05 Oct 2024
Art & Words Festival: Jellyfish & Deep Dreams
Youmna Chlala, Ingela Ihrman, Tuomas A. Laitinen och David M. Peña-Guzmán, Milena Høgsberg
On Saturday, October 5, Wanås Konst kicks off the second edition of the Wanås Art & Words festival, exploring contemporary art and the literature inspired by nature and more-than-human worlds. This year’s festival, titled Jellyfish and Deep Dreams, builds on the themes of the exhibition The Ocean in the Forest. The new art works in the sculpture park explore an intuitive connection to the ocean through the senses, inviting you to observe, listen, and become more attuned to the natural world.
About ART& WORDS FESTIVAL
Join us for a full day of engaging activities, both indoors and outdoors, which will offer fresh air, art, food, music and words and an opportunity to reflect on the stories that shape our relationship with the planet and its diverse life forms.
Drop by the creative workshop in the Studio and create your own jellyfish or write ocean and forest stories. Play an ocean melody with other visitors on artist Eduardo Navarro’s jellyfish that doubles as an instrument. Join a collective listening session in Youmna Chlala’s blue sun chairs and walk with a guide for a collection tour that explores how artists have worked with spoken and written text over the years. Encounter the South American giant otter in the beech wood at Wanås during Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman’s live performance. In the afternoon, experience Finnish artist Tuomas Laitinen’s electronic music set, accompanied by dreaming octopuses and wrap up the day with keynote speaker David M. Peña-Guzmán, author of When Animals Dream, who will share his insights on animal consciousness.
Get ready for a day for all the senses! Dress in layers and practical shoes, as many of the activities will take place outdoors in the lush beech forest at Wanås.
About artists
Tuomas A. Laitinen(b. 1976, Riihimäki, Finland) graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. He lives and works in Helsinki. Laitinen has exhibited his work broadly, both in Finland and internationally. In 2014-15, his work was the subject of a major solo at EMMA – Espoo, Finland Museum of Modern Art. And at Amado Art Space in Seoul, Korea in May, 2018. In 2021, Laitinen’s works were shown in the Helsinki Biennial and he received the prestigious AVEK Award.
Youmna Chlala (born in Beirut, Lebanon and based in New York, USA) uses drawing, sculpture and installation to explore language, fate and architecture. In Chlala’s installation in the park, a group of deckchairs forms a streak of color on the horizon and invite the viewer to sit back and listen to a poetic story where the artist’s childhood memories of Beirut are mixed with reflections on the nature of the sea and forest.
Evan Ifekoya (b. 1988 in Iperu, Nigeria, based in London, UK) is interested in the interaction between sound, architecture, nature and the human body. On a hill in the sculpture park, Ifekoya has made an architectural intervention in a gazebo or “folly” thought to have been constructed by the landowners in the 1920s, creating a sensory space for movement, sound and energy and their healing and transformative power.
Ingela Ihrman (b. 1985 Kalmar, Sweden), studied at Konstfack in Stockholm where she now after many years in Malmö lives and works. Ihrman has had solo exhibitions at Malmö Konsthall (2023), Carl Eldh’s Studio Museum, Stockholm (2023); Gaswor ks, London; Kristianstad konsthall (2018); der TANK, Institut Kunst, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel (2017) and Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2016). She has also participated in the Yokohama Triennale (2020); Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2019); and in the Gwangju Biennale (2016).
Eduardo Navarro (b. 1979, based in Argentina) creates situations that affect the senses and our perception of the world around us. In the sculpture park, Navarro invites the visitor and the wind to playfully interact with a huge jellyfish-like sculpture wrapping an old oak tree.
Dr. David Peña-Guzmán received his PhD in philosophy from Emory University in 2015 and is an associate professor at San Francisco State University. His work focuses on animal studies, the history and philosophy of science, continental philosophy, and theories of consciousness.
