The Back Apartment Residency is glad to welcome our next three residents!
Henna Paunu (Espoo, Finland), Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde (Havana, Cuba) and Enrique Rottenberg (Havana, Cuba) will spend their time exploring St. Petersburg and its arts organizations, conducting research, creating new work, and sharing their art with the local community. Below is information about the participants and their proposed residency projects.
Henna Paunu (Espoo, Finland)
Henna Paunu is a chief curator of the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Finland. Apart from her work at the museum, Paunu curates public art, works as a critic, writer and part-time teacher of art history at the Aalto University in Helsinki. She is also a board member at Frame Contemporary Art Finland. In her curatorial work, Paunu explores the relation of contemporary art to environmental and social phenomena.
Project
While in St. Petersburg, Paunu plans to build new relationships with the local art community that can potentially result in future collaborations with art professionals. During her stay, Paunu will give a talk about public art projects and commission works in Espoo, Finland.
Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde (Havana, Cuba)
Special Invited Artist
Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde was born in Berlin, Germany in 1969 and currently lives and works in Havana, Cuba. He is an artist, curator and Director of the Fototeca de Cuba (National Museum and Gallery of Photography). Ramirez de Arellana was also chief curator of Fototeca de Cuba from 2001 to 2010 and as curator won the National Curatorial Award in 2006 for the exhibition The City and Photography: Havana 1900-2005 organized for the IX Havana Biennial. He is the founder and organizer of the Havana Month of Photography Noviembre Fotográfico and an internationally recognized contemporary artist, who as member of the team “Liudmila & Nelson,” represented Cuba at the 53rd Venice Biennial.
Proposed project
Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde is traveling to St. Petersburg in April 2017 to take part in the exhibition Shifting Metaphores: Cuba in Changing Times, Cuban Contemporary Photography and Video Art at the State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO. The exhibition is curated by Ramirez de Arellano Conde, together with St. Petersburg curator Yana Mikhalina. The exhibition provides a rare glimpse of contemporary Cuba through photographs by 18 Cuban photographers. The exhibition opens on April 20 and runs through June 25.
Enrique Rottenberg (Havana, Cuba)
Special Invited Artist
Born in Argentina in 1948, to Jewish parents of Polish descent, Enrique Rottenberg emigrated alone to Israel at the age of 13. After serving in the Israeli army, he developed a successful real estate business, while at the same time, beginning in 1980, he started producing films and studies at the Camera Obscura School of Tel Aviv. He was the director and screenwriter of the film Revenge of Itzik Finkelstein, which won 7 awards from the Israeli Film Academy (including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay) and represented Israel in 1994 for the Oscar Awards. In 1993, he moved to Cuba where he currently lives. In Cuba he began his photographic work and installations. He collaborates with the new cultural project “Cuban Art Factory” (Fábrica de Arte Cubano), promoting the development of contemporary photography and visual arts in Cuba.
Proposed project
Enrique Rottenberg is traveling to St. Petersburg in April 2017 to take part in the exhibition Shifting Metaphores: Cuba in Changing Times, Cuban Contemporary Photography and Video Art at the State Museum and Exhibition Centre ROSPHOTO. The exhibition is curated by Ramirez de Arellano Conde, together with St. Petersburg curator Yana Mikhalina. The exhibition provides a rare glimpse of contemporary Cuba through photographs by 18 Cuban photographers. The exhibition opens on April 20 and runs through June 25.
Back Apartment Residency 