«La Criatura-20: NuevAnormalidad» (Argentina)

In its second edition, La Criatura-20 takes the COVID crisis to question and imagine our new abnormality. Taking place in the form of a multiplatform online program, the Biennial, organized by CRIA (Asociación Creando Redes Independientes  y Artísticas), counts with more than 30 intellectuals from Switzerland and South America.

La Criatura-20: NuevAnormalidad aims to debate diagnoses, conflicts, and solutions in a performative summit with an interdisciplinary, international lineup. Following health protocols, the program is divided into multiple phases and focuses on several major themes and urgent agendas: economy and pandemic; sexuality, feminisms and LGBTQ+ issues; art and education; the environment, indigenous communities, and agroecology; and finally, migration and crises of democracy and representation.

For the second part of the program – that began in July, La Criatura invites the Armenian curator Anna Barseghian, director of Utopiana, an artist residency in Geneva;  as well as the Swiss performer Marie-Caroline Hominal, who will collaborate with Argentine performer Laura Kalauz, through the support of Pro Helvetia in the context of CONCIDENCIA.

In 2021 CRIA will publish a book that includes the transcriptions, images, and texts of all participants. Similar to the book following the 2018 event, it will be released by CRIA’s publishing house both in paper and online and will be distributed by Hekht, an experienced publisher that is also part of CRIA.  

The artist Marie-Caroline Hominal will collaborate with Argentine artist Laura Kalauz on a performative intervention in September 2020. We invited them to have a dialogue through emails and video meetings responding to the impact of quarantine on bodies, movement, and time. Once the artists have conceptualized their performance, they will work with the technical team of La Criatura on production and in October it will be transmitted live in the online program. It will be simultaneously translated and will be transmitted by streaming on the platform’s YouTube channel.  

Anna Barseghian is the director of the art residency Utopiana in Geneva. She will give a talk about creative processes in Utopiana and the way that she connects art and ecology in the construction of a biodiverse culture in Geneva. This will be a masterclass for which participants will sign up beforehand, and will also include a group of local figures who specialize in the intersection of art and ecology.

 

BIOS 

Marie-Caroline Hominal (Evian, France) Dancer, choreographer, and performer. She works in video, drawing, music, choreography, and performance art. She studied dance at the Schweizerische Ballettberufschule (ZHDK TanzAkademie), in Zurich, and in the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London. She has collaborated with François Chaignaud, with the electronic musicians Clive Jenkins and Cristian Vogel, and with visual artists Kim Boninsegni, David Hominal and Delphine Coindet. Her one-on-one performances, for a single spectator, include Hôtel Oloffson (2013), Le Triomphe de la Renommée (2013) and Ballet Solo (2018). Her longer performances include Ballet (2014), Patricia Poses by the Pop Machine (2011), and Silver (2013). She has worked with Tanztheater Basel, Irène Tassembedo, Blanca Li, Gisèle Vienne, Gilles Jobin, La Ribot y Marco Berrettini.. Since 2008, Hominal has exhibited her work in theaters and galleries in Europe, the United States, South America, Thailand, and China.  

Anna Barseghian (Erevan, Armenia) After studying architecture in Armenia, she began a career as a visual artist. She later received a Postgraduate Degree in Computer Graphic Visualization at the University of Geneva. In addition to her artistic work, she designs and organizes projects for Utopiana, which she co-founded with Stefan Kristensen in 2001. 

Utopiana was founded in 2001 in Geneva by Anna Baseghian and Stefan Kristensen. Since 2010, the association has had a physical space in Geneva where they carry out their programming and activities in three interrelated areas: arts residencies, events, and workshops.