Günther SCHAEFER

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Günther Schaefer, who grew up near the border between the two Germanys, deeply felt the division of people and land. He watched as Germans helped Germans flee from east to west. His own family lived on both sides of the border and greeted each other with white linen hanging out from a special visitors platform on Sundays.

He studied book printing in Frankfurt / M and participated in the movement of the ‘68 generation. Then he went on to study photography and discovered his passion, the art of black and white photography. He then subsequently worked for ten years in the field of advertising. Afterwards he went to New York, but kept a joint studio with a friend in Frankfurt / M. When the Berlin wall fell in 1989 Schaefer happened to be there and thus began the long-term project that reached its preliminary climax in 2004, the fifteen years anniversary of the fall of the “Iron Curtain,” when he published his photo history of Berlin. He left Frankfurt / M far behind: “A German who once has lived in New York can only live in Berlin, everywhere else in his native country is simply too small”, For him photography is an art with the ability to destroy illusions and awaken hope. He calls himself an eternal optimist, writing history with pictures in black and white, which say something even beneath the visible. It is a subjective reality, following his own development over more than 24 years of observing and shooting his chosen home, Berlin, a metropolis of timeless symbols. Locations might be repeated but the content is always new. His work doesn't claim comprehensiveness in every field, but depth and honesty to the subject, with the touch of beauty always apparent even amidst the daily ugliness. His motto: “Think while you look, look while you think!”

Schaefer achieved international fame in 1990 with his Berlin Wall painting “Vaterland“ (Fatherland) which today is protected as a historical monument. The painting is a combination of the German and Israeli flags, 11 meters long and 3.5-meter tall, a symbol for peace and a memorial against any kind of fanaticism. It is a work that relates to November 9 in two ways : First, November 9, 1938, the day of the pogrom, the so-called “Kristallnacht“ (Crystal Night); secondly, November 9, 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Vaterland“ (“Fatherland”) is the most provocative contribution to the East Side Gallery, the last part of the Wall still standing. Since 1990, this painting has been destroyed 54 times by variously motivated fanatics. The artist keeps on answering these acts by renovating it, a form of non-violent resistance. In 1996 he became a co-founder of the Artists Initiative East Side Gallery e. V. As a member of the board he fights from 1996–2010 for the preservation of the unique decaying monument of German separation, which at the same time is the largest open-air gallery of the world. Since 1985, he has exhibited his works in more than 200 national and international art actions, group and single exhibitions. Since 1992, he has been a resident of Berlin-Friedrichshain. In 2000, he was nominated a Berlin Ambassador whose duty is to act as a representative of the citizens of Berlin with the diplomatic corps.

In September 2004 the exhibition world tour of the photo project: Berlin - “Pictures from two millennia“ commenced in the embassy of Hungary in Berlin with ceremonial opening addresses by the former Federal Chancellor of Germany Dr. Helmut Kohl and Miklós Neméth, the former Prime Minister of Hungary. Guest of honour at this ceremony was the Federal President of Germany Horst Köhler.

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Mathias RICHARD

(Bio English)
Born in 1974 in Paris, Mathias Richard now lives in Marseille.
Poet, writer, singer, he creates in 2007 the mutantist aggregate (the Mutantist Manifesto 1.1 is published in 2011 by Caméras Animales, publishing structure, music label and organisation of literary events that Mathias Richard co-directs). Criticizing global cultural desertification and conformism, his work expresses a great freedom and explores many forms. In Machine in head (Vermifuge, 2013), he favours unending sentences, text blocks, accumulations, inviting to « uncompromisingly plunge into a thought, an experience, like shoots, head downloads, a dive into the night ». In his performed readings, where meaning arises as much from the text as from his gestural and energetic voicing, body involvement and inner experience are prevailing.

« Mathias Richard is a hardcore writer : he seeks impact through any means (texts, performances, music, images, body...). » (José Lesueur, Cantos Propaganda)

« Mathias Richard is a poet, i.e. a guy, a collective, a construction, a testing humanity, a human who tries. » (Frédéric Laé, Gare Maritime)

(Bio Français)
Né en 1974 à Paris, Mathias Richard vit aujourd’hui à Marseille. Écrivain punk hardcore et musicien électro-rock, il fonde en 2007 l'agrégat mutantiste (le Manifeste mutantiste 1.1 paraît en 2011 chez Caméras Animales, structure d’édition, label musical et organisation d'événements littéraires que co-dirige Mathias Richard).
Déplorant la désertification culturelle et l’aseptisation du monde, son travail revendique une grande liberté formelle. Dans Machine dans tête (éditions Vermifuge, 2013), il privilégie les phrases interminables, les blocs de textes, les accumulations, invitant ainsi à « se plonger sans concession dans une pensée une expérience, comme des shoots, des téléchargements de tête, une plongée dans la nuit. ». Au travers de ses lectures-performances, où le sens émerge autant du texte que de sa mise en voix gestuelle et énergique, l’implication du corps et l’expérience intérieure sont prédominantes.

« Mathias Richard est un écrivain hardcore : il cherche l'impact, par tous les moyens (textes, performances, musiques, images, éditions, corps...). » (José Lesueur, Cantos Propaganda)
« Mathias Richard est un poète, c'est-à-dire un type, un collectif, une construction, une humanité à l'essai, un humain qui tente » (Frédéric Laé, Gare Maritime)

Mélodie DUCHESNE

(Bio English)

Performer & multidisciplinary artist, Mélodie Duchesne works both for the Institutions and unusual spaces. Her approach explores the diversity of intervention venues (museum, gallery, theater or extemporaneous spaces, natural environments, urban or industrial area...) Sensitive to Art as Intrusion, she is invested in contextual performances, seeking the tension of the performative gesture as proportional to the feedback, between space – time – body which provides its own chain of events… She embezzles some aesthetics codes of the “Society of the Spectacle”.

Topics question the bases of the “semiology in the human ethology” : the society of control, through the employment of the media or repression ; the economy and consumerism ; the education ; the artists status ; the notion of “déterritorialisation” ; the transhumanism ; the pagan rituals and the original fantaisies… The notion of the foreign body crosses her practice and reflections. An oscillating thread between fiction and reality that she articulates in her performances and videos.

Working on improvisations as interrelated to the “space-time context”, according to the Surrealists and Situationists influences, she accentuates and digs into the contradictions of everyday life. Physically engaged, the uses of diversion gives rise to some landslides.

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Interested by processes and transversal languages, her artistic research is negotiating with the boundaries of expression fields. It borrows from the visual arts, dance, experimental theater, body & vocal improvisation, traditional music and feeds itself through numerous collaborations. In a desire to let herself porous to a favorite discipline, the body investment becomes the kinesthetic vector to action.

Educated at Fine Arts, she began performances in Spain in 2006 with “Arte como comportamiento”, with Bartolomé Ferrando. Then following performances participations in solo and collectives (2010-2011 - Ascia 55 • 2012 - Orychtophonic Group • 2009-2015 - Non Grata • 2012-2013 - Cie Buchinger's Boot...) through residencies & festivals in various events in France, Canarias islands & Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sardinia & Italy, South Korea... Her encounter with “Non Grata” (Estonian collective artists) takes her to go on tour in Europe with “Diverse Universe”, nomadic performance festival, in 2014 (France, Spain, Germany) and 2 months in 2015 across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, France, Spain, Finland, working with international artists.

In Marseille, she is also part of a instrumental and vocal ensemble in traditional music and sound creation, with which they play concerts. Since 2009, joining “Bintang Tiga” by Gaston Sylvestre, the Gamelan, as a collective instrument, works on traditionnal Balinese music and contemporary creations (2013-2015 - "Tri Bhuwana"​ by Philippe Boivin • 2015 - "Spin"​ by Eryck Abecassis)   

Created 2012 and directed by Natacha Muslera, she is part of “Chœur Tac-Til”, a vocal ensemble, composed by 10 singers

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Mathieu SYLVESTRE

Moran SANDEROVICH

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Vidéo performance / Berlin

Moran Sanderovich uses her sculpture, performance, video and drawing works to create new creatures and embody alternative human forms. She engages the grotesque and uncanny to produce visceral narratives of agency, transformation and potentiality. Her work challenges and confuses normative conceptions of bodily limitation, taking disability, mutation, and decay as starting points for other forms of life. 

Many of Moran's sculptures are made to be performed, acting as prosthetics that transform her body through extension or truncation. Her performances render illegible any perceptible distinction between her body and the sculpture, or the human and non-human. Moran uses her movement to elaborate on the inner characters of the objects she makes, conjuring up a parallel universe in which her unreal creatures live their lives and tell us their stories. In their mythological worlds, tales of conflict, survival, transformation and transcendence hold a mirror up to human society and reveal the driving forces behind everyday life.

Sanderovich's works each combine a range of materials, including silicone, fabric, industrial waste, toys, organic objects such as bone and hair, latex, and other found objects. The juxtapositions she creates by combining her materials often unhinge the normative perception of objects, confronting us with dissonant images that require our attention. Moran fabricates skin-like surfaces that appear nearly organic and also uses animatronics in many of her works, giving her sculptures a strange presence between living and not-living. She is looking for a soul behind the objects she handles, and her work articulates what she finds.

Beate LINNE

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Performance / Berlin

Beate Linne is a performance artist born in 1967 in Germany. She studied Fine Art, Architecture, Pedagogy, as well as German language and literature in University of Kassel, Fachhochschule Hildesheim, and University of Hildesheim. Since 2007 she has performed in Europe and Asia, given workshops and organised performance art festivals.

Nora NEKO

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Experimental Music Noise / Marseille

Nora Neko s’investit depuis vingt ans dans le bricolage visuel, explorant le cinéma, la photo numérique, les images dépecées ou enfantées par ordinateur, la performance, les installations interactives et plus récemment, le son et la musique.
Ses collaborations visuelles et sonores avec performers, vidéastes, musiciens, techniciens, se concentrent autour du collectif 404, du duo électrovocal La Filusa, le trio NRC, le duo Toi-même, les chorales de bruit…
D’un médium à l’autre, ses travaux visuels chiffrent ou déchiffrent le corps, l’architecture, les détails des formes de la nature, cherchant à révéler dans la géométrie ou la texture un message, une histoire que l’univers laisse deviner dans chaque illusion qu’il propose.
Également fondateur et coordinateur de l’Asile 404, un atelier – lieu d’exposition à Marseille

TURNIP

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Electronic Music / Berlin

turnip - or mr sour, obviously the more furious one of the dj collective mr sweet & mr sour (in german.: herr süss & herr sauer) is an active part of berlin`s nightlife as a event promoter and dj for more than a decade. he was organizing parties first in the underground at off locations, later with his party series "süss&sauer" in regular clubs, in the end in berlin`s infamous club horst krzrbg once a month. he is a resident at golden gate club and garbicz festival, where he is one part of the booking team. he fundamentalized his music with the study of sound design, which reflects itself in his recent sets, always on the rush for crating fresh and major sounds.