Subtext and Discourse | Art World Podcast

Nina Ross is a Melbourne based artist working predominantly with video, performance and photography. Her research led practice draws on individual experiences to interrogate the use of visual and textual language within political and personal spheres. Using the body, her work speaks to current global issues, while giving a voice to personal narratives and concerns. Beyond her personal work, Nina engages in various collaborative practices including co-founding Artists’ Committee (2017) and Artists’ Subcommittee (2018). 

In 2013 Nina received a Master of Fine Art (Research) with first class honours from Monash University in Melbourne, supervised by Peta Clancy. Nina’s thesis received the Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation for Master’s Thesis Excellence Award. Previous to this Nina obtained a BA (Fine Art Photography) Honours in 2006 and a BA (Media Arts) in 2004 from RMIT University.

Nina has lectured sessionally in photography, art theory, conceptual development and professional practice at various universities including Photography Studies College and RMIT University (School of Media and Communication) in Melbourne.

Since 2014 Nina has worked with a group of Melbourne based artists called Art/Parents. Together they explore the experiences of artists who are also parents.

Interview with Nina Ross recorded by Michael Dooney on 30. August 2020 with Squadcast.fm between Berlin, Germany and Melbourne, Australia.

Portrait photo by Hannah Reich

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• Artists Protest Australian Museum’s Deal with Security Firm that Allegedly Abused Asylum-Seekers

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Maya Anner is a curator working in Tel-Aviv, and currently serves as the Chief Curator of PHOTO IS:RAEL, the International Photography Festival in Tel-Aviv. She was the Arts Manager at the British Council Tel-Aviv, the curator and art director at ArtLink and has worked at the Photography department at the MoMA and at Tel-Aviv Museum of Art.

Maya holds an MA in Art History and a Diploma in Curatorial and Museum Studies from the Tel-Aviv University. Maya serves as a juror in various awards and festivals, recent ones include Photo Espana, Odesa Photo Days, Photo Lucida and Fresh Paint Contemporary Art Fair.

Interview with Maya Anner recorded by Michael Dooney on 7. November 2020 with Squadcast.fm between Berlin, Germany and Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Portrait photo by Daniel Tchetchik

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The group exhibition Zero Waste showcases international positions in contemporary art that point out the urgency to save resources, consume less, and live more sustainably. In diverse installations, videos, sculptural works, and photographs the artists investigate the global consequences of plastic packaging, tire abrasion, toxic chemicals, and the overproduction of consumer goods. Zero Waste will be realised by the German Environment Agency in cooperation with the MdbK and curated by Hannah Beck-Mannagetta and Lena Fließbach.

The exhibition catalogue, published by the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (MdbK) and the German Environment Agency, contains essays by Hannah Beck-Mannagetta and Lena Fließbach, Sven Bergmann and Yusif Idies, Martin Ittershagen and Fotini Mavromati such as Minimal Mimi. The catalogue (130 pages, colour pictures) is available now from the museums pay desk at the price of 12 € and online from Do You Read Me. 100% of the proceeds from the catalogue will go to the tree-planting project by artist Andreas Greiner, with the aim of offsetting the CO2 footprint in the exhibition. The first field maple is planted in January, 2020 in Gohlis. A sponsorship of the "Aktion Baumstarke Stadt" of the city of Leipzig costs 250 € per tree.

Interviews for ZERO WASTE with Lena Fließbach & Hannah Beck-Mannagetta, Erik Sturm, Wolf von Kries, Jeanette Stoschek, and Bianca Kennedy & The Swan Collective recorded by Michael Dooney on 24. June 2020 at the Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig Germany.

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Ángel Luis González is the director of PhotoIreland, an independent organisation dedicated to stimulating a critical dialogue around Photography in Ireland and to internationally promoting the work of Irish-based artists. He won the David Manley Entrepreneur Award in 2011 for the PhotoIreland Festival project. In 2011, he launched ‘The Library Project’, a public resource library of photobooks, holding in excess of 3000 items from more than 300 publishers worldwide.

The Library Project also gives name to Ireland’s Art Bookshop, a unique space in Dublin’s city centre, offering the photobook collection, an eclectic bookshop, and a productive gallery programme. He has been a portfolio reviewer at events such as Les Rencontres d’Arles, Format Derby, PhotoEspaña, and The Triennial of Photography Hamburg. He is responsible for books such as Martin Parr’s Best Books of the Decade, New Irish Works, and the ongoing TLP Editions. He contributed to Landskrona Foto 2016, focused on Photography in Ireland, and he is an invited lecturer at university programmes, such as the Fine Art Photography Master at IED Madrid.

In 2019, he launched the public-facing project entitled ‘The Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland’ with its first instalment running 1-31 July as a 2000 m2 exhibition space, enquiring about Museums and Photography. The project will run every year during July as part of PhotoIreland Festival, until it becomes a fully fledged museum space. More recently, he developed OVER Journal, a new critical journal of Photography and Visual Culture for the 21st century, which was launched during PhotoIreland Festival 2020.

Interview with Ángel Luis González recorded by Michael Dooney on 31. July 2020 with Squadcast.fm between Berlin, Germany and Dublin, Ireland.

Portrait photo by Matthew Thompson

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Dr. Harriet Roth studied Medieval History, Modern History, and Art History. She obtained her doctorate in art history in 1996 with a thesis on the Origins of Museums in the 16th Century under the supervision of Horst Bredekamp, at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her various publications deal with museum history and the architecture of Richard Neutra. Since 2019 Harriet has been the curator of the Wochenende der Moderne project for the Bezirksamt Steglitz-Zehlendorf of Berlin, Office for Further Education and Culture.

Interview with Dr. Harriet Roth recorded by Michael Dooney on 10. June 2020 at Onkel-Tom-Straße 87, 14169 Berlin, Germany.

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Dorothee Bienert is the director of Galerie im Körnerpark and Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin Neukölln. Together with Kati Kivinen, director of Museum for Contemporary Art Kiasma Helsinki, Dorothee curated the exhibition Fragile Times. Supported by the Finnland-Institut Deutschland and hosted by the Galerie im Körnerpark, this timely exhibition opened at the beginning of July and will continue until the 18th of October 2020. 

Climate change, environmental pollution and mass extinction are just some of the issues causing us anxiety. But even with the realisation that human activity is destroying the very basis of life on our planet, very few people are making lasting changes to their behaviour.  

Galerie im Körnerpark is one of over 30 municipal galleries throughout Berlin and is part of the Kommunale Galerien Berlin network.  This years KGB Kunstwoche (art week) will take place from Friday 28. August until Sunday 6. September 2020.

The Fragile Times exhibition is supported by the Finnish Institute in Germany.

Interview with Dorothee Bienert recorded by Michael Dooney on 18. August 2020 at the Café im Körnerpark, Berlin Neukölln.

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Renowned for inspiring and intelligent delivery of uniquely crafted festivals and arts events, Fiona Sweet is an influential and highly sought after speaker, industry judge in Australia and internationally including at Les Rencontres De La Photographie, France; Fotofestiwal, Poland; and Triennial of Photography Hamburg, Germany.

Prior to her appointment at Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Sweet was the founding Director of Sweet Creative, a leading design agency in Melbourne receiving prestigious awards from the Australian Graphic Design Association and the Victorian Government. Sweet co-founded Melbourne’s Acland Street Projection Festival and has served on the boards of the Melbourne Fringe, Chamber Made Opera, Shir Madness and Australian Graphic Design Association. She currently sits on the Industry Advisory Group for LCI Melbourne, and the Advisory Committee for the Discipline of Photography at RMIT. In 2018 Sweet was awarded an Ian Potter Development Grant assisting her research concerning international art festival best practice.

Interview with Fiona Sweet recorded by Michael Dooney on 2. June 2020 via Squadcast between Berlin and Melbourne. Portrait by Chippy Rivera.

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Catherine Evans is a Berlin-based Australian artist who works across photography, sculpture and installation. Her work focuses on geologic time and where this intersects with our own human timescales: as found in our bodies, their materiality and our lived-histories through colonialism and archaeology. Initially trained in science, and then photography, her work is characterised by a material intimacy that subverts the utility of everyday materials such as rocks, carpet and sticky tape to give unexpected shifts in our perception of light, weight and balance.

After completing her studies at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, she was recipient of a VCA Graduate Mentorship (2013) and Georges Mora Fellowship (2017). She has exhibited widely, most recently her work "Standing Stone" won first prize in the 2020 Neuköllner Kunstpreis, Berlin.

Interview with Catherine Evans recorded by Michael Dooney on 15. May 2020 in Neukölln, Berlin.

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April Gertler is an American artist who has been living and working in Berlin since 2005. She studied at University California, Berkeley (BA, Social Science Interdisciplinary Studies - Hons), California College of the Arts (BFA - Photography) and Bard College (MFA - Photography). April did an exchange semester at the Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main, which is what initially brought her to Germany. After finishing her MFA, she returned to Frankfurt and subsequently moved to Berlin.

April's work is preoccupied with the idea of the communal experience of a moment as an access point. That access point has taken a variety of forms including lecture performance with the sharing of baked goods, one night bars and exhibitions in additional to collaborative durational walks.

She has exhibited and taught internationally. In 2009, April started a peer-to-peer knowledge exchange art program PICTURE BERLIN for international artists. The program has developed into multiple programs each year. Last year (2019) marked 10 years of the program and April and her team were awarded a significant Hauptstadtkulturfond from the Ministry of Culture for the project INTERIORS TO BEING, a month long festival of performance, exhibitions, walks and discussions which celebrated the alumni and participating artists from PICTURE BERLIN over the years.

Since the start of PICTURE BERLIN, April has been simultaneously working on her own practice which has included other performative and curatorial projects such as Sonntag and TAKE THE CAKE - a hybrid baking show and lecture performance. In the Fall of 2020 April will be opening a new project space in Neukölln called WIRWIR, with Adrian Schiesser.

April's most recent projects include the Sonntag Book, an overview of Sonntag - a collaborative project she has been doing with Adrian Schiesser which invites an artist to show their work in a private apartment for a Sunday afternoon presentation. The artist's favourite cake is also served during the matinee exhibition. April and Adrian have been doing the project since 2012. In addition, she recently finished a new episode of TAKE THE CAKE titled, APPELTAART which she performed in Amsterdam.

April has been teaching Analog Photography as an Adjunct Professor at Bard College Berlin in Berlin, Germany since Spring 2016.

Interview with April Gertler recorded by Michael Dooney on 29. May 2020 in Mitte, Berlin.

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• Larry Sultan

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• AGALAB Amsterdam

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Piotr Pietrus is a Polish born artist and social activist photographer. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany in 2008, and went on to do a masterclass with Arno Fischer at the Ostkreuzschule in Berlin, where he now lives and works. Possessing a strong contemporary documentary practice, his work investigates the sites where the poetic and political intersect in the wake of a growing resistance towards social injustice and the ecological crises. His work has been published widely including Greenpeace Magazin, Monopol, Süddeutche Zeitung Magazin, Der Greif, VICE, If You Leave, Phases and Aint Bad Magazine among others. Recently he exhibited with EEP Berlin, a new curatorial initiative dedicated to showcasing the strongest Eastern European photography to Berlin audiences.

Interview with Piotr Pietrus recorded by Michael Dooney on 15. May 2020 in Neukölln, Berlin.

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