Schedule

30.5. - 30.8.

May 30 - 8PM

Folkestone Fringe | Anatomy of Islands: Office of Field Forensics + Anatomy of Kala

Jelsa Art Biennial 2023 opens its doors in the JAB Hub in Jelsa, with a discursive program about the different dimensions of the street in the grid of the Mediterranean city - kala. As part of the event, the participants will present their methodology and work in process.
 
In the meeting between artists Diane Dever, Jacob Bray and Daniel Tollady, and researchers from the Anatomy of Islands association, we will look into different layers of the kala, as percieved throughout the research: Where do the cats gather? Which stone is the smoothest in the street, and how does it smell when you step on it? Who cooks a specific dish in a different way than their neighbour, which caper covers the most of the wall which it grows from, and what lies behind the walls, in the intimate spaces of its residents?

20.6. - 30.6.

Jun 30: 9PM

Francisca Rocha Gonçalves (PT): The Tunnel - golden hours

A series of happenings where artists participating in the first residency of JAB23 will be presenting their works in order to get to know each other, create new dynamics of the space, enhance meaning of interactions and, ultimately, enjoy the beauty of the specific site and the specific moment: the golden hour.
The thematic group TUNNEL – de-thinking brings together a group of artists with diverse backgrounds that, in their way and during the 10 days of artistic residency, will get inspired, explore and connect with the local reality of Jelsa, specifically the life of KALA, as a form of artistic research.
Curator / Mentor: Francisca Rocha Gonçalves
 

FEATURED ARTISTS
Vana Gaćina, Luana Lojić, Anica Lora Nižić, Helena Rubčić

1.7. - 30.8.

Jul 1: 9PM

Željko Beljan (CRO): Buže

Buže, on some islands known as “ears of windows” or probužoni kamik (perforated stone) in the dialect of Hvar, are stone protrusions with a circular hole in the middle, usually located at the height of two thirds of the window frame.

With this site-specific installation in the kala of Jelsa, Željko Beljan brings buže to life, following their historic connections with textile, with a simple gesture “reminding” visitors of their existence and inviting further intertwined interpretations.

3.7. - 30.8.

Jul 3: 9PM

Eglė Budvytytė (LT)| Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies, Imploding Stars

The film, shot in the pine forests and sand dunes of the Curonian Spit, is a hypnotic exploration of nonhuman forms of consciousness and different dimensions of symbiotic life: interdependence, surrender, death, and decay. The images gradually layer, alongside the intimate lyrics of a song that channels the desires of an entity shapeshifting across different genders, voices, and beyond-human embodiments. Featuring a cast comprised of local youth, alongside performer and choreographer Mami Kang, the film unfolds through a specially conceived song, choreography, and costumes. The performers’ bodies are sites of activity, though they’re often horizontal, pulled toward the earth and one another, moving through the forest, along the sand, dunes, and water. 

13.7.

Jul 13: 9PM

OFFTANZ Tirol (AT): The Great Sonja Ritz Show

"The Great Sonja Ritz Show" is a durational perfomance performed by three artists in nine choreographic sequences. The performance deals with the topic of brain functions in relation to individual and collective memories and experiences. "The Great Sonja Ritz Show" is a durational performance that deals with the nature and capriciousness of memory and the fluidity of one's own biography in a humorous and bizarre way. Echoes of memory are generated from fictitious or real narratives, moving images and manipulation of artefacts, and in an abstract, humorous way the intertwining of past, present and future is created. The performance plays with how we individually use our imagination and creativity to create our memories, in the form of an unusual journey through time seen through the lens of a fictional life. The audience is invited to watch or interact with the performers themselves.

28.6. - 20.7.

Diagonal

Starting June 28, three artists (Marieke Leene, Jose Manuel Spínola and Ola Korbańska, along with curator and leader Ron van Roosmalen) embark on a 10 day journey from Águeda to Jelsa, utilizing the means of transportation of bicycles, trains, boats and ferries. From July 8 until July 20, the artists reside in Jelsa, where they work on different site-specific, performative pieces, video and pop-up installations to be exibited in kala during the Jelsa Art Biennial.

 

15.7. - 30.8.

Jul 15: 9PM

Jose Manuel Spínola (MX): Nature is Not Longer Destiny

Nature is Not Longer Destiny is a double video experimental piece by Jose Manuel Spínola. It is to be screened simultaneously, conceived during a pre-pandemic dance residency in Portugal. The director Jose Spínola induced the characters in a kind of hypnosis to interpret spontaneity - without a previous notion of the script - the concepts dictated as their opposite gender. The characters were free to express these concepts at will. The liberation of men and women from these roles is in process - music and dance allow us to make an integration of both feminine and masculine hemispheres in ourselves, free from conceptual interpretations, time or space. The emergence of a new state is possible, where men are freed from guilt and women from victimhood to achieve and urgent integration of genders beyond biology.

16.7. - 30.8.

Jul 16: 9PM

Ola Korbańska (PL): The Laundresses

The very act of drying laundry is a moment in the cycle of a private sphere where it is brought to public eye, fully displayed for the spectator’s eye. Due to this brief but cyclical intrusion into the outside world, drying clothes could be seen as a manifesto of incessant and invisible work carried out by women, becoming, at the same time, a mark of female visibility left in the public space. Ola Korbańska’s Laundresses brings the object, and act, of drying laundry out in the public space of Jelsa, for everyone to see and ponder what is (and perhaps should not be) private, public, as well as the words crafted on the surface of the fabric.

18.7.

Jul 18: 9PM

Marieke Leene (NL): Let's Keep it Gezellig

Birthday parties are back, but current events often leave little to celebrate. Whether it's war, the environment or other sensitive topics, guests are often requested to keep it ‘gezellig’ – cheerful. But how do you do that when the world seems to be on fire?

That friction is central to the project Let’s Keep It Gezellig by Marieke Leene. The large installation is designed as a tight-fitting space, which on the one hand represents the desire to close yourself off from the outside world while on the other knowing there are serious problems that need to be addressed. Although the work is a semi-sealed off space, it never quite allows you to withdraw completely. There is no door and it's far from easy to screen off the outside world.

Jul 22 - Jul 24: 9AM -12AM

Jelsa Manuscript: Creative workshop for children

In this free, multi-day workshop, children will learn the basics of drawing and making comics with comic artist, artist and art pedagogue Zdenko Mikša, create their own comic hero or heroine, and create their own imaginative comic inspired by Jelsa and the island climate. What is needed to make a comic? How to use your environment for inspiration and show it in a drawing? In what way are characters, stories created and shaped in comic book style? All this and more will go through the workshop and free your imagination.
They will also try their hand at making cyanotype, a photographic technique of painting with light, led by art pedagogue, painter and graphic artist Domagoj Hmura. In the process of making a cyanotype, the material (textile, paper) coated with a photosensitive liquid serves as a base for placing various plants, shells or objects, which, after exposure to the sun, leave an impression on the blue, sunlit base. Along with walking by the sea and discovering the local flora and fauna, children will use the nature around them to create their own work of art. The crafting process is simple, fun, and the possibilities for creativity and fun are endless!

23.7.

Jul 23: 8PM

RE-CONNECT ART l | Tereza Kerle feat. Tomáš Kerle: Divine Matrix

DIVINE MATRIX:
Tereza Kerle conceptualizes the virtual body of society in relation to the energy field. We are currently experiencing a stage of acceleration in the evolution of humanity as both a species and a spiritual community. The transcendence of humanity at the level of the energy field is taking place through awareness and connection to one’s own being and to other parts of the greater whole. It is community and communion that connects us to the energy flows of the planetary system. While energy is outside space and time, and is not an easily graspable, tangible evidence of the changes being experienced, the transformation is manifested in the mental field that transcends the personal plane and therefore responds more flexibly to these changes. Matter is slower, but changes take place on this plane as well.

Jul 25 - Jul 27: 1PM - 3PM

Jelsa Manuscript: Creative workshop for teens

The workshop is made up of several steps with the end result being the design of the book cover.
The movie "Cmon cmon" (https://youtu.be/GjPleaVBoQI) is used for inspiration. The film deals with the questioning of the relationship between adults and children, and calls for introspection and analysis of one's own relationship with the environment. Analyzing the narrative of the film encourages dialogue on the topic of knowing feelings and expressing attitudes towards the immediate environment. Through these questions, the participants have the opportunity to connect with their feelings, recognize them and most importantly, give them importance both through dialogue and knowledge and through creative expression. Emphasis is placed on a moment or period in their life that was of great importance to them and left an impact. Whether it is beautiful or not, the process of recording such moments and thoughts is important and has constructive outcomes.
In several stages of the workshop, participants will try the process of writing a creative essay, photographing the environment, and shaping their text and photos into a book cover.

26.7.

Jul 26: 9PM

JAB23 ft. Mudri Brk: Felispeaks and Anna Mullarkey

On Wednesday, at 9PM at Monade Gallery the festival Mudri Brk will hold their first international collaboration. Within the European festival youth fund EFFEA, co-financed by the EU, in collaboration with Jelsa Art Biennial, the performance "New Nurturing" by FELISPEAKS and Anna Mullarkey will take place.
Lead by the poet, performer and playwright FELISPEAKS, this multifaceted performance will merge poetry, music and visual art to explore the questions: what is next for women, celebrating the contributions of women to society and imagining the possibilities ahead.
FELISPEAKS is a Nigerian-Irish poet, performer, playwright, and a member of the board of Poetry Island, Poetry Collective, WeAreGriot and Artist-in-Residence with Axis Ballymun and Visual Carlow. Anna Mullarkey is an award winning composer and musician from Galway whose music merges electronic sounds with piano and vocals.

28.7.

Jul 28: 9PM

Dejan Krstić: Norm

Jelsa Art Bennial invites you to the opening of Dejan Krstić's exhibition entitled "Norm" with the opening on July 28 at 9 pm in the space of JAB Hub (Jelsa 756.)
The exhibition “Norm” refers to a set of standards, guidelines, or rules that govern how an individual is expected to behave in a given context or environment. Whit it’s variations it also showcases a possible result of such structured patterns. The piece intentionally reflects and reinforces the cultural or societal norms of a particular place, potentially influencing the behaviors and perspectives of those who interact with it. The grid-like structure starts as a two-dimensional drawing pattern used as a measuring tool, transcending into the installation media. With its site-specific construction, it occupies the space, creating a sense of structure, movement, and oscillations within the set norm. By occupying the given space in its pattern, it aims to create a sense of duality of safe space or an enclosing prison-like structure. Through its visual presentations, the exhibition questions the norm of set structure, varying from symbols of growth to fostering of self-destruction and degradation questioning the results such patterns may yield. It creates a sense of paradox with the idea of self-expression and self-destruction coexisting as two colliding essences.

20.7. - 30.7.

Jul 30: 9PM

Anja Leko (CRO), Andrej Beštak (CRO), Paula Płavniece (LV): Imagining Gardens

Imagining Gardens is a contemporary performative multidisciplinary production, curated by Anja Leko, Andrej Beštak from Croatia and Paula Płavniece from Latvia. It is to be presented as a moving performative piece, in collaboration with the local choir of St. Cecily. The anchor point of the performance is the research by Anatomy of Islands, who explored the lives of locals living in a narrow street in Jelsa called kala, and whose gardens, usually closed off to the public, will take center stage as the setup for the performance. The piece will be expanded on and elaborated during a 10 day residency in Jelsa, with the participating artists being: Hugo Baranger (FR), Rebecca Merlić (AT), Robert Fenrich (CRO), Sunčica Bandić (CRO) and Dora Brkarić (CRO). Imagining Gardens is a journey through the hidden, shaded part of Jelsa, meant for rediscovering near-forgotten ancient knowledge and perceiving the growth and renewal of animal and plant matter as a portal to an alternate reality.

25.8.

Aug 25: 8:30PM

Juraj Šantorić (CRO): Digesting

The performative installation Digesting looks at the increasingly pronounced problem of sea level rise, which directly affects the island's inhabitants.
A summer house, a place kept under safe human hands or Eden under a glass bell, is today an exposed utopia of apparent security. The sea rises without knocking. A small green rectangle, a window from the street into a hidden oasis behind the stone walls that offers tranquility. Only salad thrives, while the tides come from the north and south. The embossed green surface and abstract light reflection are the materialization of anthropocentric poetics dominated by misunderstanding and unknowns. To spend days in a summer house, put your feet up in the air and immerse yourself in the environment without suspecting that the environment also plunges into us?... Only a bitter taste remains in the mouth as the salt in digestion corrodes the mucous membrane of the pharynx.

30.8.

Aug 30: 8:00PM

JAB23 CLOSING - Gerta Xhaferaj (AL): 16'

JAB23 CLOSING EVENT
GERTA XHAFERAJ
16’
POP-UP EXHIBITION
AUGUST 30
8PM
MONADE GALLERY
The Jelsa Art Biennial happily invites you to the closing event, the opening of the pop-up exhibition of the Albanian artist Gerta Xhaferaj entitled 16', on August 30 at 8 p.m. in the Monade Gallery. The exhibition was realized in collaboration with Culture Hub Croatia.
Exhibition 16' delves into themes of cultural identity, dynamics of the urban area, transformations of the city, self and memory by presenting them through an ambiental installation including a combination of sound, video and photography with the elements of construction recorded in suburbs of the capital of Albania.