Sunday, January 15, 2012

Many Mini Residency at Koh-i-noor in Copenhagen

In an effort to not spoil my "internationally unknown" artist status with a Many Mini Residency at Koh-i-noor in Copenhagen, I spent my residency time in the very local setting of my bathtub.

Sinking down in the bathtub until my ears are submerged and listening to the filtered and strangely distant sounds in and around my thin-walled house are a regular practice for me. During my Many Mini residency, I listened to downloaded traffic sounds from Copenhagen through the water of my bathtub in Houston, Texas. This was a very conscious yet meditative experience which allowed my mind to wonder and dream of being in Copenhagen. At times, I felt the sounds of Copenhagen were on the other side of the wall as they were brought into a close parallel with the sounds occurring around me my Houston dwelling and neighborhood.



About the Many Mini:
Many Mini Residency is a short-term residency program operated in conjunction with alternative exhibition venues in Europe and the United States. The name ‘Many Mini’ encompasses two main components of the project which is hosted in one room 24 hours a day for one week. The ‘Many’ describes the open call for proposals and the resulting multiplicity of responses and participants. The ‘Mini’ component of the residency describes the limited amount of time available and the scale of the room.

Many Mini Residency is open to applicants from all disciplines (art and non-art alike) and encourages participants to customize their residency experience. There is no minimum time-limit for a stay at the residency but the maximum stay allows use of the space for half a day. The space may be used for public programs, personal studio time, a rehearsal space, a dinner, or whatever the resident sees fit. Participants provide documentation and a short statement about their time spent in the residency to serve as both a record and a resource displayed online as the final component of the project.

In January 2012, Many Mini Residency will be hosted at Koh-i-noor, an artist-run independent project space in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 2004, the focus of Koh-i-noor is to create a space for experimentation and to have an influence on the discourse of contemporary art. Koh-i-noor aims to provide and uphold a collaborative, process-related and interdisciplinary, informal platform for open thought, information exchange and spatial experiments. Although operating within an international network, Koh-i-noor’s activities are also informed by and related to its local context and situation. Koh-i-noor seeks to ensure a critical distance and take position towards contemporary cultural and social conditions.

Many Mini Residency: Copenhagen at Koh-i-noor will additionally exist in conversation with other Many Mini Residencies; the first hosted by The Berlin Office in Berlin, July 2008 and the second hosted by Skydive in Houston, TX, July 2011. Many Mini Residency not only provides an opportunity for interaction among participants within each locale, but creates a comparable portrait of each city where the residency is held.

About Emily Sloan:
Internationally unknown multidisciplinary artist Emily Sloan is the founding reverend of the Southern Naptist Convention and chief caretaker and curator of The Kenmore exhibition object. Sloan is based out of Houston, Texas, and is hoping the Many Mini Residency has not spoiled her "internationally unknown" artist status. To learn more about her practice, please visit: www.emilysloanblog.blogspot.com

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