Women CineMakers vol. 9 - Interview

You can find the whole interview with me and a bunch of other talented

Women Cinemakers here:

https://issuu.com/women_cinemakers/docs/vol.9

 

 

 

Ridi, Pagliaccio

GATE ART ZONE - NO. 3 - PERFORMANCE

Angelika Fojtuch

Markus Mussinghoff

Diana Rönnberg

Artur Stashak & Cassie Martin

All photos were taken by: Agnieszka Krasowska 

https://gate-art-zone.net/

Stories from the Forest, Records from the City

Photo: Kamil Milewski

chosen filmstills

Photo: Sylwester Galuschka

Cat-holic Lover

 Photo: Kamil Milewski

Photo by: Sylwester Galuszchka

 Lion Queen 

 ↓ Click on the title to listen to the song in soundcloud ↓

 Last goodbye
 

 ↓ Click on the title to listen to the song in soundcloud ↓

 Songs are spells

Photo: Kamil Milewski

Photos by: Sylwester Galuschka

 

↓ Click on the title to listen to the song in soundcloud ↓

Maggie the Cat

Sandra and Liam

↓ Click on the title to listen to the song in soundcloud ↓

Vagrant Story

The bhavacakra - Buddhist wheel of becoming

The Ghost

Me as Damsel in Distress
Photo taken by the ghost of Andy Warhol!!!

 Andy Warhol

 Fun City outside of Varberg

 Marcel Duchamp as the Death of Art

 Theodor W. Adorno at the graveyard

Stories from the Forest, Records from the City 

Trail of breadcrumbs

Songs are spells

   

My study takes the concept of liminality as its focal point. I consider liminality from various perspectives since it is a state in-between, hiding a silent promise of metamorphosis. I juggle and play with various artistic forms and expressions reflecting the process of becoming, transformation and a state of cultural and aesthetic limbo.

I begin my dissertation by analyzing how my double cultural background and the fact that I have been strongly affected by three languages during my upbringing: Polish, English and Swedish, have made me rootless and mysterious. Then, I moved over to study how the forest can be seen as a liminal space - a no-man’s land - where transformation takes place in classical folk & fairy tales with a special emphasis on the traditional Grimm Brother’s tale Hansel and Gretchen, which I study thoroughly and it becomes a sort of inspiration for my whole PhD project. The patron and god of liminality – Hermes, worshipped at crossroads and lacking temple is also present in my essay, functioning as a reminder that the ancient messenger god was actually the true inventor of the most important music instrument for Greeks – the Lyra. Since liminality is the middle stage of a traditional rite of passage I am interested in how music functions as the key ingredient in all rituals, with a special focus on the role of words and lyrics. I believe that songs are our contemporary substitute for magical spells; with their repeatability and relatedness to rhythm and beat.

The practical part of my work is comprised of an installation in the space of the gallery Kolonia Artystów in Gdańsk. The installation located in four rooms of the gallery includes two main parts, each of them constituting an autonomous whole, contrasting as regards formal expression. There is a holistic set of connections between them, which combines these two worlds into one installation. What makes these two worlds coherent are instant photos in different shapes and colors, which were taken in Sweden and in Poland creating my own trail of breadcrumb. The first visual project proposed as a part of my doctoral work is a diptych video Stories from the forest, records from the city, including cityscapes and landscapes focused on the sphere of sacrum, symbolic poetic mood and nomadism. The project is based on the conceptual artistic methodology characteristic of the contemporary art.

The second part is comprised of numerous elements of the artistic activity of duet Combi Cats, which I co-originate together with Kordian Lewandowski. An installation consisting of a musical odyssey derived from a linear structure, located spatially, includes musical objects, sculptures, and a cycle of video clips permeated with a trickster’s energy.

The artistic activity of Combi Cats as regards its post-modernist form and references to the aesthetics of the mass art may be associated with a public sphere and the term ‘carnivalesque’ as coined by Mikhail Bakhtin. These distinct counterpoints (sacrum-profanum, low-high) are the reflection of my dichotomous nature and being torn on the ground of nationalities, emotions and religions, the source of which can be found in my double Swedish-Polish identity and my past closely connected with Christianity and a loss of faith.

When home is more of a feeling than a space, I take roots in the world through poetic mood. These are my songs on the border between forest and city, between one language and another, expressed in the third one, which holds them together, between solitude and being a part of a society. This is a dialogue between living and dead poets. From other people’s words I carve the rosary of my own prayers and incantations to cross subsequent thresholds of the world.

                          

Diana Rönnberg

PhD Installation - 2017

Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk
Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia
Supervisor: prof. dr hab. Grzegorz Klaman
Auxiliary supervisor: dr Katarzyna Lewandowska
Reviewers:
dr hab. Iwona Demko
dr hab. Dominik Lejman