Past Residents
Past Resident2012: KdFS Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
Mario Pfeifer
Mario Pfeifer’s work explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of film, in locations ranging from Mumbai to California to the Western Sahara. Conceiving each project out of a specific cultural situation, he researches social-political backgrounds and weaves further cross-cultural art historical, filmic and political references into a richly layered practice, ranging from film and video installations to photographs and text installations. Often, Pfeifer collaborates on publications that reconsider these projects, offering research materials and critical investigations by writers and thinkers of related fields, concerning issues suggested in his projects for a wider social-political discussion.
Mario Pfeifer (born 1981, Dresden) studied in Leipzig (HGB), Berlin (UDK) and graduated from Willem de Rooij’s class at Städelschule Frankfurt am Main in 2008. Pfeifer was a Fulbright fellow at the California Institute of the Arts from 2008 – 2009. Further grants from Goethe-Institut and DAAD lead him to Bangkok, Mumbai and New York. Awards include the Video Art Award, Bremen and the Salon Video Art Prize, London. A first monograph was published by Sternberg Press in 2011 followed by publications with Fotohof edition / KOW and Spector Books in 2012. Pfeifer’s works have been exhibited at MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Cultural Centre, Brugge; KW – Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Circa Projects, Sunderland, UK; Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden; Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen and Landesgalerie Linz, Austria. His films have been screened at Anthology Film Archives, New York; London International Documentary Film Festival; World Film Festival, Bangkok; Images Festival, Toronto; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Moca Detroit; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Folkwang Museum, Essen; Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Arsenal, Berlin and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Mario Pfeifer is represented by KOW BERLIN.
Mario Pfeifer, Code Unknown [Re_Sync], 2010, Wall prints, inkjet prints, and video projection.
Mario Pfeifer, A Formal Film in Nine Episodesm Prologogue & Epilogue, 2010, 35mm film in HD projection, 52 min.
Mario Pfeifer, Reconsidering The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California by Lewis Baltz, 1974, 2009, Synchronized dual 16mm film installation with sound.
Mario Pfeifer, Yet Untitled ("Pieces of Nature"), 2008, S16mm transferred to HD, 11 min. 30 sec.
Mario Pfeifer, Untitled (Two Guys), 2008, HD video installation, 7 min. 30 sec.
Residents from Germany
Past Resident2016: ArtsNSW, Creative Australia2012: Creative Australia, Dame Joan Sutherland Fund
Astra Howard
Astra Howard’s evolving series of interactive Machine-Vehicles (M-Vs) disrupt conventional means of communication to heighten engagement with the public. The M-Vs reduce certain sensory capacities and enhance others. This altered means of communication encourages direct, honest, sometimes unexpected, and often quite intimate responses. The M-Vs are means by which individuals tell their stories of the city; they optimize the fiction to realism ratio to achieve maximum communication in popular, nondescript, and even hostile locations.
Astra Howard is an Action Researcher/Performer working predominantly within public spaces in cities. Since 1998, she has designed and produced site-specific works in cities across Australia and internationally, including Beijing, Paris, New York, Delhi and London. After completing a PhD in 2005 titled Orchestrating the Public: To Reveal and Activate through Design the Experience of the City, Howard has continued to test urban and social theories in the city spaces they critique. Commissioned by cultural institutions and local and state governments, these iterative projects generate dialogue and debate about issues affecting the city. Howard has worked professionally as a designer in commercial agencies, a lecturer in higher education and a community development worker, predominantly in crisis homeless services.
Events & Exhibitions
Salon: Astra Howard and Constanza Levine
November 13, 2012
Astra Howard, Moving Story-Telling Vehicle, 2015, Action Research/Performance, 61 × 63 × 16 in. (154.94 × 160.02 × 40.64 cm).
Astra Howard, Scene Capture Integration Vehicle, 2016, Action Research/Performance, 76 × 75 × 25 in. (193.04 × 190.5 × 63.5 cm).
Astra Howard, Heightened Drawing Platform, 2011, Action Research/Performance, 20 × 79 × 20 in. (50.8 × 200.66 × 50.8 cm).
Astra Howard, Surveillance with Public Intent Vehicle, 2007, Action Research/Performance, 24 × 87 × 24 in. (60.96 × 220.98 × 60.96 cm).
Astra Howard, Feeling Cities - Public Contact Vehicle, 2009, Action Research/Performance, 65 x 24 x 24 in. each.
Residents from Australia
Past Resident2012: Foundation for a Civil Society
Ledia Kostandini
Ledia Kostandini’s work focuses on social transformations of inherited and lost culture. She takes an ironic and often humorous approach to her work through the juxtaposition of cultural and social icons, suggesting a new perspective national events. Her works – photography, paintings and installations with mixed media objects – show a highly sensitive instinct for ideologies in different disguises. Kostandini analyzes the power of images and how they function within varied ideological systems, either in a visible or hidden way. Influenced by her country’s communist past and its threat of violence, Kostandini analyzes family stories and popular images to gain distance from the dynamics of economy and global capitalism.
Based in Tirana, Kostandini is a graduate of the Art Academy, Tirana. Recentexhibitions include What Happened to the General, Tirana; Rewind/Play/Forward, Graz, Austria; Jeune Creation, Paris; and See Visions, Sarajevo.
Ledia Kostandini, National map, 2009, Photo on light box, 30 × 50 in. (76.2 × 127 cm).
Ledia Kostandini, Cartoon movies, 2011, Cardboard, 11 × 7 in. (27.94 × 17.78 cm).
Ledia Kostandini, Cartoon movies, 2011, Cardboard, 236 × 59 in. (599.44 × 149.86 cm).
Ledia Kostandini, Feedback 1989-2009, 2009, Mixed media, 60 × 100 in. (152.4 × 254 cm).
Ledia Kostandini, Feedback 1989-2009, 2009, Mixed media, 200 × 200 × 100 in. (508 × 508 × 254 cm).
