Walking Workshop "Walking is Aso Space" >>>
Korpoström, Finland, 2023
BERG DUO - Ami Skånberg and Anna Viola Hallberg have followed each other's practices since 2005. In 2023 they started to work together as Berg Duo. They move between studio based practice and the outdoor. Walking is an integral part of their practice. The work intersects lens and embodied practices, towards reconfigurations of subjectivity by visualizing possible futures. Concepts of in-between and the state of becoming are central in their artistic research (embodied, spoken, text, visuals, audio). They are based in Stockholm/Gothenburg/Björkö, Sweden.
Walking As Practice/WAP is a process-based program at AiR BKN in Norhtern Stockholm Archipelago, where we delve into each others’ knowledges and things we encounter together. Interventions weave across different registers of time and site. The focus is on how walking is interlocked in our practices. Fieldworks and seminars are jointly done to locate and entangle structures, narratives and forces. We believe in a safe and friendly attitude as part of the art scene we share. BKN fosters a peer-based environment: “thinking together, learning together” - a resource and semi- public forum to explore and experiment. Jointly, we form a transformative, dynamic space for art that engages with life and nature towards critical and poetic explorations, influenced by the immediate surroundings; the forest, lakes, sea and people living in the rural area. Program dissemination will be in an online format and a series of open studios/walks as engagement with the local community.
The walking scene in Sweden is in the forming or resurfacing. The purpose with this process-based program is to invite (inter)national artists to further this development together with a core-group connected to Björkö Konstnod/BKN. WAP methodology of fieldworks and share sessions are carried out to locate and entangle structures, narratives and forces via the intersection of the arts and walking.
The curatorial framework opens up for participating artists to influence the direction, and leans towards posthumanism and new materialism, i.e. rethinking dualisms through a non-hierarchal approach. Reviewing the development (share sessions, walks, and work made available to public), Spaces of Anticipation is the theme for WAP24. We also foresee that after WAP24, the platform could continue to focus on aspects of artistic research at the cusp of walking and the arts. In 2023, the focus was on Attentive Walking.
Keywords: walking, asymmetry, entanglement, beyond violence, not-knowing, desire, nature, responsibility, deep listening, close seeing, territory, contested sites
BERG DUO are the curators and instigators of WAP/Walking As Practice. It stems from the workshop Walking is Also Space the duo did in Korpoström Finland. At BKN they are sharing studio. BKN is the site for WAP23 and WAP24.
RC WAP23 >>>
RC WAP24 >>>
Berg Duo is part of the research group OneByWalking Network, for collaboration, discussion, and experimentation within the area of research methodologies concerned with walking, as well as experimental, scientific and art-based work related to walking methodologies.
For OneByWalking, we were invited to create a workshop with walkers and observers- Walking is Also Space. The workshop accentuated relational strategies of creating and sharing space. Methodologies in artistic practices were unfolded in order to raise awareness on disregarded or unfamiliar spaces. The workshop Walking is Also Space emerges originally from choreographer Molissa Fenley’s postmodern ideas about space, and about movement memories that are buried in our bodies. It is an elaboration of space reflecting the mix of geographical environments that constitutes spatial memory. We also lean towards sociologist Doreen Massey’s important claim that spaces are never static; they transform as we move with and through them. Thus, walking is also space.
Berg Duos submission to OneByWalking's first anthology holds the title Conditional Walking
CONDITIONAL WALKING
Abstract: to be revised July 11th
This text disseminates the practices and knowledges derived from our workshop Walking is also Space, created as part of the One By Walking research group Empathetic Trails in Korpoström, Finland April 2023. Methodologies in choreographic and artistic practices were unfolded in order to raise awareness, embodied memory, and narratives on disregarded or unfamiliar spaces. The theoretical realm leans towards sociologist Doreen Massey’s claim that spaces are never static; they transform as we move with and through them. Thus, walking is also space, and our aim is joining effort to keep shared space possible through attentive walking.
Describing the structure of the workshop, as well as what the workshop engendered, the text unpacks (re-, de-, un-) conditional walking through spatial agency, personal memory and responsibilities towards participatory walking as embodied agency and sustainable awareness.
Background image commissioned drawing/Map of Korpoström fileld/Choreography notation of workshop conducted by Jesse D. Peterson as part or workshop Walking is Space
2024 - - - - -
Open air exhibition
"The Sky is Moving Sideways"
Date: Sept 1-9
Venue: Stephens House & Gardens, London (uk)
A sculpture trail by curator Rebekah Dean. BERG DUO presents “Sculpture You”.
Congress
"Black-Market. Truths: Performative Wisdom in Passion, Grief and Madness" At World Congress on Philosophy, Rome, Italy with working group in Performance Philosophy, Aug 1-8 >>>
Field trip
Japan, to make Afloat Tokyo, Kyoto, Kumano Kodo etc June 27-July 30, 2024
Current in screenings/festivals/exhibitions
- SCREENDANCE FESITVAL, SWEDEN April 23-24, 2024
catalogue >>> - SUPERMARKET independent art fair, SWEDEN, April 24-28, 2024
- FESTIVAL VIDEODANZA, PUERTO RICO April 22-28, 2024
- Curator: ANA SÁNCHEZ-COLBERG - WICKLOW SCREENDANCE LABORATORY, March 23-26, 2024
excerpt conversation WSL >>> - ALMATY UNDERGROUND SCREENING SERIES @ DUMP GALLERY, KAZAKHSTAN, Jan 24, 2024 - Curated by: DIANA GALIMZYANOVA
- SUPERMARKET ART FAIR, STOCKHOLM April 25-28, 2024
Curatorial
WAP24 - Spaces of Anticipation through out the year with two focus periods.
WAP24 June Edition Lead walker and co-curator: John Schuerman is an environmental artist and independent curator. WAP24 September Edition Lead walker and co-curator: Antonia Aitken based in lutruwita /Tasmania, Australia since 2014. >>>
Anthology
Berg writes the text Conditional Walking for academic publication of the first anthology for OneByWalking Network
2023 - - - - -
Sept-Nov Walking As Practice, BKN, Björkö, Sweden (curators residency program)>>>
October, Fakk the System, Berlin Punk Film Festival (screening) >>>
Field Trip
Indonesia to make Current
Exhibitions
August-September, Becoming Landscape + Suriashi For Bonn, DasEssZimmer - Raum für Kunst+ in Bonn, Germany. (solo exhibition Hallberg including BERG works Consequencesand Fakk The Sistem) >>>
June-August, Trickle-Art in the River, Norrtälje Sweden. (Hallberg curator and Skånberg participated with two performances Suriashi for Norrtälje and Territory both as installations and live performance. )
May, fieldwork & research, Java, Indonesia
April workshop Walking is Also Space, in Korpoström Finland with One by Walking Network.
"Working at the intersection of lens and embodied practices - we are interested in movement and space within and beyond language, and ask how movement can bring spaces together, and how several spaces can be made into one, through embodiment. As time collapses, space is put at the forefront of our artistic research." BERG DUO
ADDITIONAL PROJECT INDONESIA
Title: FAKK THE SISTEM
Trt: 16:45:00
Year: 2023
Media: 4K
Language: English, Swedish, Indonesian
Subtitles: English or French
Codec: mp4 with aac sound
Formats: Available in requested format for screenings and festival
Keywords: archival activism, video essay, short documentary, punk, indonesia, sweden,fan film, intersectional
For preview contact BUJI STUDIO: amimaisha (at) gmail.com
Shown at Berlin Punk Film Festival + DasEsszimmer, Bonn 2023
The short documentary covers part of the vibrant Bandung Punk Scene in 2023. Three bands,three full songs and some behind-the-scenes-material. It was the circumstances (screendance and curatorial) that took us to Indonesia. In addition, we allocated two half days to the Punk scene in Bandung. We had promised to provide some material from Indonesia to a documentary being made about Anti Cimex. For this we had two days. In addition to the material we collected for the Gothenburg-based director, we ended up with a material being more of a personal exploration of the punk scene, and decided to do a short documentary of our own. Our quest was
to search for the imprint of the Swedish punk group Anti Cimex in today's Indonesian punk scene from the point of view of Skånberg's performance persona. The project is made in cinéma-vérité tradition.
History writing as we have known it, frequently generates stories to maintain society - this with its limitations that revolves on normalcy. Parts of society are left out, where some individuals are perceived as different and other. Hierarchies create a binary between the normal and the alternative. Both artists have in their practice worked with legacy and the topic of audiovisual memory for the future. However, more so through an imprint of political contingencies, experiences and the energy of the selected group. Ami Skånberg reconnected with her personal relation to Anti Cimex, and her bass playing brother in the band for the first time in 2017, in The Laughter of Medusa: a two and a half-hour solo performance on stage, facilitating filmed, narrated and archival footage. Through Skånberg's Screendance practice, she got in touch with The Bandung International Dance film Festival in 2013. Her films THE DANCE OF THE SUN and WALLFLOWER were screened there in 2013 and in 2017. Hallberg was on a curatorial mission in Indonesia May 2023. The couple decided to take the opportunity to trace the influence of Anti Cimex in Bandung.
A number of questions appeared. Who are the punks in Indonesia? What are they concerned about? Several issues such as mental health, deforestation and gender inequalities were discovered.
FAKK THE SISTEM is a stand alone 16 min documentary built on a personal exploration of the traces of Anti Cimex primarily in Bandung, hence contacts were generated with Punks visiting the city from Borneo, Jakarta and Sumatra. Hallberg and Skånberg are curious to continue the roadtrip into a full length documentary on the state of mind of resistance and freedom fight in Indonesia. This put in perspective with the conditions of the Swedish government supported rehearsal spaces for young bands in the 1990s is something the artists reflect over. How is this linked to forming a youth that is engaged with the construction of present and future societal systems? FAKK THE SISTEM is not only a fan movie, or a legacy movie of Anti Cimex it is also a brief insight to what the Bandung punk scene looks like in 2023.
SCREENINGS
Berlin Punk Film Festival 2023
DasEssen Zimmer in exhibition Becoming Landscape, Aug 2023
CURRENT
Creates layers of time through dance improvisation - in between reality and fiction - performed as a ritual for resistance in a place where rice fields, fish ponds and gardens currently are replaced by fancy buildings and crowded highways. Current is a visual journey of ancestral life and biopolitics.
Title: Current
Trt: 08:20 (10.05)
Genre: video essay, non verbal, documentary, screen dance, visual anthropology
Media: 16:9, 4K 3840x2160, color, sound
Format: Available in requested format for screening and festivals
Language: non verbal
Produced: 2024
Concept, Directors Producers: Berg Duo
On location: May 2023, Ciganitri, West Java, Indonesia
Music: Mats Skånberg
Dance/Choreography: Ami Skånberg (SE)
Guest appearance: Alfiyanto Wajiwa (ID)
Camera/Editing: Anna Viola Hallberg
Concept & Producers: BERG
Keywords: ecopolitics, water protection, activism, ecoperformance, gentrification, biopolitics, ancestral, Ciganitri, West Java, Indonesia, video essay
Current is a screendance piece made in the village Ciganitri, West Java. It is an encounter between four spaces, two dancers and a camera during two afternoons. Current creates layers of time through dance improvisation - in between reality and fiction - performed as a ritual for resistance in a place where rice fields, fish ponds and gardens currently are replaced by fancy buildings and crowded highways. It is the first encounter between a Swedish and an Indonesian choreographer where the only shared language is dance. The movements are an immediate response to space, bursting of ideas, outpouring of dreams, while following currents of biopolitics and ancestral life through a visual journey.
Dr Ami Skånberg (SE)
Ami Skånberg, born in Gothenburg, is a performer, choreographer and filmmaker. She has a PhD in Dance from University of Roehampton, and is the current Head of the Master’s programme M.A.D.E. at the Stockholm University of the Arts. She also works at University of Gothenburg. Skånberg often creates stage work (solo, and collaborative) based on embodied life stories in a particular theme. Her screendance films have been shown and awarded internationally since 1994. Her solo performance A particular act of survival received a performing arts award at Scenkonstgalan in Sweden in 2015. She walks slowly as a ceremonial, subversive act after extensive Nihon Buyo studies with Nishikawa Senrei in Kyoto since 2000. She is a board member of Nordic Forum for Dance Research. Her recent screendance pieces Ancestor and An Encounter with the Uncanny are currently shown in filmfestivals.
Dr Alfiyanto (ID)
Alfiyanto, born in West Sumatra is an artist and lecturer in Dance Creation/Choreography at ISBI Indonesian Arts and Culture Institute (Bandung)]. He is the initiator and curator for West Java Contemporary Danceand is the driving force behind the West Java
Contemporary Dance Festival and the Bandung Dance Film Festival. He studied at Indonesian Karawitan Arts Academy, Indonesian Arts Institute Padangpanjang and Indonesian Institute of Arts Surakarta majoring in dance. Alfiyanto joined the contemporary dance group Gumarang Sakti led by Gusmiati Suid in 1990-2004. Alfiyanto is also the founder and Art Director of WaJiWa Bandung Dance Theater and WaJiWa Creative House. Developing dance Activities and dreativity with eco-cultural concepts. He has a special interest in community dance. In his home village Ciganitri he runs a community dance center for Sundanese youth.
MUSIC:
Mats Skånberg
Bass player in Anticimex and now occasionally making electronic music. The tune Tried and Tired was originally self distributed in early 2023. Berg selected it for Current in December 2023.
SCREENINGS 2024:
- SCREENDANCE FESTIVAL, SWEDEN April 23-24, 2024
catalogue >>> - SUPERMARKET independent art fair, SWEDEN, April 24-28, 2024
- FESTIVAL VIDEODANZA, PUERTO RICO April 22-28, 2024
- Curator: ANA SÁNCHEZ-COLBERG - MOMA KAMCHATKA, Russia, Kamchatka krai, Yelizovsky district, Paratunka village, Russia, April 21
- WICKLOW SCREENDANCE FESTIVAL, March 23-26, 2024
excerpt conversation WSL >>> - ALMATY UNDERGROUND SCREENING SERIES @ DUMP GALLERY, KAZAKHSTAN, Jan 24, 2024 - Curated by: DIANA GALIMZYANOVA
"Punk in Indonesia has often been described as a spectacular performance of disorder and resistance, a youthful style that posed a disruptive challenge to the authoritarian hierarchy and discipline of the New Order regime. The punk scene in Bandung has developed in the context of what is often referred to as ‘post-authoritarian’ Indonesia. Punk gives another historical narrative of the development of urban communities, and, while remaining a minority, is highly visible among urban Indonesian youth lifestyles." FRANS ARI PRASETYO
CLICK ON IMG TO PLAY VIDEO
Above: End sequence of Current.
To the right conversation post screening Wicklow Screen Dance Laboratory
AFLOAT
Title: Afloat
Trt: TBA
Genre: video essay, documentary, screen dance, visual anthropology
Media: 16:9, 4K 3840x2160, color, sound
Format: To be available in requested format for screening and festivals
Language:
Produced: 2024
On location: July 2024, Japan
Concept, Directors Producers: Berg Duo
Music: TBA
Dance/Choreography: Ami Skånberg (SE)
Camera/Editing: Anna Viola Hallberg
Concept & Producers: BERG
Keywords: video essay, screen dance, eco-politics, ecoperformance, ancestors, animism
AFLOAT is the second segment of the three channel/episode work BUOYANCY.
The focus is existential sustainabillity, animism, body, space, movement with interest for agency and community forming. It interweaves walking practice, screendance, faith ceremonies and individual voices in contemporary society in Japan.
It unfolds the passage from this world to another (humans and more than humans) i.e. Kami and more so about the ancestral aspect. It interweaves stories of past, present, and future centered around situational and physical contexts and relations by visualizing possible futures of coexistence via the artwork drawing from screen dance and documentary installations.
THE THREE SEAS
Last part of the trilogy Bouyancy is on interdependence
Title: The Three Seas
Trt: TBA
Location: Istanbul (Nov 2024)
Concept, Directors Producers: Berg Duo
Camera, Editing: Anna Viola Hallberg
Choreography/Dance artist: Ami Skånberg
Guest appearnce:
Canan Yücel Pekiçten, dance artist, choreographer and academic at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory Contemporary Dance Department in Istanbul.
Others TBA
PERFORMANCE PHILOSOPHY WORKING GROUP
WORLD CONGRESS OF PHILOSOPY
Berg Duo is part of the working group bringing forward a presentation called Black-Market. Truths: Performative Wisdom in Passion, Grief and Madness, at World Conngress of Philosophy in Rome Aug 1-8 2024 >>>
Keywords: cross-disiplinary research, performance philosophy, performative praxis/means, transferable teqniques, wild frontiers
PUBLIC PARTICIPATORY WORKS, 2024
Title: Suriashi for Helsinki
Date: September NN, 2024
Site: TBA
Invited co-walker:
Context: Conferance One By Walking Network
Title: Suriashi for Rome
Date: August NN, 2024
Site: TBA
Invited co-walker:
Context: World Congress of Philosophy
Title: Sculpture You (walking score)
Context: Open air exhibition /sculpture trail "The Sky is Moving Sideways"
Date: Sept 1-9
Venue: Stephens House & Gardens, London (uk)
Curator: Rebekah Dean
Title: Suriashi for Tokyo
Date: July 2, 2024
Site: Tokyo University, Komaba campus, Japan
Invited co-walker: CY CHEUNG
Title: Suriashi for Kyoto
Date: July 9th, Japan
Site: Taihei-kaku, Shin-en Gardens, Heian Jingu, Kyoto, Japan
Solowalk by Ami Skånberg in public space.
Title: Suriashi for Ise
Date: July 20st, Japan
Site: Hiyoke-bashi, Ise Jingu Geku, Outer Sanctuary, Japan
PUBLIC PARTICIPATORY WORKS, 2023
Title: Suriashi for Björkö
Date: Sept 5th, 2023, Sweden
Participants: artists from WAP23
Video from part 1, Wooden Pathway/bridge
Img above is from part 2. Road side.
A community walk was made on December 3rd, 2023 as an inaguration of a site for a qr based art walk o Björkö, BKN ART WALK.
Title: Suriashi for Norrtälje
Date:June 30, 2023, Sweden
accessible for rewalks until Aug 14 for the duration of Trickle open air exhibition.
Participants:general public (about 100 participants)
Site: Faktoribron (bridge in central Norrtälje). Official innaguration of Trickle Art In the River Norrtäje >>>
Title: Suriashi for Bonn
Date: August 11
Participants: Public Participation
Site: Clemens-August-weg, Bonn Germany
Part of exhibition Becoming Landscape at DAS ESSZIMMER – Raum für Kunst+ >>>