We would like to announce and congratulate this year’s recipients for the
AIR Exchange Program.
The AIR Residence Exchange Program aims to support and encourage contemporary visual arts and promote international exchange between Frankfurt and Kuala Lumpur. The program offers young and emerging artists the opportunity to gain experience relevant to their own artistic practice and build an international network.
This exchange program was initiated in 2016 by Basis e.V. Frankfurt am Main and the Goethe-Institut Malaysia supported by Lostgens’ Contemporary Arts Space and Frankfurt’s Department for Culture (Kulturamt). This exchange program is the only one of this kind in Malaysia.
Visual artists from respective countries can apply for the scholarships by submitting a cover letter and a project proposal when there is an open call for applications once a year. The juries of the host countries participating in the program select the beneficiaries. The period of residence in a host country is three months. Visual artists from each country will receive a grant of 1,000 Euro living allowances per month and an additional Euro 500 if they will present a work or exhibition at the end of their residency. The participating city partner provides accommodation and studio.
The AIR Exchange Program also places great emphasis on a fair and professional selection process when it comes to choosing the candidates. The jury of independent experts will select up to five candidates for the consideration of the partner organisation, who will then make the final decision based on the applicant’s artistic development, portfolios and proposed project/activity during the residency.
This year’s residency artists are
Sarah Schoderer from Germany and
Helmi Azam from Malaysia.
Sarah Schoderer studied Fine Arts in Frankfurt and Main in Germany until 2011. Since then she worked as a freelancer doing art projects in various countries i.e. Kenya, Belgium, Croatia, Tunisia and of course Germany. She works mainly in painting but also creates sculptures for film and sculptures out of paintings. She sees herself as a conceptual working artist with a strong focus on visual forms that reflects different aspects of contemporary society. In her previous works, she analyzed the consumerism culture in the western society. In 2013 she did a workshop entitled „Copying Africa – Contemporary art or cliché“ with members of the Kuona Trust, an art center in Nairobi, where she raised the question on how to distinguish between art and kitsch in the African art and craft context.
Sarah Schoderer will begin her residency at the Lostgens` Contemporary Arts Space from 28 June – 20 August 2019. For more information about Sarah Schoderer, please visit
www.sarahschoderer.com
Helmi Azam (also known as Azam Aris) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UiTM Shah Alam in 2007. He was offered an Artist Residency at HOM Art Trans on the following year, which led to his first solo show titled „ Float“. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and international residency programs i.e. Ties of Tenggara at National Visual Arts Gallery Malaysia and ACME Studios London Residency. His works were displayed at Gwangju Fine Art Gallery in South Korea and at VIVA Art Fair in Bacolod City in the Philippines. Helmi is constantly expanding the scope of his practice and experimenting with various media. He exposes his details and secrets, even the disturbing and unspeakable, mixing facts and fictions in chapters that are both sequential and non-sequential, often putting the audience in state of solitude and mind captive.
Helmi will start his residency by the end of the year from October – December at Basis e.V. in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. During his residency he would like to continue and expand his ongoing project called Mapping Project, which focuses on the history, meaning and cultural activities on selected name of places. Thus he would like to research the name „Frankfurt“. It is also expected that he will produce a few paintings and a site-specific installation on drawings where he would invite the public to participate, respond and even be part of the artwork. For more information about Helmi Azam please visit
www.azamaris.com
This residency is in collaboration with Basis e.V. (Frankfurt), The City of Frankfurt, Lostgens` Contemporary Arts Space (Malaysia) and the Goethe-Institut Malaysia.
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