Season II of the bangaloREsidency 2019 kicked off recently with nine artists from Germany. They will live and work in collaboration with six of the 28 bangaloREsidency hosts for four to eight weeks.

In that regard, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bengaluru played host to the artistes involved in different art forms visual, performance , and olfactory art as they gave short presentations on their work so far and their focus during their residency here.

The evening started with photographer Flo Maak, bangaloREsident at Pepper House. Around 2008, Flo became interested in animals, human-animal relationships and what has been called naturecultures - the intertwined relationships of nature and culture. He will explore the narratives connecting microbes, ships, humans and animals through exchange with diverse experts and practitioners in Kochi.

Nadin Reschke, bangaloREsident at 1 Shanthi Road, will explore the city and the changes affecting peoples lives through fabric and textiles. In one of her works So Far, So Good she travelled with a tent for 18 months through 14 countries. Constructed in the dimensions of ones personal space, the tent had different meanings in different spaces. It became a polling station in Mumbai and a radio studio in Australia.

I am here to offer my womb to carry your child as a surrogate mother, said Magdalena Emmerig. I am here to propose my eggs to you in case you have trouble getting pregnant, said Yana Thnnes. They formed The Agency, which creates immersive theatre performances.

They are now in India, to research on a topic that they would like to deal with it in a future production in 2020. We are interested in surrogacy as an ambivalence phenomenon, says Magdalena. Yana added, We took an entry point from the perspective of Westerners travelling to India for spiritual tourism. But actually in surrogacy, the project of spiritual enlightenment has been replaced by the project of having a baby.

In Bengaluru, The Agency will aim to create a performance in collaboration with theatreperson Deepika Arwind and Sandbox Collective.

Lauryn Mannigel, bangaloREsident at Srishti Institute, focuses on the social and emotional implications of human body scents. Stating that she creates performance-based experiments, she said that she draws from laboratory studies, neuroscience and psychology that explore olfactory perceptions.

Here, she intends to get open conversations about the perceptions of body scents, Lauryn said the project will provide participants an opportunity to explore their olfactory judgement of new and existing friendships and also enable them to find new friends.

Marvin Systermans and Raisa Galofre, bangaloREsidents at Indian Institute of Human Settlements, will develop a photo series that reflects on the presence of modernity and colonialism, western and non-western societies encounters in Bengaluru. They plan to use natural and man-made materialsuch as steel and how they reveal social, environmental and cultural aspects of the city.

Talking about using the narrative characteristics of Latin American magic realism, Raisa, who was born in Colombia, said, In my photography, I embrace the opposites: the real and the fantastic, the rational and the mythical and the possible with the impossible.

The evening concluded with a presentation by STRW, comprising Lukas Ftterer and Jo Wanneng, bangaloREsidents at Indian Sonic Research Organisation. Preferring not to talk, they relied on a disembodied voice to provide explanations starting with the German word bedienen which means both to operate and to serve.

Inspired by geographically specific simple solutions to life that are constantly evolving and being optimised, especially by those that involve replicating human movement in playful, interactive ways, STRW, will develop a kinetic drum synthesiser utilising lo-fi hardware hacks and e-waste.

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Nine German artists talk about their work for season II of bangaloREsidency 2019 - The Hindu