Artists in Residency Presentations Asuncion Molinos Gordo Bettina Camilla Vestergaard Jawad El Malhi Karen Mirza & Brad Butler Søren Thilo Funder
				18 December, 2010 Rawabet Theatre, 7pm Hussien Pasha el Memar Street, Downtown – Cairo Tel: +20 2 2576 8086 - www.thetownhousegallery.com
				Asunción Molinos Gordo (Guzman, Burgos, Spain 1979) is a visual artist interested in the cultural phenomenon of rural contexts. Her work addresses issues such contemporary peasant identity, acculturation as seen in folk hybridization, fading traditions and living habits.  She studies the socio-cultural implications of agriculture, food production and other related activities on a local and global scale. Through her artistic practice, Molinos seeks to understand the ways in which “cultural value” is generated, applied or imposed, as well as the political implications of the broad concept often coined as “living heritage.” During her residency at Townhouse, Asunción Molinos has extensively researched different aspects of agriculture in Egypt, with a particular emphasis on the breadth of diversity in farming methods that are practiced from times past up until the present day. For this purpose Molinos traveled to remote regions of the country where she collected data and met with local farmers, landowners and agricultural engineers. She also complimented her field research by examining the impact of biotechnology, bureaucracy and food security policies on Egyptian agriculture. Currently in the second phase of her residency, Asunción Molinos has produced a substantial body of work that roused from the previous investigation process. Her exhibition* project, currently on view in Cairo (through 25 January, 2011), merges her research with an appropriation of the aesthetics of Cairene museums, including the Agriculture Museum and the Geographical Society, which were conceived during colonial times. www.asuncionmolinos.com * World Agriculture Museum 22 Abdel Khaleq Tharwat Street Third Floor, Apt. 6 (Below CIC) Downtown, Cairo - Egypt
				Bettina Camilla Vestergaard is a visual artist, who’s works explore how the roles of the visual and verbal are situated in the formation of identity, gender and space, with a particular focus on identity and place as fluid and mutable constructs. She often takes a contextual and research based approach to her subjects and works in a variety of medias such as photography, text, sound, intervention and installation. Vestergaard received her MFA from Malmoe Art Academy (SE) after having studied at Interdisciplinary Studio at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Aarhus (DK). Her work has been shown in group- and solo shows throughout Europe, in the US, Mexico and Vietnam and in 2009 it was awarded by the Danish Arts Foundation. Vestergaards most recent and largest project to date is a reinterpretation of a historical site in Denmark and the radical ideas that the place represented in the 1970s, as described by the Danish female writer Elsa Gress (www.decenterdecenter.net). Since 2008 she has done various collaborations with visual sociologist André Amtoft (DK/US). At the moment they are initiating the CVRP, a mobile interdisciplinary residency program for exploration of spaces of auto mobility. Vestergaard’s focus during her Townhouse residency is Cairo’s transformation of public space and the cultural and social significance such changes mean for Cairo’s residents. Vestergaard is currently based in Copenhagen (DK). www.bcvestergaard.com
				Jawad al Malhi’s practice spans painting, photography, video and site specific work and looks at the experience of marginalized communities and their relationship to space. His recent works explore alternative views of Jerusalem, taking archetypal, panoramic sightseeing vistas of the city as a starting point. Combining photography and video Al Malhi explores life in the centre and at the margins of Jerusalem. Exhibitions include In the Middle of the Middle (curated by Catherine David at Sfeir-Semier Gallery, Beirut) No Man’s Land? (Gemak, The Hague), the Sharjah Biennale 09, Palestine c/o Venice (curated by Salwa Mikdadi, Venice Biennale, 2009), Ground Floor America (curated by WHW at Den Frie in Copenhagen). Jawad was shortlisted for the Frieze Foundation Cartier Award, and has been nominated for this year’s Prix Pictet. He has held artists residences at Cite des Arts (Paris) Mamaus Ecole (Lisbon), Delfina Foundation (London), Eckernforde (Germany). His work is held in the collections of The British Museum, Barjeel Collection and private individuals.
				Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s current body of work is framed as The Museum of non Participation. This is an ongoing interest in seeking out thresholds in language, intervening in new possible sites of exhibition (and (non) participation) that provoke a contradictory pull between ‘autonomy’ and social intervention, reflecting on this both in the structure of the work and in the conditions of its reception. Mirza and Butler phrase this within their practice as an exploration of the politics of translation, translation within language and a performance of the condition of the ‘untranslatable’. A proposition of The Museum of non Participation as a site of gesture, as a set of relations between art, politics and the everyday that inevitably reflect on the (western) term ‘museum’ and the (out)reach of the many multiple frames of power and aesthetics, art and politics. Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s artistic practice is based on collaboration and dialogue. This manifests itself in a multi-layered practice of filmmaking, drawing, installation, photography, performance, publishing and curating. Their work is engaged with challenging and interrogating terms such as participation, collaboration, the social turn and the traditional roles of the artist as producer and the audience as recipient. Karen Mirza and Brad Butler have been actively involved in the London art scene for over thirteen years and have participated in many exhibitions in leading institutions in Europe and abroad. They recently received the 2009 production grant from the Museum of Contemporary Cinema Foundation Madrid, they were Festival Award winners at The 2010 Chicago Film and Video Festival and were nominated for the 2010 Transmediale Award Berlin. Their first film made in the context of the The Museum of Non Participation, The Exception and the Rule, has screened in over 16 major international festivals. Karen Mirza and Brad Butler’s forthcoming work opens at Vivid in Birmingham on 3rd November 2010. www.no-w-here.org.uk
				Søren Thilo Funder is a visual artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. His works are audio-visual productions dealing with diverse cultural fields and integrating aspects of critical theory, literature, theater, cinema, Sci-Fi, Horror, political activism and other counter-cultural disciplines. The works are formal investigations of the power relations of modern day society. Through the use of cinematic narratives, choreography and mise en scène, the works strive to expose the precariousness of contemporary society and the broken link between politics and the political. The works use the fictional and extra-real to pose new questions and generate a new potential space, a third place, for political contemplations and counter-memory. Søren Thilo Funder has a MA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He has exhibited his works in international galleries, film festivals, museum exhibitions and public space exhibitions. He has been an artist-in-residency at Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt Am Main and Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul. He was furthermore represented at the 2nd International Moscow Biennial for Young Art, the 6th International Liverpool Biennial and Manifesta 8. www.sorenthilofunder.com
				10 Nabrawy Street off Champollion Street, Downtown - Cairo - Tel: +20 2 2576 8086 info@thetownhousegallery.com - www.thetownhousegallery.com