits. Simnett often presents the body in a state of transformation or distress and her films elicit strong, visceral responses which are felt as well as seen. In advance of Simnett’s May 2018 arrival in Minneapolis, FD13 residency for the arts and The White Page present a screening of the artists’ most recent moving image works The Needle and the Larynx, 2016 (15 minutes, 27 seconds) and Worst Gift, 2017 (18 minutes).

In both videos, Simnett weaves cautionary tales which oscillate between the visceral genre of body horror and the theatricality and menace of dark children’s fables, such as those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Written in rhyme and song, The Needle and the Larynx  places a central, archetypal character, ‘The Girl’, at odds with an authoritarian medical doctor, ‘The Surgeon’, who initially refuses her request to lower her voice but is ultimately forced to accede The Girl’s demand. The story unfolds over slowed footage of the artist having her voice surgically lowered and the narrative is playfully relayed in the artists’ (The Girl’s) newly descended tones.

Worst Gift continues Simnett’s exploration of female subjectivity and bodily integrity as they relate to the power dynamics of the medical profession. It is set in an alternate world in which a voice surgeon (played by real-life surgeon and choral singer Dr. Declan Costello) injects prepubescent boys with a substance to lower their voices. Shot in a Botox factory and theatrical surgery, the film follows a female protagonist (played by the artist) as she ventures on a mission to obtain the substance refused to her by the surgeon.

About the artist:

Marianna Simnett (b. 1986) lives and works in London. Trained in classical music and theatre from a young age, its influence on her work endured as she turned to film, installation, and performance during her BA at Nottingham Trent University in 2007 and her MA at the Slade School of Art in 2013. Simnett’s work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions including a current exhibition at the Zabludowicz Collection (London, UK); Wing-sleepers (Art on the Underground, London, UK) in 2018; Worst Gift, Matt’s Gallery (London, UK) in 2017; Lies, Seventeen Gallery (New York, NY) and Valves Collapse, Seventeen Gallery (London, UK) in 2016; Park Nights, Serpentine Pavilion (London, UK) and Blue Roses, Comar (Isle of Mull, Scotland) in 2015. Simnett was a winner of the Jerwood/FVU Award (2015), the Adrian Carruthers Award (2013) and the William Coldstream Prize (2013). She was shortlisted for the Jarman Award and Paul Hamlyn in 2017.

FD13 residency for the arts welcomes LA-born, Berlin-based artist, writer, activist, and witch Johanna Hedva. Hedva’s residency begins with an astrological writing workshop and concludes with To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves a discussion of sickness, care, disability, and healing based on Hedva’s recently published essay “Letter to a Young Doctor” (Jan 2018, Triple Canopy).

Malus Daemon: Temple of ill-omen, Doomed to climb
A Writing Workshop on Storytelling, Fate, and Astrology
Sunday, March 4, from 4 – 7 pm
The Future, 2223 E 35th St, Minneapolis, MN 55407

Can the embrace of fate through mythological stories be a form of rewriting oneself? Can bad luck be reclaimed? How should we value the catharsis of doom? This free writing workshop, led by Johanna Hedva, will focus on astrology, mythology, and storytelling. Hedva, a practicing astrologer raised within traditions of Catholic folk magic and Korean fortune-telling, will help participants explore the cycles and patterns of Hellenistic astrology as possible genres for writing and narrative. Participants are invited to bring their birth information or natal charts as materials to support the writing process.

This workshop takes place at The Future, an apothecary and project space, located in South Minneapolis’ Witch District. Capacity is limited to 10 people. Please book your free place here.

Accessibility note: The environment is not scent free, but contains traces of incense and other perfumes. Cleaning products are made from natural substances without artificial scents. The Future is accessed one step up from the street, and a threshold ramp will be made available. Free street parking is available off E 35th Street. If you have specific questions about access please write info@fd13residency.org at least 3 days in advance of the event. We will make every possible effort to accommodate you.

To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves
Thursday, March 8 at 7 pm
company, 1237 4th St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

Can we imagine a doctor-patient relationship based on collaboration and trust, on a more holistic view of the patient? How can we conceive of the care we give and receive from others as being enmeshed with our political futures? To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves is a re-evaluation of the terms of engagement between patient and doctor, self and institution.

In their recently published epistolary essay “Letter to a Young Doctor” Johanna Hedva invites the reader to imagine how a doctor-patient relationship based on collaboration and trust might serve as a model of political resistance, justice, and healing. Hedva will also read from their new novel, On Hell, which envisions the insurrectionary potential of the crip, queer, and sick body. The reading will be followed by a discussion moderated by Lara Mimosa Montes, Senior Editor of Triple Canopy. Book your free place here.

Accessibility note: company is fully accessible to wheelchair users with ramp access
to the venue on 13th Ave NE. Free street parking is available off 13th Ave NE and 4^th St. ASL interpretation and shuttle service are both available, but please write info@fd13residency.org at least 3 days in advance of the event so we can make every effort possible to accommodate you.

This event is presented with Triple Canopy and made possible with support from Goethe Institut Chicago.

Johanna Hedva is a fourth-generation Los Angelena on their mother’s side and, on their father’s side, the grandchild of a woman who escaped from North Korea. Hedva is the author of the novel, On Hell (2018, Sator Press). Their performances and visual work have been shown at Machine Project, Human Resources LA, the Getty’s 2013 Pacific Standard Time, the LA Architecture and Design Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon. Their essays, poems, and fiction have appeared or will appear in Triple Canopy, Black Warrior Review, The White Review, Entropy, Mask Magazine, 3:AM, and others. Their ongoing project This Earth, Our Hospital includes the essays “Sick Woman Theory” and “In Defense of De-Persons” and most recently “Letter to a Young Doctor” published by Triple Canopy in January 2018.

 

FD13 residency for the arts welcomes London and Los Angeles–based artist Patrick Staff, our artist-in-residence throughout the month of February. Working across film, installation, dance, and performance, Staff’s practice investigates themes of dissent, labor, and the queer body.

Weed Killer, Screening 
Thurs, Feb 22, 2018 at 7pm, free
Walker Art Center, Bentson Mediatheque
Tickets available via the Walker Art Center

Produced on the occasion of Staff’s recent solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Weed Killer (2017) departs from Catherine Lord’s memoir ‘The Summer of Her Baldness’ (2004), a vivid, often irreverent account of the author’s diagnosis, treatment, and transformation through her experience of breast cancer. Weed Killer suggests a complex relationship to one’s own suffering and draws into focus the fine line between alternately poisonous and curative substances.

A selection of related titles from the Walker’s Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection follows the screening, concluding with a Q&A between Staff and Sara Cluggish, Co-Director of FD13 residency for the arts.

This event is co-presented with the Walker Art Center.

Bathing (Drunkenness), Live Performance
Thurs, Mar 1, 2018 at 7pm, free
Performed by Kaya Lovestrand
Company, 1237 4th St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413. Book your place here.

Over the course of their four week FD13 residency, Staff develops Bathing (Drunkenness) (2018), a series of fluid choreographic gestures enacted by one performer in a shallow pool of water. The performance combines contemporary references alongside Staff’s research into the classical figure of the bather, the drunken revelry of bacchanalia, and spiritello figures which commonly adorn European fountains. Embracing feelings of anxiety induced by stagnant water and its pollution, the performance suggests a complex relationship to gender, intoxication, and desire. Bathing (Drunkenness) is Staff’s first performance choreographed for a live audience since 2013 and continues their examination into themes of contamination, cleanliness, and illness.

This event is co-presented with Company, a new project space and curatorial platform located in Minneapolis’ North East Arts District.

Patrick Staff (b.1987) is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in London, UK and Los Angeles, USA. Their work has been exhibited internationally. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at MOCA, Los Angeles (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2016); Spike Island, Bristol, UK; and Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (2015.) Staff’s work was included in the British Art Show 8, and they received the Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2015.

 

Happy Holidays from FD13!

Wishing you the very best this holiday season and a happy New Year.
Here is what we have planned for winter 2018.

LA-born, Berlin-based artist, writer, activist, and witch, Johanna Hedva presents the next iteration of This Earth, Our Hospital, an ongoing series of essays and performances about the politics of sickness, disability, and healing. The residency will begin with a two-day writing workshop focusing on astrology, mythology and storytelling, hosted at The Future project space in the South Minneapolis Witch District and will conclude with the launch of Hedva’s forthcoming sci-fi dystopian novella, On Hell.

Astrology and Mythology Writing Workshop, led by Hedva
Sun, Mar 4 at 4pm, and Tues, Mar 6 at 6pm
The Future
Booking available mid-February 2018

This Earth, Our Hospital reading and On Hell book launch
Thurs, Mar 8 at 7pm
Venue information and booking available in mid-February 2018

Johanna Hedva’s FD13 residency is co-presented with Triple Canopy and generously made possible with support from Goethe Institut Chicago.

You are invited to FD13 residency for the art’s pre-season launch on Friday, November 17, 2017, 6–7.30 pm.  

Join residency Co-Directors Sandra Teitge and Sara Cluggish as they present a year of FD13 programming, including details of the forthcoming winter/spring 2018 season.

Generously hosted by Henry & Son, purveyors of craft wine and spirits. Free wine tasting and refreshments will be served throughout the evening.

Henry & Son
811 Glenwood Ave
Minneapolis MN 55405

Located across from the International Market Square, just a few blocks away from the Minneapolis Farmers Market.
Please RSVP to info@fd13residency.org

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Chantal Peñalosa presented an audio-visual performance building upon research into the painted murals in the Mexican Cultural Institute’s historic 16th Street MacVeagh Mansion. Originally constructed in 1910 as a summer home, the building was re-designated as the official Embassy of Mexico in 1921. This same year Guatemalan painter Rafael Yela Günther arrived in Mexico where he met prominent painter Diego Rivera in the early years of the Mexican muralist movement. In 1925, Yela Günther was commissioned by the Mexican government to design a series of murals for the Mexican Embassy’s Dining Room, connecting the grand Beaux Arts style architecture to the cultural and stylistic traditions of Mexico. The decision also reflected an interest of the time in indigeneity on the South American continent.

Yela’s original murals were eventually painted over. Later, other murals were added with more nationalistic scenes composed by Roberto Cueva del Río, a student of the Rivera mural style of painting that was well-established by this time. This second generation of murals remain in the building to this day and display a cross-section of Mexico’s national history. The scenes range from depictions of the mythological founding of Aztec culture, the arrival of Christopher Columbus, rural and agricultural festivities to Mexico’s modern industrialization. As a whole, del Río’s murals celebrate the continuity of old Mexico and the new.
Peñalosa invited the public at the Mexican Cultural Institute to engage with these competing historical depictions in a 30-minute performance that employs sound, visuals, and movement.

Chantal Peñalosa studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and the University of São Paulo. Peñalosa’s research-based practice is inspired by small gestures and interventions in everyday life, which are meant to expound upon notions of labor, waiting and delay. Repetition is a crucial element in her process, functioning as an allusion to the absurdity, weathering, and alienating effects of work. She was awarded the Acquisition Prize in the XIV edition of the Biennale of the Northwest and was awarded FONCA fellowships in the Young Artists category (2013-2014 and 2015-2016). In 2014 she participated in the 4th edition of the Bancomer Program for young artists at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Most recently, her work has been shown at Casa del Lago in Mexico City and at AIR Antwerpen.

A special thank you to Gustavo Morales and Alberto Fierro Garza (MCI of D.C.) and The White Page.

With the support of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C., the Embassy of Mexico in the United States, and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation.

FD13 residency for the arts presents:
Chantal Peñalosa. Performative Lecture on Murals.
Thursday, 28 September 2017, 6.45 pm

Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. 
2829 16th St NW
20009 Washington, D.C.
USA

Artist talk (via Skype)
Friday, 22 September 2017, 6.30 pm

The White Page
3400 Cedar Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
USA

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For the summer and fall of 2017, FD13 residency for the arts is proud to partner with the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. and select venues in New York City and Minneapolis.

Current FD13 artist-in-residence Chantal Peñalosa will present an audio-visual performance building upon research into the painted murals in the Mexican Cultural Institute’s historic 16th Street MacVeagh Mansion. Originally constructed in 1910 as a summer home, the building was re-designated as the official Embassy of Mexico in 1921. This same year Guatemalan painter Rafael Yela Günther arrived in Mexico where he met prominent painter Diego Rivera in the early years of the Mexican muralist movement. In 1925, Yela Günther was commissioned by the Mexican government to design a series of murals for the Mexican Embassy’s Dining Room, connecting the grand Beaux Arts style architecture to the cultural and stylistic traditions of Mexico. The decision also reflected an interest of the time in indigeneity on the South American continent.

Yela’s original murals were eventually painted over. Later, other murals were added with more nationalistic scenes composed by Roberto Cueva del Río, a student of the Rivera mural style of painting that was well-established by this time. This second generation of murals remain in the building to this day and display a cross-section of Mexico’s national history. The scenes range from depictions of the mythological founding of Aztec culture, the arrival of Christopher Columbus, rural and agricultural festivities to Mexico’s modern industrialization. As a whole, del Río’s murals celebrate the continuity of old Mexico and the new.
On September 28th, Peñalosa invites the public at the Mexican Cultural Institute to engage with these competing historical depictions in a 30-minute performance that employs sound, visuals, and movement.

One week prior to the culminating performance, Peñalosa will open her research to audiences in Minneapolis in an artist talk moderated by FD13’s Guest Curator Sara Cluggish and broadcast directly from the Mexican Cultural Institute building in D.C. to The White Page in Minneapolis. Images of the present-day Cueva del Río murals and a selection of Peñalosa’s previous moving images works will also be shown.
—

Chantal Peñalosa studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and the University of São Paulo. Peñalosa’s research-based practice is inspired by small gestures and interventions in everyday life, which are meant to expound upon notions of labor, waiting and delay. Repetition is a crucial element in her process, functioning as an allusion to the absurdity, weathering, and alienating effects of work. She was awarded the Acquisition Prize in the XIV edition of the Biennale of the Northwest and was awarded FONCA fellowships in the Young Artists category (2013-2014 and 2015-2016). In 2014 she participated in the 4th edition of the Bancomer Program for young artists at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Most recently, her work has been shown at Casa del Lago in Mexico City and at AIR Antwerpen.
—

In times of political uncertainty FD13 suspends and expands its mission to promote an international network of artistic exchange in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Operating from the heart of the U.S. government instead, three invited Mexican artistswill develop context-specific projects for and in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C.
Following Adriana Lara’s summer residency, Chantal Peñalosa will develop and present work in Washington D.C. and in Minneapolis.

A special thank you to Gustavo Morales and Alberto Fierro Garza (MCI of D.C.), Cleopatra’s (Erin Somerville), and The White Page.

With the support of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C., the Embassy of Mexico in the United States, and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation.

FD13 residency for the arts presents:
Artist talk with Chantal Peñalosa moderated by Sara Cluggish 
Friday, 22 September 2017, 6.30 pm

The White Page
3400 Cedar Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
USA

—

In the framework of FD13’s partnership with the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C., Chantal Peñalosa is developing an audio-visual performance on Thursday, 28 September 2017, building upon research into the painted murals of in the Institute’s historic 16th Street MacVeagh Mansion.
In 1925, Guatemalan artist Yela Günther was commissioned by the Mexican government to design a series of murals for the Mexican Embassy building, connecting the grand Beaux Arts style architecture to the cultural and stylistic traditions of Mexico. The decision also reflected an interest of the time in indigeneity on the South American continent. Beginning in 1933, Yela’s original murals were painted over with more nationalistic scenes composed by Cueva del Río, a student of the Rivera mural style of painting that was well-established by this time. This second generation of murals remain in the building to this day and display a cross-section of Mexico’s national history.

Prior to the performance in D.C. Chantal Peñalosa will open her research to the public in Minneapolis in an artist talk moderated by FD13 Guest Curator Sara Cluggish and broadcast directly from the Mexican Cultural Institute building in D.C. to The White Page in Minneapolis. Images of the present-day Cueva del Río murals and a selection of Peñalosa’s previous moving images works will also be shown. 

—

Chantal Peñalosa studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and the University of São Paulo. Peñalosa’s research-based practice is inspired by small gestures and interventions in everyday life, which are meant to expound upon notions of labor, waiting and delay. Repetition is a crucial element in her process, functioning as an allusion to the absurdity, weathering, and alienating effects of work. For Peñalosa repeating actions evoke latent states in which dialogue appears unilateral and time suspended. She was awarded the Acquisition Prize in the XIV edition of the Biennale of the Northwest and was awarded FONCA fellowships in the Young Artists category (2013-2014) and (2015-2016). In 2014 she participated in the 4th edition of the Bancomer Program for young artists at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. Most recently, her work has been shown at Casa del Lago in Mexico City and at AIR Antwerpen.

Happy Summer to all of you!

After a stimulating residency with Adriana Lara in May 2017 at the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C. we are taking a break for the summer.

We will be back in September 2017 with Chantal Peñalosa followed by Lorena Mal in October 2017.
Both artists will develop and present context-specific projects for the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington D.C.

Furthermore, FD13 is proud to introduce Sara Cluggish as guest curator for the upcoming 2018 winter season.
Sara has worked for the past three years as Curator at Site Gallery in Sheffield, UK, where she oversaw the gallery’s exhibitions and events programming, as well as Platform, an experimental artist-in-residence series. Sara was previously Assistant Curator at Nottingham Contemporary and has worked in the exhibitions departments of Chisenhale Gallery, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At Site Gallery, she is currently curating a new moving image work by Daria Martin which experimentally adapts Franz Kafka’s short story A Hunger Artist.

FD13’s director Sandra Teitge moved to New York in the summer of 2016 and will focus her energy on the East Coast and international collaborations for FD13.

Stay tuned for news on our upcoming fall and winter program.

Warmly,
Sandra, Sara & Bruno

(Image credit: Tropez Berlin)