Artists
Seline Baumgartner, Flavio Cury, Lena Maria Thüring, Regina Parra

Curators
Giovanna Bragaglia and Miwa Negoro

Place and Date
OnCurating Project Space, Zürich, Switzerland, 7.Oct - 11.Nov 2017

Curatorial Text

The exhibition Say The Same Thing brings together works such as videos, a drawing, and an installation of four artists from Switzerland and Brazil, whose practices explore encounters and dis-encounters through different aspects of visibility in our society; individual behavior, cultural identity, and territory.

Through a journey mapped by the sound of a Bolivian pirate radio, Regina Parra (b. 1981, Sao Paulo) points out ideas of belonging in a large city as Sao Paulo in the video performance 7.536 steps (for a geography of proximity), while discovering the invisible territory created by immigrants. Ideas of producing and finding the ideal place are also present in Gardien de la Paix (GPX), by Lena Maria Thüring (b. 1981, Basel). Her video raises up aspects of individual behaviour through a policeman voiceover describing his life and struggles meanwhile one can observe images of peaceful and stunning aquariums. In the video installation Time to Lose, Seline Baumgartner (b. 1980, Zürich) reflects about personal narratives and its identities that are shaped and transformed through a dance group formation. As well Flavio Cury’s (b. 1973, Sao Paulo) sculpture and drawing bring up aspects of metamorphose and transience of a state, both in an object and in language, as in Radiance, an installation that carries notions about an impermanence that never allows the permanence nor the continuity while a mass of wax is melting down onto the exhibition floor.

Say The Same Thing is an attempt to reach an unexpected meeting point. One can try to understand and know what the other would think, that starts to be revealed and predicted when in a conversation. But this is not a game of understandings the other only, but also oneself. Where is one placed in relation to the other? Where one ends and the other begin?

Regina Parra (b. 1981, Sao Paulo) lives and works in Sao Paulo

7.536 steps (for a geography of proximity), 2013. Video, 20’

How can one build the feeling of belonging to a large city as Sao Paulo? What makes one part or included in? Walking in Sao Paulo, from downtown area to its outskirts, Regina Parra carries an old analogue radio that is turned on emitting noises. Hers steps are trying to reach a specifc frequency, 94.1 FM, by following its scratched sounds. It is about a Bolivian pirate broadcast station created by illegal immigrants who live in the city. As the artist is approaching the area most inhabited by these immigrants she is able to catch sounds that become clear and clear. The video 7.536 steps (for a geography of proximity) documents a circuit of invisible territories composed by a migratory topography, while the camera reveals the transitions of different neighbors in the city, indicated by different uses of language and people’s behavior.

Lena Maria Thüring (b. 1981, Basel) lives and works in Zürich

Gardien de la paix (GPX), 2011. HD Video, single channel, 16:9, color, sound, 18’47’’

Lena Maria Thüring’s production often raises questions of human behavior in the society as a stage, where humans are mere actors representing diverse roles. In the video Gardien de la paix (GPX) one can observe images from stunning aquariums while hearing a young policeman describing his struggles in finding a balance between personal daily life and work. Wearing a uniform can shape how he performs his identity, focusing on maintaining things under control. Wherefore when visiting an aquarium he nds his sanctuary, where different kinds of species can live together in calm and peaceful atmosphere, out of battles or discussions. Couldn’t be different, since it demonstrates a controlled and meticulously collection of species living together. Ironically, this aquarium was created in Musée de la France d’Outre-mer and Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie (current Cité nationale de l’historie de l’immigration), where it remains the display of a colonial geography.

Seline Baumgartner (b. 1980, Zürich) lives and works in Brooklyn and Zürich

Time to Lose, 2015/2016. 2 channel HD Video, color, sound, 43’25’’

Seline Baumgartner’s works often depict individuality through body movements. In her video installation Time To Lose, steps of dancers are transformed into different ones by other dancers. The choreographies are created after daily life personal narratives that are told while one can observe the dancers with Jerusalem as the backdrop. As in the telephone game, the dancers stays in a row and try to understand and transmit the meanings from each other. Nonetheless by means of translations and interpretations details are lost and displaced into distinctive body movements. The form of a group emerges through the collective transmission and communication act, but still one can witnesses the forms of individuals within the process of a transformation. One can wonder: how cultural identities are shaped in a complex contemporary society?

TIME TO LOSE was originally created at the international residency program of the Art Cube Artists’ studios, Jerusalem, Curator: Maayan Sheleff

Flavio Cury (b. 1973, Sao Paulo) lives and works in Zürich and Münich

Radiance, 2017. Wax, metal plate and heating system

Disciplines, 2017. Wax on paper

Inspired by language, from literature to poetry, text has a strong presence in Flavio Cury’s work. The sculpture presented is formed by two blocks of a semi-transparent wax: a white squared base and a dark blue column on top of the first and placed on a heating system that slowly makes them melt down onto the floor. Its title Radiance refers to what happens when an object emits light and heat into another one. As an attempt to translate the meanings of this world, the waxes’ colors start a dialogue between them in unpredictable encounters while becoming and transforming into (and with) each other. Like a blue ink of a pen that overflows a white blank sheet of paper, the process of its formation and contaminations implies the impermanence and the nature of meanings which will be never the same, like the water that flows in the river.

Say the Same Thing