Festival Statement 

Festival Program 

Long Ago and Far Ahead festival statement 

Amidst the relentless struggles for cultural identity and autonomy, we see movements emerging to both isolate and usurp elements of regional difference. The danger shared by protectionism and globalization is intolerance. A true commitment to developing inherent communication, understanding and tolerance can only be realized through critical dialogue and recognition of our histories and our futures.  

For Long Ago and Far Ahead, artists will follow the threads binding tradition and unconvention - exploring what histories and futures share in defining difference. By employing a determination not to dismiss pasts nor resist futures, they will map the possibilities of cultural connections not rooted in homogeny or hegemony. Towards bridging the gaps of generations, they will experiment with inventing metaphors that speak for both memory and imagination.  

Amongst many other questions, we ask:  

What role does invention play in traditional and native art? 
How can experimental art admit its roots and still invent? 
What common languages can or do pasts and futures use? 

CESTA's festival parameters of cross-national interdisciplinary collaborations represent the center's commitment to improving communication through creative expression. We base our selection of artists on a review of applications resulting from our annual open call. Applicants request CESTA to connect them with collaboration partners or apply as a pre-formed collaboration group. For Long Ago and Far Ahead, festival collaboration groups must contain:  

1) a. Artists working with traditional, indigenous, or native art forms 
    AND 
    b. Artists working with unorthodox, unconventional, or avant-garde art 
       forms 
2) more than one artistic medium 
3) more than one nationality 
4) work created exclusively for Long Ago and Far Ahead 
5) artists with experience in artistic collaboration 

Long Ago and Far Ahead Program 
(Entrance fee by donation) 

Thursday, August 24th   20,00 

Open Public Forum 
Public and press are invited to an open discussion with the participants and staff 
 

Friday, August 25th    20,00 

"MEMORY" 
Tonton Macoutes (CZ), Claudia Schmid (CH), Hideko Kawamoto (JAP) 
electronic music, acoustic music, butoh dance, installation 

"re/Trace" 
George Cremaschi (USA), Abdelali Dahrouch (MOR/USA), Andrea Polli (USA) 
sound, music & video installation and performance 
The examination of a distant, yet persistent and recurring echo, whispers of language, visual traces of human impressions. 
George Cremaschi is a contrabassist from New York and San Francisco who has collaborated extensively in the pursuit of expanding both traditional and non-traditional musical language, vocabulary, and discourse. 
"Abdelali Dahrouch is an artists who lives and works in New York. A sociologist might describe him as a tri-continental internationalist (Morocco, France, USA) since his personal history situates at an intersection where multiple perspectives form a a very particular and unique consciousness. Dahrouch's work falls broadly within the tendency which Donald Kuspit calls 'Art of Conscience'"-Rudolf Baranik 
Andrea Polli is a digital media installation and performance artist living in Chicago, who is currently a faculty member at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Chris Mann (USA) 
language/voice/sound 
Language is the mechanism whereby you understand what I'm thinking better than I do (where 'I' is defined by those changes for which I is required). 
 

Saturday, August 26th      20,00 

RE-PLACE (Bako Andrea, Kallo Angela, Felician Morcan, Selek Levente, Soos Eniko, Mihaela Tatulescu) (RO)  
installation, sound 
Sculpture. Textiles. Ceramics. Photography. Video. 
And more. More others. 
These are the things we are able to do. 
And more. More others. Like the others. 
We are here. We are ironing. Ironing through time. 
Trying to Re-Place the things. 

"Pseudo Duos & Parallel Performances" 
Sam Ashley (USA) & Jens Brand (D) 
vocals, sound installation 
Aware that we are never alone the pseudo-duo performs parallel solos, featuring vocals by Sam (authentic spirit possession as vocal technique; "Not the food that fell in the closet!" and other uses of trance as a source of tales of adventure) and computer controlled ratchets, motors and chimes by Jens ("volume is not a question of electronic amplification"). 
Sam Ashley is an artist, but he is also a dedicated mystic.  He has devoted his life to the invention of an experimental trance-mysticism; his music/art expresses this. 
Jens Brand studied visual arts in Münster, Germany. He lives and works as a composer, musician, visual & audiovisual artist and organizer in Dortmund, Germany. His experiments with everything that can be considered to be art are not supposed to establish a belief or truth, but try to offer a fruitful soil for research, communication and progressive failure. 
Sam and Jens have been collaborating (in one form or other) since March 1986.  

"May I Introduce Myself" 
BLUNT (Biliana Velkova (CDN/BG), Naomi Potter (CDN/E), Barbara Prokop (CDN/A) hosting Larissa Fassler (CDN) 
video installation 
A black wig, a blue dress, and an overly made up face are the components of a female character that the four artists created and later became. With every take, "May I Introduce Myself" re-invents this image to allow each artist to inhabit her. Color, speed, and the mixing of her image creates a confusion that blurs the line between character and individual. 
Blunt was established in 1999 as an independent artist and curatorial collective, specializing in exchanges between Canada, Eastern and Central Europe. The main curatorial body of Blunt consists of Barbara Prokop, Biliana Velkova and Naomi Potter. The collective functions primarily as a project umbrella under which artists and curators are invited to participate. For this project Blunt has invited Larissa Fassler as a contributing artist. 
 

ZIMA 
Tomas Misiunas, Saulius Drunga, Margarita Kazakeviciute, Tomas Kontautas (LT) 
music 
 

Sunday August 27th      19,30 

"(UN)HEIM(L)ICH, the unhome(l)y home"  
+ "Ohen a Svetlo/ Fire and Light " 
Brandon Labelle, (USA), Sven Eggers (D), Antonin and Katerina Gavlasovi (CZ) 
electronic music, installation, ceramics and encaustic painting 
The idea is to focus on home, the pasts of past childhood like the pirates island under the desk or the kosmonauts or indians, the all day pasts and futures. There is a "house", a "home," but these words mean not a financial property. It's more the feeling as a starting point for imagination. A small small story. 

"Voices of Water" 
Voices of Water: Gail Tremblay [Native American (Onondaga / MicMac / USA)], Lilian Pitt [Native American (Warm Springs / Yakama / Wasco / USA)], Imna Arroyo (Puerto Rico), Li Xiuqin (PRC), Shi Hui (PRC), Betsy Damon (USA) 
earth, water, stone, fiber/multimedia installation, video, performance, sound 
The voice of water not only speaks as it falls from the skies; its voice rises from the hollows of earth, from the deepest canyons under the ocean, from lakes, rivers, springs, creeks, and wells. Water has sustained life on the planet for generations and without it life on earth would not have come into being as it did, manifesting itself in hundreds of thousands of life forms.  Everywhere, cultures have developed a reverence for living water, which inhabits our cells, heals us, washes us, nourishes us, and makes our lives possible. Peoples have developed distinct language, myth, and ceremony to preserve ancient wisdom about water, yet, the human race, as we enter the 21st Century has acted in ways that make the problem of water quality a major crisis all over the globe. In this age, which pressures so many people into a global economy, which does not protect the environment, we feel it is important to realize wisdom about earth and particularly about water. It is not about creating a monoculture that obliterates differences, but about struggling to understand the richness in difference which has sustained life on the planet. The Voices of Water installation project will combine visual, audio and video elements from various cultural perspectives to speak to these issues. 

"Ghosts and Motors" 
Sam Ashley (USA) & Jens Brand (D) 
vocals, sound installation 
Please see Saturday's program 

Jiri Dobes (CZ) 
Sergey Kotov (RUS) 
movement, music 
 

Monday, August 28th  20,00 

Open Public Forum 
Public and press are invited to an open discussion with the participants and staff 

with generous assistance from: 
International Artists Residencies 
University of North Texas 
Northwest Indian Policy Institute 
Eastern Connecticut State University 
APEX changes 
Center for Contemporary Arts - Prague 
Cheiron T. 
Cafe Bar Sedm 
Ecco 
Ladislav Bartacek Design 
Katerina Kubesova 
City of Tabor 
 

Back