UNFIXING

Mila Balzhieva * Kyungrim Lim Jang * Natalia Papaeva

Soft Opening 04.08.2022   5 – 9 pm
Opening Performance by Natalia Papaeva 04.08.2022 7 pm
Workshop by Natalia Papaeva 05.08.2022 5 – 7 pm

Duration of the Show 05.08. – 27.08. 2022

Opening Hours
5.8.2022 4 – 8 pm
6.8.2022 11 am – 2 pm
25., 26.8.2022 4 – 7 pm
27.8.2022 11 am 2 pm
And by appointment: gallery@12-14.org

A Cooperation with WORM


Pictures of the Exhibition

Photocredits Mila Balzhieva


“Unfixing”

The exhibition “unfixing” presents three video works by three artists who don’t live in the land they were born and raised in. To move to another land means to move with the language and be confronted with a new language. This encounter between different systems of signs, sounds, and beliefs often accompanies moments of a sharp clash, through which the power dynamic between the systems is revealed. In “Unfixing,” Mila Balzhieva, Kyungrim Lim Jang, and Natalia Papaeva explore how the language reflects the physical borders of contemporary while rearticulating them at the same time.

In an attempt to clean the language from the derogatory connotation that is stuck in the word “Mongol,” (in many European countries) Natalia Papaeva moves racist language to an erasable surface. Posing as a teacher at glance, the artist simply states her ethnicity: “I am not Chinese, I am Mongol.” These titles carry the negative value of a slur, to those using them against her. The video begins with stuttering Dutch “I, I, I, I am…” when translated into Russian and Buryat. Through repetition, the artist dissects the language into sound which is simultaneously transferred to the chalkboard. In “Ik ben…” collected repetition is made visible through the performative writing, which results in a jumble of words that looks somewhat similar to a chewed-up gumball.

Through “In language we don’t understand”, Mila Balzhieva reflects on the attitude of how humans enter the forest today. She retrieves the rules of her childhood in Western Siberia, where blending into the forest (as opposed to walking in, where the division between actor and background is clear) was key teaching in one’s approach to the unknown mysteries of nature. The artist applies this knowledge to the environment in her new home in Vienna, inviting the viewers to open their senses to active listening and careful touch.

“Crystal Clear” carries the experiences of Nita Tandon, a female artist who migrated from India to Vienna in the 70s. Her story is vocally performed by Tyrolean author Annemarie Regensburger. By weaving the story of a foreigner in a local tongue, Kyungrim Lim Jang seeks to unsettle the status of belonging embedded in the performance of a dialect. The artist questions expectations for a performance of ‘authentic’ identity and points her finger inwards at the fuzzy borders within, between us/them.

Curatorial Text Kyungrim Lim Jang


EXHIBITION

Natalia Papaeva

OPENING PERFORMANCE 7 pm 2022/08/04

For her performances, Natalia Papaeva uses her memories and personal experience, including her Buryat-Mongolian heritage, as a lodestar to investigate the relationship between language and landscape, heritage and memory. In her research Papaeva looks at the ways the USSR government, as well as ethnographers, described the non-Slavic “Other”. Who has access to which heritage, what memories endure? How and by whom can memory and heritage be transformed? Archival materials are connected to the landscape as an archive of the immense Soviet impact on the environment of Buryatia. Vice versa, materials can also be reminiscent of particular histories, such as the blanket Papaeva uses for her prayer-like performance There are no spirits in this land, in which all the different lines of her research are connected. The blanket’s soft green flower pattern is warm and welcoming; a blanket is used for warmth, for comfort when there might be an absence of comfort, or to cover what has to remain out of sight. Papaeva alludes to these connotations by engaging in a physically straining repetition of movements, only pausing to utter a few words in which both pain and wonder about humans’ relationship with their surroundings shine through.

WORKSHOP 5-7 pm 2022/08/05

The workshop will be organised by Buryat-Mongolian artist Natalia Papaeva,who works with voice, text and performances.
She has been based in The Netherlands since 2013.
During the workshop participants will transfer a feeling into a word, a word into an image, an image into a sound, a sound into a movement.
In the end the artist and participant will compile a performance based on their experiments with these 4 elements.

For the workshop please wear comfortable clothes. There will be some light snacks and drinks. Please be aware that the artist will record the performance and the video will stay in the 12-14 Contemporary Gallery  till the end of the exhibition. If you do not want to be on the video, it is okay, you can still come!

The workshop will happen 5th of August from 5 till 7 o`clock
Schleifmühlgasse 12-14, 1040 Wien,
12-14 Contemporary Gallery

Natalia Papaeva is an artist, born and raised in Buryatia (Eastern Siberia). Since 2013, she has lived and worked in the Netherlands. Her artworks mainly take the shape of performances and video art. A starting point for Natalia’s work can be an imaginative dialogue, a text or a confrontational memory. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague in 2018 with the award-winning work Yokhor. In 2021 Natalia received a Mondriaan Stipendium for Emerging Artists. In September 2022, Papaeva will start her residency in the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam.


Mila Balzhieva

“Pillar books of CERN ground and underground”.
Concrete, digital print.
The project is investigating the relationships between CERN’s aboveground and underground worlds. This connection creates an inseparable bond that contrasts itself. It can be a peacefully humble field with rather dull architecture surrounded by a beautiful landscape. On the other hand, if one goes inside one of the grey buildings, they see cutting-edge technology placed another 100 meters underground. We observe the machine like an extraordinary giant which tells us the secrets of the universe.

Taking inspiration from medieval books and celestial maps, the artist made a modern atlas book of CERN aboveground and underground. The materials used for the books refer to CERN’s architecture and philosophical aspects. The content was taken from google maps and printed maps which the artist received upon arrival at CERN.

In a language we don’t understand
Video. 2020

Moving behind the trees, blending with the environment. Rooting consciousness deep into the forest. Reading hidden symbols. Walking on an invisible path and transforming into something else; a particle of a unified organism. Not many of us remember how to behave in forests. We enter it as conquerors making its space and resources work for us, barely trying to adjust and blend with it. Our presence is usually loud in the forest. But there are places where one should move carefully, and if one moves even a stone, they should return it where it belongs. If not to respect the environment of these spots, every unseen entity inhabiting these places will leave, and there will be no chance to contact them again. Forest itself is a living being full of mysteries and old knowledge where everything is connected and entangled. These stories were passing from generation to generation in Western Siberia. Respectful behavior in the forest was part of traditional rituals; many people knew how to connect with different entities. As a child, I have heard these stories and followed the rules; it was natural and magical life. I grew up, moved from one country to another, and I slightly started to forget. This work is an attempt to retrieve my knowledge and apply it to my new home.

What will happen when one enters the forest respectfully and quietly, trying to unify with every living creature and entity? Will the forest show its hidden life and secret messages?

Mila Balziehva born 1991 in the republic of Byryatia, Ulan-Ude. Based in Vienna. A visual artist who is inspired by a holistic approach to the organization of work and space.Researching the themes of multispecies communication and botanical subject matter.


Kyungrim Lim Jang

Crystal Clear (2021)
German Soundinstallation (ca.50 min) and publication in written Tyrolean (300 copies)

Die Soundinstallation Crystal Clear gibt Einblicke in die Migrationsgeschichte der indischen Künstlerin Nita Tandon – nacherzählt von der Tiroler Schriftstellerin Annemarie Regensburger. Eine Irritation, die Fragen nach Grenzen, nach dem Wir und den Anderen aufwirft. Die Soundinstallation ist in deutscher Sprache mit englischen Untertiteln.
Crystal Clear carries the experiences of Nita Tandon, a female artist who migrated from India (a member state of the Non-Aligned Movement) to Austria in the 70s. Her story is vocally performed by Tyrolean author Annemarie Regensburger. By weaving the story of a foreigner in a local tongue, the work unsettles the status of belonging embedded in the performance of a dialect. The artist questions expectation for a performance of ‘authentic’ identity and points her finger inwards the fuzzy borders within, between us / them, with water as a threading element. 
The installation is in German with English subtitles.

Good Mocking Bird (2020)
Online performance in German and a publication in Korean.

Link written work “Dreaming of subversion in a foreign tongue”

“Good Mocking Bird” is a project that has developed from the artist’s experience where she encountered needs and demands for integration into new societies and their vernaculars. Since the rise of modern nation states, standard language ideology has been an effective tool for the creation of general public and its naming necessary for mass mobilisation. With the still prevalent call of governing body to standardize its official tongue, minority groups are silently asked to pass. Passing, an ability of a person to be regarded as a member of an identity group or category different from their own, is a topic widely discussed today in regards to identity politics. While the current discourse on passing is mostly focused on the visual signifiers of one’s identity, the artist raises questions on the impact of accents, an invisible yet potent cue that affects our perception on one’s status of belonging. With the project, the artist invites the audience to a space of psychological disturbance where the signifier and signified are in a clear and eloquent discordance.
“Es tut mir leid, dass ich nicht auf Deutsch schreiben kann” The project is made of two parts:
(1) A performance by two birds that appear in a zoom meeting. Each bird apologize in Vorarlberg German and Standard German for not speaking German
(2) A book of Korean Poetry with German title: ein Bericht für eine Akademie

Kyungrim Lim Jang (1992, Seoul) lives and works in Austria. She graduated with distinction at University of Applied Arts Vienna ’20 MA Transarts.

2019 – Current University of Arts in Belgrade MA in Cultural Policy and Management (on leave of absence), Serbia
2020 – Current Academy of Fine Arts Vienna PhD candidate in Philosophy (Current)
with mentorship of Univ. Prof. Dr. Marina Grzinic, Austria
2021 Impulstanz DanceWEB scholarship, co-funded by Arts Council Korea
2020 BRUX Freies theater Innsbruck VORBRENNER program,
funded by Land Tirol, Innsbruck, Austria


Lecture Performance: “Reading Mother Tongue” by Kyungrim Lim Jang

In this lecture, artist/writer Kyungrim Lim Jang will talk about different ways of approaching one’s dialects, mother tongues. She asks if a colloquial, contextual language like mother tongue can be accurately transferred into text. Perhaps ‘reading’ and ‘mother tongue’ seem so distant because the context of the intimate conversation, often accompanied by cutified words, doesn’t fit the grammar of the standardized, official written language. The artist will introduce her works that reflect the standardization and power dynamics embedded in the language system.

Please register by email to join the program till 20.08.2022 at gallery@12-14.org
Up to 15 participants will meet together in the terrace area of 12-14 contemporary.
The program will follow COVID regulations by the city of Vienna


About WORM 
WORM is the ultimate test environment for alternative art production, experimental ways of living and non-academic knowledge development. We are a network organisation at the intersection of (popular) culture and (performing) arts, fueled by an abiding interest in all the inspiring, beautiful, urgent, vital, raw, unruly and / or crazy shit that our fellow human beings come up with. We do not see the chaos that comes with it as a problem; rather we use it as energy for action.

About Radio WORM
After nearly a decade’s absence, Radio WORM (Mark 2) came into existence during 2019, when Lieuwe Zelle and Lukas Simonis began broadcasting. When COVID first struck WORM’s downstairs office became a makeshift radio studio. After a few months Lieuwe, Lukas and a small cast of broadcasters moved to the Pirate Bay booth, where the radio service has expanded, with a growing list of shows.

About Radio Maker
Ash Kilmartin – artist and radio maker from New Zealand, currently she lives and works in The Netherlands.