Portable Walls – Christian Nicolay & Ya-chu Kang, Äkkigalleria 35

 

Äkkigalleria 35

Portable Walls: Christian Nicolay & Ya-chu Kang
Vaasankatu 10, Jyväskylä
28. – 31.10.2015
open 11–19, and 11–16 on Saturday

Ya-chu Kang Christian Nicolay and Ya-chu Kang are multimedia, visual artists who work together in a range of materials. Both artists utilize found material of the everyday, producing works ranging from the various topographical landscapes of Nicolay's mixed media paper drawings to Kang's multi layered textile and fiber art and their reconstructions of objects into sculptural forms. Throughout this exhibition the artists’ individual and collective works will examine cultural boundaries and social constructions of identity as well as how we individually know ourselves in a growing global fabric increasingly becoming crisscrossed and blurred. The work created in Jyväskylä for Äkkigalleria 35, focuses on issues that have recently been at the forefront in current social and political debates including: Borders and Boundaries Borders without Boundaries Diaspora Spatial histories Temporal Permanence Cultural landscape Cultural mosaic Perpetual Intersections The artists approach their work with these subjects in mind to create a new body of work. Allowing the viewer to experience these difficult issues from the visceral and intellectual perspective of art.

Important dates Thursday, October 22nd, at 2pm at the Craft Museum of Finland A lecture on traditional texiles from different continents and the use of textiles in her work, by Ya-chu Kang. Tuesday, October 27th, at 7pm at Äkkigalleria, Vaasankatu 10 Opening celebration of Portable Walls exhibition. Presenting new work made exclusively in Jyväskylä by Christian Nicolay and Ya-chu Kang. All Äkkigalleria events are open to the public and free of charge. More information: Anna Ruth akkigalleria@gmail.com

Christian Nicolay port·a·ble walls 1, a temporary or nomadic shift serving to enclose, divide, protect or change ones identity (i.e.: your identity shifts depending on where you are). 2, To adapt to ones surroundings. 3, What is destroyed is reborn (i.e.: A wall is meant to set a barrier from one area to another, but making it portable means you have to set it up and take it down each time). 4, Fluctuating re-occurrences. 5, Paradigm shift. 6, A person who creates more than one identity, traces of digital footprints, profiles and usernames. 7, Cultural landscapes that become crisscrossed and blurred from globalization, shifting borders, war, geo-politics, digital revolution, travel, re-location, etc. 8, paying attention to the constant flux of rules, regulations, definitions, checks and changes on privacy laws and the ability to relearn what is learned.

Bio Christian Nicolay & Ya-chu Kang started collaborating in 2010 at the Playwrights Theatre Centre (Candahar Bar Project, Clamour and Toll) in Vancouver BC Canada with a sound performance based on morning rituals and habits from Western and Eastern cultures. Nicolay and Kang’s art field have included sculpture, installation, video, sound recording, performance and site-specific projects. Their research deals with the shifting polarities between Western and Eastern cultural landscapes which they define as “portable walls”, a temporary or nomadic shift serving to enclose, divide, protect or change ones identity. Issues of memory, process, space and time revolve around their portable walls explorations and how these constructions become part of their own experiences and spatial relationships.

CV

Nicolay & Kang received an artist in residence program and exhibition at the Taipei Artist Village (TAV) in Taipei Taiwan (2010) and at Äkkigalleria in Jyväskylä Finland (2015). They have exhibited their projects abroad in Italy (Sienna Art Institute 2011)(Valcellina Award International Contemporary Textile/Fiber 2012), Japan (Talganie Museum 2011), Canada (Initial Gallery 2014)(Maple Ridge Gallery 2013)(Elliott Louis Gallery 2012), Austria (Schmiede Art Festival 2012), Taiwan (Absolute Art Gallery 2015)(Yensui Lantern Festival 2015)(Museum of Medical Humanities 2012)(Songshan Culture and Creative Park 2012), Hong Kong (Art Experience Gallery 2013), Korea (SESIFF: The 5th Seoul International Extreme-Short Image and Film Festival 2013), USA (VAEFF: Video Art and Experimental Film Festival 2014)(Wayfinding Film Festival 2014), Egypt (7th Cairo Video Festival 2015) and their video Recoil received the Judges award prize from the NW Film Centre (Portland OR USA) and screened at the Portland International Film Festival (2012).