Nowa Soda: Solvay Transformed
Conceived and curated by Halfslant, Nowa Soda means the New Soda in Polish. The five week long artist in residency program aims to transform the building in which the exhibition and residency will be held, which used to house the Krakow Soda Works chemical refinery plant for almost 100 years. The sole remaining building from the immense complex, the Centre for Contemporary Art Solvay has a complex and fascinating history- Pope John Paul II worked there during World War II to avoid deportation and today it stands as a forgotten monument and symbol of the transformations that have occurred in Poland over the last 20 years.
Donate Now: Visit the sponsors page here to help transform the Solvay building.
All Donors receive special thank you gifts ranging from hand written postcards from Krakow to limited edition T-Shirts and prints. More info here.
We’ll be updating our blog at blog.nowasoda.com so check there for more information, Thanks again for all your help and interest,
Adrian and Patti
Halfslant
Halfslant is an international art group based in Paris. Co-founded and led by Patricia Maciesz and Adrian Sanders, Halfslant engages audiences with site-responsive and context-specific art installations. Past projects include the Bushwick Lightbox in New York, the Chemin de Fer in Paris as well as Flateurville | SOS in London.
The Artists
Hagen Martin Betzwieser was born in Germany and is currently a PHD candidate in Art & Design at the Bauhaus University, Weimar. He received his M.A. in European Media (with distinction), from the University of Portsmouth, UK. He has participated extensively in AIR programs and exhibited site-specific installations internationally, having a notably positive experience at the Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw where he was recently a Panellist at the Re-Tooling Residencies conference.
For Nowa Soda he proposes to play with the physical space and the history of Soda as a chemical plant, with the future it gave and the wealth it provided for many people as well as with the heritage we have to deal with today. His project seeks to transform the CACS from the inside and during the night from the outside with several site-specific video projections and a large and highly visible laser installation. www.iat-research.com
Ninar Esber is a French-Lebanese artist based in Paris. Ninar had participated in residencies and exhibition all over the world and has been especially active as a performance artist. Her past works include a performance in which she whispered sensual recipes into the ears of audience members at the exclusive restaurant La Perouse in Paris, stood on top of the entrance to a concert hall in a ball gown that expanded into curtains that guests had to walk through to enter as well as an installation of lit up ladders she built in Fez, Morocco, on which she later climbed in front of an audience.
For Nowa Soda she proposes to use these performative tactics again as a way to address the awkward placement of the Solvay centre in the middle of this commercial development. In the mock-up below one can see her interest in playing with the pre-existing materials of the space by creating ladders that reach for the sky, an implied desire to escape, almost to fly away from a place which as at once has an incredibly complex and significant history also serves as the home to cell phone tower. www.ninaresber.com
Tara-Hughes Hall is a multi-media artist from New York City who has experience both running and participating in residency programs such as the prestigious Franconia residency where she assisted in the fabrication and installation of project for Jerome Fellowship Artists. She is currently Artist Program coordinator at Salem Art Works where she manages the centre’s residency and internship programs. Her previous exhibition include a past collaboration with Halfslant for the Bush Garden Lightbox with group shows at Greenwich Village Potters in NYC, North Main Gallery, NY and Usdan Gallery in Vermont.
Her unique experience working with and training others how to work with materials makes Hughes-Hall a natural choice for our residency program. Her extensive teaching experience and past collaborations have informed her practice as an artist and hopes to work with students at the Contemporary Art Centre Solvay on a collaborative project and installation during her stay. Her preliminary idea for the Nowa Soda Installation would be to engage the children who are involved in art classes there as well as the staff involved to work with her to create a bicycle-powered cement mixer.
Luke Montgomery attended the Glasgow School of Art where he received his BA in Painting with honours. He has had two solo exhibitions in Glasgow and many group shows through London such as the Royal Academy Summer Show, SHUNT Space,’ and Site specific installations such as Tunnel 228 (Underneath waterloo Station).
For Nowa Soda, Montgomery proposed to create an installation that acts as a mausoleum to ideological progress. There is no purpose in this structure despite its bold promises. What follows is a description of the proposed structure:
This building inside the space acts like a secret history of the past. It lives distantly like a memory stuck between function and memorial. Inside the structure is a plinth thrusting up on a platform, which is in architectural continuation with the outside but the environment is in strong contrast. The floor is flooded with white water (water mixed with salt and lime) and there is a hidden peripetic pump (used for blood transfusions) that will take this limey water to the centre of the cornices at the top of the roof and release timed drips to fall on the plinth. The plinth will have a white formic sculpture (that I intend to make in direct response to my time in Krakow) that will receive the drips that will then slide down the plinth and back to the water. Over time a strong residue of lime will be left on the sculpture and down the plinth. The lighting will be fixed so there is a stream of light following the journey of the drip and highlight this point as the celestial centre of the installation. The Solvay process is a very simple chemical reaction that once married to grand ideas of progress and infrastructure changed the personal lives of thousands of local inhabitants. These personal changes are less recorded or digestible than the overview of Solvay and History.
Special thanks to Alex Bleeker (background music in the video) and Ester Partegas (design for the t-shirt)
ALEX BLEEKER is the bassist for Real Estate as well as leader of Alex Bleeker and the Freaks among many other illustrious and critically acclaimed projects. A repeat presence On Pitchfork and at venues and Music Festivals internationally, Alex Bleeker star is undeniably on the rise. http://www.myspace.com/alexbleeker
ESTER PARTEGÀS lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a BFA from the Universitat de Barcelona and has completed postgraduate studies in Multimedia at Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin.
Selected exhibitions include: The Aldrich Museum, CT (2008); Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (solo); 2nd Moscow Bienniale (both 2007); Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro NC; Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee WI; Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA (solo); Cercle Cultural CajaMadrid, Barcelona (solo) (all 2006); Sculpture Center, New York (2005); Rice University Art Gallery, Houston TX (solo) (2003); Queens Museum of Art, New York (2003); Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York (2002). esterpartegas.com
