<videovortex> Visions in the Nunnery invitation

[Cinzia Cremona]

You are warmly invited to the opening of *Visions in the Nunnery* on *Friday
22 May 6-9*

the*nunnery*
Bow Arts Lane
181-183 Bow Road,
London, E3 2SJ

Highlights include the exotic Pampero ritual, a surprise performance, recent
video work by *Michael Nyman*, and the British premiere of a three channel
installation by *Isabelle Arnoux*.

Don't forget the *Critical Forum* on *Sunday 24 May 3-5.30*. Speakers
include private collectors, curators, artists and academics. We are going to
discuss the various forms of gatekeeping that shape access to moving image
work.

More details below.

Hoping to see you there,

Cinzia

openvisions.org


*Private View*: Friday 22-5-09 6pm - 9pm
*Critical Forum*: Sunday 24 3pm - 5.30pm.
Exhibition Open: Sat 23rd - Sun 24th & Sat 30th - Sun 31st May 12 noon –
6.00pm

*Visions in the Nunnery* has become an event not to be missed in the moving
image calendar. It focuses on recent work produced by global, established
and emerging artists. It is the most relevant snapshot and showcase for new
ideas and emerging artists, today.
The event features a variety of conceptual approaches and aesthetic choices,
which highlight an exciting art form thriving with enthusiasm and
challenges.

Event curators *Cinzia Cremona* and *Tessa Garland* said - Submissions to
this year’s Visions have been of the very highest quality, we have had the
opportunity to select from over 1000 entries received from 37 countries
around the world. Our final selection features 54 artists from 12 countries
including South Korea and India.

*Visions Special Curated Events*:  *The Body and the Beholder*. Each year, a
unique collaboration with an invited profiled curator complements the
international open submission. This year’s exciting programme of work is
selected by curator *Myriam Blundell*, including the UK première of *EXerciceS
EXerciceS EXerciceS* by *Isabelle Arnoux*, as well as recent works by *Michael
Nyman* and *Karen Knorr*. (See below)

*Visions Critical Forum 2009: Collecting Moving Images.*  Sunday 24-05-09
3pm - 5.30pm.

The *Critical Forum* is a pivotal event within *Visions in the Nunnery*. Its
aims are to explore the practices that shape the production, exhibition, and
distribution of the moving image as well as establishing connections between
practitioners, their audiences and collectors.

This year the Critical Forum will focus on the collection and circulation of
the moving image. Topics of discussion will include cultural and economic
concerns; the dynamics of private collections, educational archives and
changing technologies. The speakers will share their personal experiences
and expertise in the field, and activate an open discussion with artists and
viewers.

The Forum will be chaired by *Cinzia Cremona* with invited speakers: *Myriam
Blundell*, *Lucy Bayley* (Contemporary Art Society, London), *Chris
Meigh-Andrews*, *Michael Maziere* and *Neil Cummings*.



*The body and the beholder   Myriam Blundell    May 2009*

This year’s thematically curated section of Visions in the Nunnery features
three artists whose work is mainly concerned with the pursuit of an ideal of
beauty most notably derived from the perfection of physical appearances and
the exhibition of immaculate and faultless volumes, shapes and proportions.

In an age shaped by virtual realities and populated by cyberspace
communities, in which elaborate and faultless creatures are designed to
please the deepest recesses of our desires for physical perfection, the
contemporary portraiture of beauty in the human body has shifted like never
before in the history of aesthetics. Traditionally grounded in innate,
physical qualities, this shift has become increasingly subject to cultural
specifics and individual interpretations. In *EXerciseS EXerciseS EXerciseS*,
*Isabelle Arnoux* captures the obsession found in western societies for a
specific set of rapports and proportionality. The on-going search for a
definition of the Beautiful is evoked in *Lessons* by *Karen Knorr*, where
she applies the perspective of nature and its divine laws, that of science
and its Cartesian  rationale, and ultimately that of Art and its utopian
pursuit of the Ideal. The human body is celebrated for its canonical beauty
but also for its ephemerality and submission to the cycles of life. Equally
fascinated by the effect of the passage of time on the human psyche and
condition, *Michael Nyman*’s *Slow Walkers* observes a succession of old men
and women walking very slowly in the busy streets of urban life. His piece
reflects on the lessons learned from the wisdom of age and the temporality
of the human body, as a means to achieving a higher state of consciousness.
The idea of borrowing the human body as a vehicle to communicate with the
unknown and the divine is also explored in Nyman’s second video work
entitled *Zoor*. Zoor is a sequence of footage shot in Iran in 2003,
featuring a group of body builders performing a sequence of Zoor Kahn, an
ancient form of Iranian Martial Arts. The focus in Nyman’s narrative is
shifted from the physical to the spiritual, from the beautiful to the
divine, and from the transient to the eternal.

*Biogs:*

*Cinzia Cremona* is currently working towards a PhD on video performance and
how moving image works establish relationships at University of Westminster,
where she is also a member of the Experimental Media Research Group. She is
co-curator of Visions in the Nunnery. Since 2007 she has been a core member
of Critical Practice, a research cluster hosted by Chelsea College of Art
and Design – www.criticalpracticechelsea.org Her photographic and moving
image work has been exhibited internationally.

*Tessa Garland* is an established moving image artist showing
internationally. Her work has been screened at Rencontres International Film
and Video Festival, Paris & Berlin. Kino Rialto & BoS, Stockholm. Betting on
Shorts, ICA -  London, Point Ephemere- Paris, KIBLA Multi Media Centre
-Maribo, Romanian Cultural Institute- Bucharest, Mikrokosmos Prince- Athens,
CCCB Pantalla Hall- Barcelona, Kadir Has University -Istanbul,
Lanificio-Naples, Kulturpalast- Wiesbaden, Germany. She is co-curator of
Visions in the Nunnery. She is also an established educationalist working
with the BBC, The Wellcome Trust and the National Gallery.
www.tessagarland.com

*Myriam Blundell* has over 8 years of broad, diverse contemporary art
advisory and curatorial experience, founding an independent curatorial
practice in 2004. Dedicated to uncovering and exhibiting the work of
emerging contemporary artists, the practice acts as a coaching medium,
providing both commercial and creative guidance to an international pool of
artists, who practice in a variety of artistic mediums. She is currently
engaged as an associate editor for Enrico Navarra’s upcoming “Made by
Brazilians”, which is a part of a definitive series of critically acclaimed,
art publications dedicated to depicting contemporary art, architecture and
design in numerous emerging art markets, including China, India and the Arab
world. She is the Executive Director of the Friends of Signy and Olaf
Willums Foundation in Provence, France, which awards an annual residence for
outstanding emerging artists. She is also the founding Chair of the
International Collectors Forum at the Contemporary Art Society in London.

*The Nunnery Gallery* established 1998, is one of London’s largest
independent galleries supporting new and emerging international talent. The
Nunnery comprises three purpose built galleries totalling over 2,000 sq ft
of exhibition space converted from an C18th Carmelite Nunnery adjacent to
the historic Bow Church. The gallery situated on Bow Arts Lane off Bow Rd is
a part of the Bow Arts Trust a charity that has been supporting artists for
the past 15 years. www.bowarts.org


*For more information*
Please contact:
Cinzia Cremona
m:07989 126 466
Tessa Garland
M:07749 848 436
T:020 89235756
contact at openvisions.org
www.openvisions.org
www.thenunnery.org

Generously Supported by
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