Kunstverein Archipelago is an association supporting various art projects strongly anchored in contemporary dance, choreography and performance practices. The association was founded in 2008 by Alexander Gottfarb and Anna Maria Nowak and has its base in Vienna, Austria.
As a geographical feature, archipelago is a stretch of water containing many islands. In the same manner Kunstverein Archipelago incorporates more than one line of artistic work. As artists working within the flexible structure of Kunstverein Archipelago, we embrace notions of collaboration and sharing.
We perceive art as a necessity of contemporary times, since it can provide alternative spaces in our material and immaterial realities. We see art as an activity born out of innate human nature. Our practice has always risen out of fascination over various forms of movement and dance – practices that put the human body at the center of attention and evoke a strong connection with “the present”. Our motivation to develop our practice is born out of the pursuit of personal curiosity about the particularities of contemporary world.
We are aiming to create performance works that can express ambivalence without being ambivalent, that allow for different ways of reading and interpretation. We believe in exploration of embodiment of thought and the advantages of the inevitable cross-breeding between different art-forms. Further we believe in responsibility and through our work we would like to acknowledge the relevance of a global dimension of contemporary life, providing ethical working conditions with the people we meet on our artistic pathways.
We see beauty in diversity.
Kunstverein Archipelelago supports and produces works of Alexander Gottfarb, Anna Maria Nowak and The Loose Collective http://theloosecollective.at
The Loose Collective
The Loose Collective is an Austria based group of international contemporary dancers, musicians and choreographers who came together in 2009 out of the desire to create dance and concert performances in a non-hierarchical structure. Their work is a constant search and research into the democratic process within and artistic context. The Collective was founded in 2009 and until now has created six stage works: Here Comes the Crook – A Contemporary Dance Musical (2010), The Old Testament According To The Loose Collective (2012), The Game Game (2014), The Music of Sound (2015), On Earth - Feeding, Fucking and Fighting Part 1 (2016) and On Earth - Feeding, Fucking and Fighting Part 2 (2017)
The members of the collective are Guenther Berger (AT), Alex Deutinger (AT), Michael Dolan (IE), Alexander Gottfarb (SE/AT), Hanna Hollmann (AT), Thomas Kasebacher (AT), Marta Navaridas (ES/AT), Anna Maria Nowak (PL/AT), Stephan Sperlich (AT), Frans Poelstra (NL, AT)
The Loose Collective has been performing and collaborating with following dance houses and festivals: Feedback Festival [1st+2nd edition], Kino Siska Ljubljana, Made in Dublin Festival, ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, Danceweek Festival Zagreb, Zimnyi Theater Sotschi, Opera Estate Festival Bassano del Grappa, Tanzwerkstatt Europa München, Dampfzentrale Bern, The Place London, BestOFFstyria Festival Graz (Großer Theaterlandpreis und Publikumspreis 2013), Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf, Les Plateaux Festival Paris, Julidans Amsterdam, Dansescenen Kopenhagen, Mercat dels Flors Barcelona, Dance<3Festival, Dansens Hus Stockholm, UOVO Festival Mailand, Tanz im August, Sophiensaele Berlin, steirischer herbst, Dom im Berg Graz, Kristallwerk, Graz and WUK.
Alexander Gottfarb
Alexander Gottfarb graduated from the Stockholm Ballet Academy in 2003. The Swedish artist lives in Vienna, working as a dancer for choreographers Elio Gervasi, Iztok Kovač, Chris Haring/Liquid Loft, among others. He is a founding member of The Loose Collective. Alexander Gottfarb’s interest in examining politically (Political Movements, 2010) or religiously (Moved by Faith, 2011) motivated forms of movement was already evident in his early pieces.
The dancer and choreographer uses repetition and transformation, discipline and exhaustion in his work. In his 72-hour solo performance A Matter of Belief (2016) he started to explore the effects of faith and motivation on the execution of movements. In the process, he has gained a new understanding of his physical memory as a dancer. In Together (2017), he introduced another two dancers to the performance, thus turning it into a trio. Now, Negotiations adds a new order of magnitude to the two pieces.
Anna Maria Nowak
Anna Maria Nowak is a freelance artist living and working in Vienna. She was born in Poland, where she studied Scandinavian Studies at the University of Gdańsk. She received her dance eduction at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz, Austria. In 2005 she moved to Vienna, where she began her collaboration with Elio Gervasi and liquid loft/Chris Haring. She is a co-founder of Kunstverein Archipelago, The Loose Collective and Arbeitsplatz Wien.
In her own work and collaborations Anna Maria Nowak is investigating the interplay between thought, sensation and movement and exploring notions such as displacement, synaesthesia and metaphor
Through working with artists such as Chris Haring and Gerhard Eckel she has developed a passion for merging movement with sound, looking for stage situations, where one cannot exist without the other.
Kunstverein Archipelago is kindly supported by the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna (MA7 - der Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien) and the bka The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria (bka Bundeskanzleramt für Kunst und Kultur)