The live art event Art Contact brings together performance artists from different countries. The artists on this occasion are Chuyia Chia (Malaysia/Singapore/Sweden), Joakim Stampe (Sweden), AKAHILJANE (Finland), Ishmael Falke (Israel) and Yoshinori Niwa (Japan). Hosted by Willem Wilhelmus

The theme of Chuyia Chia’s (b. 1970) and Joakim Stampe’s (b. 1959) performance is collaboration. Since the Second World War, the term “collaboration” has acquired a very negative meaning as referring to persons and groups, who help a foreign occupier of their country — due to its actual use by people in European countries who worked with and for the Nazi German occupiers. Linguistically, “collaboration” implies more or less equal partners, who work together — which is obviously not the case when one party is an army of occupation and the other the people of the occupied country. Chuyia Chia is interested in interactive, intensive physical force as a medium and means of communication with the audience. In her works she investigates issues such as climate change and political worries about changes in the environment. Joakim Stampe has worked with both painting and performance. He is one of the founders of the Live Action Göteborg performance festival and is its project manager. In his own works Stampe investigates phenomena and events that affect him in contemporary society.

Chuyia Chia’s and Joakim Stampe’s residency is supported by Nordic Culture Fund.

AKAHILJANE mingles personal events with fiction. At times, the performance sways and lurches awkwardly, dictated entirely by the immediate situation, at other times, the performer relies on rehearsed material. The theme is survival: What are we doing here? And how do we get out of this situation? How much is enough for the audience, and for the performer? And when is a person their “own self”? AKAHILJANE partly addresses the same question as the playwright Juha Jokela: How much of our existence is made up of different performances? AKAHILJANE (b. 1981) is a performance artist who lives in Turku. His performances are very spare and simple, almost lecture-like, while also spinning hysterically out of control.

One after the other, the clichés of puppet theatre, the values of the art tradition, the principles of dramaturgy, and a banana, are put up against the wall to be executed. The performer wants to narrate the classical tragedy of King Oedipus, but it seems that his memory is not as good as was, and that the materials and the puppets have their own stories to tell. The words and actions are in constant disagreement… Ishmael Falke (b. 1977) has translated this classical masterpiece from the ancient Greek, and performs it himself.

Yoshinori Niwa (b. 1982) often uses animals, plants, and the environment in his works. He investigates their relationship with society and community, and tries to carry out a poetic plan. Niwa’s aim is to explore how to live with others. He is interested in the spaces between reality and idea. Especially those between other cultures and social classes. Niwa graduated from the Department of Moving Images and Performing Arts at Japan’s Tama Art University in 2005. He is also a curator and festival organizer. He is currently coordinating an international intervention-art event: “Artist as Activist” in Tokyo. Yoshinori Niwa is at the moment a HIAP-artist-in-residency in Cable Factory.