Session 001 | Monika Weiss
The Artist in Residence program’s inaugural session is devoted to the new sound composition by Polish-American artist Monika Weiss, Metamorphosis (Dafne), an ambisonic environment and forthcoming album.
Based on the artist’s piano improvisations, Metamorphosis (Dafne) is inspired by the story of Daphne, the mythological Nymph who escaped rape by becoming a tree, where “the music evokes her skin hardening into a tree bark, her voice becoming whispering leaves. The escape from the violence is marked by her death but also by reincarnation into a new life form” (Monika Weiss).
The permanent ambisonic outdoor sound environment will be installed in a public park at the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, Poland, a national heritage institution, as part of the artist’s multimedia outdoor project Nirbhaya – a monument devoted to victims of everyday violence.
Monika Weiss’ Nirbhaya is an outdoor monument – a sculpture resembling an ancient sarcophagus filled with water and a moving image. The monument’s first permanent outdoor location is in a public park at the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko | National Heritage Institution of Poland. The second location of the monument is being co-organized by Streaming Museum in US and will be announced soon.
The monument Nirbhaya is named after Jyoti Singh, aka ‘Nirbhaya’, who was raped and killed at the age of 23 in New Delhi in 2012. It is a memorial not for conquerors and war heroes but for forgotten victims of everyday violence. The project received generous support from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis.
EMA continues to support the production of all media and technology aspects of the moving image and sound as part of the monument design.
IMAGE: Monika Weiss, Nirbhaya (2021) Limited edition C-print, still from moving image sequence, part of the forthcoming monument. Courtesy the artist.
Forthcoming from the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko Press is a bi-lingual monograph Monika Weiss: Nirbhaya with texts by Griselda Pollock, Mark McDonald, Meena Alexander, Eulalia Domanowska, Kalliopi Minioudaki, Buzz Spector, Weronika Elertowska, Katarzyna Falęcka and Maciej Alexandrowicz.
Two concurrent solo exhibitions devoted to Nirbhaya monument are opening in March 2021, at CEL Creative Exchange Lab | Center for Architecture + Design STL – Monika Weiss: Nirbhaya (March 31 - April 22) and at the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, Poland Monika Weiss: Nirbhaya (March 27 – May 23).
CEL Creative Exchange Lab is organizing a series of international panel discussions Monument | Anti- Monument inspired by Monika Weiss’ project and moderated by Rick Bell. Speakers include artists, architects, historians and activists and will be announced soon.
The artist wishes to express thanks to Lamar Johnson Collaborative (St. Louis/Chicago) for supporting the architectural technology of the monument.
