Past Residents
Past Resident2014: Carclew Youth Arts
Madison Bycroft
Through video, performance and sculpture, Madison Bycroft explores an animist way of being in the world, rethinking what it means to be a person and how we might understand, relate, and communicate with others. How does language, representation or the archive limit our perspective? How can we know differently within these systems? Bycroft’s video and performance works often present as short experiments in unlearning the self or traditional modes of being, and explore the practice of empathy and processes of becoming other. Through sculpture, she immerses herself within the world of objects and how they resonate with us and how they might become animated. Bycroft often works with forms that are strange and unrecognisable, and border on weird or unusual. In lieu of categorical and colonizing thought, Bycroft is interested in relational understanding, something which requires compassion: in Latin, a feeling with that extends to difference—to the animal and other persons—creating a sense of communion with the world.
Madison Bycroft (born 1987, Adelaide, South Australia) completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts with first class honors at the University of South Australia in 2012. She has exhibited in group and solo shows throughout Australia and recently in Canada, in public, commercial and artist run galleries, as well experimenting with non-traditional sites. She has a multi-media practice, including video, sculpture and performance. Bycroft is the recipient of the 2014 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships, awarded for one year of study overseas in the visual arts. Bycroft has been selected for safARI in 2014 – the fringe festival to the Sydney Biennale.
Madison Bycroft, Becoming Still, 2013, Single channel video, 7:30 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Madison Bycroft, Experiments of the savage, 2013, Performance. Courtesy of the artist.
Madison Bycroft, On Certainty, 2013, Mixed media and ceramics. Courtesy of the artist.
Madison Bycroft, Salute, 2012, Two channel video, 1:30 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Madison Bycroft, Ode to the vampire squid, 2013, Single channel video, 4 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from Australia
Toulu Hassani
Toulu Hassani’s work moves along the boundaries of painting. To arrive at her images she uses various methods and materials such as oil paint, wood, epoxy resin and rawhide. Through the material the attention is focused on that which is to be seen. The reduction allows this to come to the foreground and convey its own (essential) contents. It is a question of challenging perception and the illusion behind structures and surfaces.
Toulu Hassani (born 1984 in Ahwaz, Iran) studied at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig and Facultad de Bellas Artes Valencia. Her works have been featured in various exhibitions including: Vom Hier und Jetz, Kunstverein Hannover, 2013: Conditions Change, HBK, Braunschweig and La Bonne Horse, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Bonner Kunstverein,. In 2012 Hassani received a fellowship from the Federal State of Niedersachsen and in 2013 a grant from the Kunstverein Hannover.
Toulu Hassani, Untitled, 2013, Oil on canvas, 21 1/2 x 14 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Toulu Hassani, Untitled, 2013, Burnt wood, shellac, 16 1/2 x 12 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Toulu Hassani, Untitled, 2013, Rawhide, wood, fabric, 30 1/3 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Toulu Hassani, Untitled, 2012, Oil on canvas, 11 4/5 x 8 1/5 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Toulu Hassani, Untitled, 2013, Rawhide, wood, cord, 40 x 33 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from Germany
Past Resident2014: KdFS Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen
Axel Töpfer
Axel Töpfer uses photographs, text and objects to construct imaginary events through an extension of narrative space. The work is structured so that the viewer performs the movement to assemble each story out of its parts. Töpfer continuously searches for instruments of inspiration such as: a late completion about space on Fotodinamismo Futurista by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Secret Notes by Josef Albers and On Dimension Zero or Why Structural Cinema is Narrative by George Maciunas. He believes magic can be achieved through stuttering and repetition.
Axel Töpfer (born 1977 in Königs Wusterhausen) is Director of the Laboratory for Visibility Hy Brasil since 2012, Co-founder of the network Videoklub (2004) and a member of zeitgenossen since 2000. He studied media art, photography and typography at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig and sculpture and film at Akademie der Bildenden Künste Vienna. Töpfer works on the island of Hy Brasil and is living in Ulthar.
Axel Töpfer, Mitsubishi Dock Yard Nagasaki, 2010, Installation of 81 postcards. Courtesy of the artist and Photomuseum Braunschweig.
Axel Töpfer, To Say I am still alive i wonder if you are, 2008, Installation of 51 postcards. Courtesy of the artist and Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig.
Axel Töpfer, Lieses Haus Horcht, 2013, Narrative Installation. Courtesy of the artist and Wolkenhof Murrhardt.
Axel Töpfer, Neko Yashiki, 2012, Narrative Installation and Nishinomiya Funasaka Biennale. Courtesy of the artist.
Axel Töpfer, A Landrara, 2013, Structural narrative of 8 pictures. Courtesy of the artist.