AOH talks to House of Qualia
The House of Qualia sounds intriguing – what are the aims of your Open House exhibition?
Qualia (singular, quale) is a technical term used mostly in philosophy and neuroscience representing individual instances of subjective conscious experiences. These experiences, such as a smell of a rose, taste of wine, colour or pain, are understood to be unique and not communicable in common language. With House of Qualia I investigate whether art, understood as a conscious creative artistic practice could communicate what is deemed subjective and incommunicable in language alone. I try to do that by encouraging our artists to present their artistic practice holistically, in any way they wish and are capable of, and I have for this purpose created events. In addition, I explore the extent to which individual experiences are capable, as a result of collaboration between artist or interaction with public, of being collective. This is in my view crucial to artistic process as it brings a new aspect to what an individual artist is capable of creating and achieving, I.e, artists become richer for such (collaborative) experiences.
You have an international group of artists exhibiting with you – can you tell us where they are from and how you selected them?
I was born in a country which no longer exists (Yugoslavia) and artists participating are my friends from those territories as well as UK. They all have some connection to Brighton – have lived, worked, studied or visited. The international aspect also relates to the origins of artwork presented: Film Rakija Western by Brighton based Vladimir Jaksic as well as Second World by London based Oscar Hudson and Ruben Woodin are filmed on the territories of ex-Yugoslavia. Granny Project was filmed in Germany, Hungary and UK. Margareta Jelic is established Serbian artist and art theorist who has exhibited in many countries. Painted stones by Montenegrin Sanya Budna who is also based in Brighton, come from all over the world.
As well as urban, fine arts and installations, you have performing arts, music and film screenings.
Can you tell us a bit about Merry Colchester and friends who are staging a dance performance?
Merry Colchester is Bristol based actor and filmmaker who graduated in Performing Arts at Brighton University. He was originally scheduled for a dance performance, but this has now (mainly down to Great Escape Festival) been replaced by Merry’s new pilay, an interactive street show ‘Blockbuster Brothers’: Two big time American directors are coming up with ideas for their new blockbuster. With only a bowl of bananas as props and people from the street, the two directors try out scenes for their film. This performance will be staged in between my living room and Regent Street, next to Komedia, Great Escape venue. The play is created and directed by Merry’s collective www.catandmousetheatre.com.
Also the multi-award winning documentary Granny Project and Timothy Didymus’s a sound installation Kosmiche Glass concert, sound really interesting – can we hear a little more about them?
Having been screened in Cinemas from Toronto to Taiwan as well as on TV across Europe, a successful feature documentary Granny Project comes to Brighton! Granny Project is a result of a seven year long investigation of three young men (one of them is Merry Colchester and another Ruben Woodin) coming to terms with their heritage through the extraordinary lives of their grandmothers: an English spy, a dancer from Nazi Germany and a Hungarian communist Holocaust survivor. The film deals with classic values and taboo-like historical topics through a method which gives an insight to the zeitgeist of the young today. The screening is scheduled to start at 6pm and it will be followed by a chat with the filmmaker. Granny Project website: http://www.
Finally would you like to tell us about your own work Stories from the Stones, mystical storytelling through interactive art, live music and vocal performance?
I present my work under name of Qualia. Through media of photography and editing, I explore a number of philosophical questions, such as being, time, consciousness and perception.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
I would also like to mention that we have child friendly events as well as adults; the first is a video game created by the above mentioned Serbian artist Margareta Jelic – Martha’s Cupcakes which will run on Sunday 19th between 12&4pm, followed by an evening of her animations.
