'An Invocation to the Earth' is the first work posted on the platform
St_age (read "stage", as 'scenario' in English) is the "short version" of streaming age, which translates as the 'era of streaming', of multimedia playback on the internet. That is the name with which the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation (TBA21) has decided to baptize its digital project, created in response to the Covid-19 crisis.
"Like many other institutions, we find ourselves in the position of having to postpone or cancel projects with artists that matter to us a lot, so we asked them if they would consider the possibility of, instead of exhibiting their works at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid, transforming them into an online project", explains the head of TBA21, Francesca Thyssen-Bornesmiza.
Thus, in response to this "loss of culture", St_age intends to convert the difficulties suffered during this particular year into the "opportunity to explore a different medium " and "bring the works to a different audience", in the words of the collector.
In addition, taking advantage of the online format, new horizons are opened up to artists, such as attach all sources and research to your papers that they have used to document themselves. The platform also offers them a potentially infinite audience to get support both for the causes she defends and that have inspired her works, and to continue producing. In this way, St_age is configured as an interactive, close and exciting medium to enjoy the work of the most promising emerging artists.
24 ARTISTIC 'EPISODES' A YEAR
St_age will take place over two seasons a year, each of which will air 12 'episodes'. The first, by the Singaporean artist Yeo Siew Hua , is a call to action to oppose the Systematic killing of environmental activists in the Philippines . To help him in his mission, you can either share the content or sign a petition to support environmentalists.
The 'episode' also includes a list of articles justifying this request, a podcast in which the artist himself discusses the problem with other colleagues, and a video in which he is interviewed by expert Dan Koh about his work. audiovisual An Invocation to the Earth , also present on the platform. The latter, which can be seen below, is the centerpiece of the work.
"Deep in the tropical jungle of Southeast Asia, a series of enchantments invoke the spirits of yore, including those of the agile and tricky Kancil (mouse-deer) and the ferocious Buaya (crocodile)," the synopsis of the piece begins. In her, ancestral animals perform their folkloric vendetta while the effigy of a tree is burned , summoning a large number of specters and ancestors.
An Invocation to the Earth was conceived by Yeo Siew Hua during the Hungry Ghost Festival month of 2019, a holiday marked on the Chinese calendar, which occurred as massive fires consumed Indonesia's forests. Thus, the work intends confronting climate breakdown through the lens of pre-colonial folktales and animist rituals, evoking, at the same time, the environmental defenders assassinated in Asia.
ALSO IN THE MUSEUM
The platform will have its expository and expanded version in the sample Advance with light step, expanded stage , an exhibition that opens on October 5 at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and will run until December 13.