Interviews with residency artists – Engaging the City, June 2018
In June 2018, five international artists are visiting and working in Copenhagen as part of the month-long Metropolis Residency – Engaging the City.
Here you can meet the five artists and hear them talk about their experiences working site-specifically in Copenhagen:
Hannah Loewenthal, South Africa
Hannah Loewenthal is a socially engaged artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. Whilst in London, Hannah discovered dance and on returning to Cape Town in 2004, she went on to train and work with Remix Dance Company for two years. Furthermore Hannah went on to run the education programme at Cape Africa Platform as well as working closely with artist Mamela Nyanza on the deconstruction of female identity. Hannah considers her core interest, research and work as an investigation into bringing unlooked at and unnoticed moments of human interaction into focus; Exploring meeting places between pedagogy and performance, dance, design & embodied practice as vital for social artistic practice and innovation.
www.hannah-loewenthal.squarespace.com
Rita Hoofwijk, The Netherlands
Rita Hoofwijk graduated at the Maastricht Academy of Performing Arts. Her thesis ‘Verwondering verkennen’ (free translation: ‘exploring wonder’) was awarded with the annual thesis award of the faculty of arts. Rita Hoofwijk deconstructs and redefines what we might call ‘common’. She creates circumstances in their simplest expression, inviting the spectator to become part of it in order to see his/her environment differently.
Lukas Matthaei, Germany
Lukas Matthaei has organised actions and performances in Berlin in the 90’s with various artists at different locations in the inner city, which at that time was still open and undefined. His later artistic practice is equally marked by a theoretical and literary background as well as by the immediate confrontation with the historical, social and political dynamics that permeate urban networks. Since 2000 he has realised more than 50 works of multiple genres in Germany, Europe, North Africa, Egypt and the Middle East – performative interventions, productions, installations, discourse productions and media narratives.
www.matthaei-und-konsorten.de
Naja Lee Jensen, Denmark
Naja Lee Jensen has a BA in Acting from Norwegian Theatre Academy and an MA in Fine Arts from the Art Academy in Oslo. Naja Lee Jensen occupies the in-between space between stage art and fine art. Her interest is directed towards the relationship between perception, body and space.
www.najaleejensen.com
Cristina Maldonado, Mexico/Czech Republic
Christina Maldonado is a performance artist based in Prague, who combines experimental theatre, dance, live video interventions, participatory art, new and old media in site-specific projects, staged performances and installations. Since 2001 she has been working independently, directing and performing experimental theatre. She has presented her work in diverse contexts and countries. Currently she is interested in the concept of devising frames for interaction that are inserted in everyday life.
www.cristinamaldonado.com
About Metropolis Residency Programme
Metropolis Residency is a unique international urban residency programme in Copenhagen aimed at performing artists with an interdisciplinary approach, researching, creating and producing in public space and the public realm. The programme will be running till 2021.
In 2018, Metropolis organises three residencies of one month. Each residency will have a specific focus and each residency will be for five participants.
The first residency, Engaging the City, takes place during the month of June and focuses on participatory creative processes and engaging and involving local residents and citizens.