Artist residency proposed by The Blank Contemporary Art arrived at its fifth edition. The winners are Irene Fenara (Bologna, 1990) and Yasen Vasilev (Sofia, 1988), chosen among over 150 candidates.

Project Proposal Residency is thought as a moment of meeting and work, an opportunity to share ideas and experiences. During their stay, the artists will have the chance to interact with The Blank and to get in touch with the cultural realities of Bergamo that operate in the contemporary art field. The Open Studio, organized at the conclusion of the residency, will be the occasion to present the projects and the outcome of the research.

The fifth edition of the Project Proposal Residency will take place from October 16 to November 18.

Among the exhibitions IRENE FENARA (1990, Bologna, where she lives and works) took part in 2016: Give me yesterday curated by Francesco Zanot, Fondazione Prada Osservatorio, Milano; La disfatta dell’immagine curated by Carlo Sala, Cà dei Ricchi, Treviso; personal exhibition Se il cielo fugge curated by Amerigo Mariotti and Daniela Tozzi, Adiacenze, Bologna. In 2017: personal exhibition Le interne differenze, P420, Bologna; Family Matters project of Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna; Essere politico, curated by Filippo Maggia and Chiara Dall’Olio, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Modena.
Interested in different expressive media, with a special attention to video and photography, Irene Fenara creates installations focused on the concepts of time and memory, working with images that reverse points of view and generate situations of spatial disorientation. Orientation in the physical space, closeness and distance relations and the subsequent need for movement are starting points of her research, which often produces vertical perspectives and raises the mind gaze. The use of different optical and electronic devices – often improperly used, profaning their basic function – becomes an instrument of observation of the world, researching a little poetical meaning.

YASEN VASILEV (1988, Sofia, Bulgaria) is a performance-maker, educated at the theatre academies in Sofia and Shanghai. Author of two poetry collections and four plays: The Walled In Ones (2012-2013, Nikolay Binev Theatre, Sofia), Borgestriptych (2014, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai), Elevation 506 (2015-2016, workshoped in Vienna, Sofia and NYC) and Ishmael (2016, Nau Ivanow, Barcelona). Author of Nutricula, an ongoing project presented in Asia and Europe where performers from different backgrounds re-interpret the same concept as a physical solo. His latest text for theatre premieres October 2017 in Viterbo, Italy, a commission by the festival Quartieri dell’arte.
The project on which his research will be developed is NUTRICULA is a solo physical piece that examines the body as a battlefield of enslaving and liberating forces. It puts the performer into intensive physical struggle with herself to test and re-imagine the limits of the body. NUTRICULA is a piece that aims to create raw, powerful physical language and influence audiences directly with a bare minimum of elements: no costumes, sets, music or lights. NUTRICULA’s strategy is to liberate the body and the physical actions it produces from the meaning that’s imposed on them (gender, class, race). NUTRICULA was inspired by the immortal jellyfish turritopsis nutricula – the only organism known to man that never dies. NUTRICULA was developed in China, Portugal and Lithuania so far, each time with a different collaborator and was supported by Shanghai Theatre Academy, Minsheng Art Museum, Arts Printing House and Atalaia Artes Performativas.

With the contribution of Regione Lombardia.