ONLINE ARTIST RESIDENCY | UN/MUTE – 10002 Sneak Peek
Join us for a pre-recorded artist discussion followed by a live artist Q+A. In this Sneak Peek, artists share unforeseen challenges, wrestle with the tangible versus the digital, and discuss how they navigate collaborating with another artist who started off as a complete stranger. UN/MUTE-10002 follows the narratives of ten European artists who have never visited New York City and ten NYC-based artists, paired into teams of two, one European with one New Yorker. The ACFNY supported Vienna-based clarinetist and performer Barbara Maria Neu and her NYC-based partner, visual artist and educator Kris Grey will also speak about their work as TEAM PROFILE. Check out their ongoing discussion by visiting unmute.nyc
Join us THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1-2 PM, EST as Team Mouse, Bug, Profile, Web, and Thumbnail discuss language, personal diaries, artificial energy, photography and time loss.
Watch Live via Zoom Webinar Link: https://zoom.us/j/94340989452
or Livestreaming via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/undercurrent.nyc
And FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1-2 PM, EST, Team Ram, Stream, Branch, Cloud and Key share their focus of systemic oppression, polarities, prosthetics, domestic spaces, and invisibility.
Watch Live via Zoom Webinar Link: https://zoom.us/j/99849621460
or Livestreaming via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/undercurrent.nyc
ABOUT UN/MUTE-10002
UN/MUTE-10002 follows the narratives of ten European artists who have never visited New York City and ten NYC-based artists, paired into teams of two, one European with one New Yorker. Additionally, one artist is a digital immigrant, born before 1986, and the other is a digital native, born into the world of web browsers and email, after 1986. Over a series of Zoom sessions, each team’s collective creative process will unfold in a series of video recordings. The online world that has emerged in response to the pandemic reshapes our definition of social contact, obscures our private and public environments, and circumscribes the evolution of communication.
Language serves as the first cultural indicator of change. At constant risk of complete extermination, the Amazon is now more recognized as an online shopping platform than one of our planet’s richest natural resources. We stream video content into our living rooms while drinking bottled water branded with pictures of mountain springs, and our most priceless memories are hidden away in a cloud. We sit a virtual world apart from each other – far more than the recommended six feet – obscuring the socioeconomic divisions of race, color, national origin, gender identification, sexual orientation, religion, and age. The present state of being often sounds more like mythology or folklore than reality.
As the internet conditions our lifestyle, we aim to find new normalcy amidst a shortage of vaccines, new virus strains, unsettling unemployment rates, and a Western world trying to mitigate racism and xenophobia during a delicate sociopolitical epoch. Regardless of our facility with digital technologies, how do we progress without compromising the past? How can we learn from each other’s individual histories and experiences? Embodying inclusion, multilingualism, and digitalization, UN/MUTE provides an opportunity for two transatlantic strangers to collaborating on a singular project for a sustainable future.
Creating a fair and equitable space after COVID shuttered artists from residencies, travel, studio visits, exhibitions, and physical networking, UN/MUTE is an online residency that provides artists an opportunity for critical exchange and collaboration while simultaneously connecting resources from the global cultural epicenter of New York City. This project is co-organized by Undercurrent and the European Union National Institutes for Culture’s New York Cluster. It went live on February 12, 2021, in concurrence with the Lunar New Year, and will continue through May 9th, celebrating Europe Day.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
TEAM /PROFILE: Barbara Maria Neu /Austria + Kris Grey /NYC
TEAM /RAM: Gabrielė Gervickaitė /Lithuania + Yi Hsuan Lai /NYC
TEAM /BRANCH: Alex Mirutziu /Romania + Sydney Shavers /NYC
TEAM /CLOUD: FOQL /Poland + Emmanuel Massillon /NYC
TEAM /WEB: Olesja Katšanovskaja–Münd /Estonia + Mo Kong /NYC
TEAM /STREAM: Marie Lukáčová /Czech Republic + Emily Shanahan /NYC
TEAM /KEY: Sophie Guisset /Wallonia-Brussels, Belgium + Will Calhoun /NYC
TEAM/MOUSE: Aaron Bezzina /Malta + Kyle Hittmeier /NYC
TEAM /THUMBNAIL: Eren Aksu /Germany + Sheila Maldonado /NYC
TEAM /BUG: Sanne De Wilde /Flanders, Belgium + H. Lan Thao Lam /NYC
UN/MUTE-10002 is a project by EUNIC New York and Undercurrent, realized with financial support from EUNIC — EU National Institutes for Culture — Europe’s network of national cultural institutes and organizations, with 36 members from all EU member states. This project was initiated by the Lietuvos kultūros institutas / Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Consulate General of Estonia in New York and is co-organized by Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Wallonie-Bruxelles International New York, Czech Center New York, Delegation of Flanders in the USA, Goethe-Institut New York, Arts Council Malta in New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York, Romanian Cultural Institute in New York / ICR New York, the Jindrich Chalupecky SocietyHope Recycling Station, and supported by the European Union at the UN – New York.
Image credit: Undercurrent