VestAndPage

VestAndPage (Germany/Italy)

bio: Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes have been working together since 2006 as VestAndPage, gaining international recognition in the fields of performance art, performance-based film, writing, publishing, and with temporary artistic community projects. They explore performance art as a phenomenon through their collaborative creative practice, as well as through theoretical artistic research and curatorial projects. Their oeuvre is contextual and situation-responsive, conceived psycho-geographically in response to the social context, natural surroundings, historical sites and architectures. They perceive performance art as a need to explore physical, mental and spiritual bodies through the possibility of crossing the boundaries of exterior and interior, and to interface ephemeral art with existence. In ‘Poetics and Relations’ they examine notions of temporality, layers of memory, communication and the fragility of the individual and the collective within the social and environmental sphere. They apply the themes of faith in change, endurance, union, the sublimation of pain and risk-taking with a poetic bodily approach to the practice of art, focusing on universal human experience.

film screening: sin∞fin – Performances at the Core of the Looking-Glass

2012, Trilogy episode short, duration: 45’42”

Produced in Antarctica, the concluding episode  of the VestAndPage sin∞fin trilogy engages through its narrative with the wider spheres of nature and the universe. The trilogy of art films about collaborative performances in remote epic locations around the world is balanced between the real and the visionary, and the effect is amplified by its unfamiliar environments. The performances reflect on universal human experiences such as altruism, partnership and the transient nature of existence.

A VestAndPage production in co-production with: DNA Dirección Nacional del Antártico, Buenos Aires and Thetis Spa, Venice.
Presented by Zonadeartenacción, Residencias del Sur and SpinConectora.
Argentina / Italy / Germany, 2012
English with subtitles in Spanish
Concept, Performances, Camera: Verena Stenke, Andrea Pagnes
Post-production and editing: Verena Stenke
Text: Andrea Pagnes, Laura Bucciarelli, Aisha Ryannon Pagnes
Text Assistance: Gaston Lacombe
Spanish Translation: Roberto Ruiz
Soundscape and music: Zai Kuning, Angie Seah, Black Sea Hotel and recordings of Weddell seal callings under the ice courtesy of Douglas Quin.

Questions and Answers: “Antarctic Dream – Ice as Architecture of the Human Spirit, VestAndPage performative works in Antarctica” (Performing in extreme weather conditions and in places where humans do not belong to)

www.vest-and-page.de