Supernova

The fascinating thing about a supernova is that no one has ever seen one. What we see is the reverberation of the explosion: an eruption whose brightness first  reac h es us hundreds of years later. Soon, the star Beteigeuze, of the constellation Orion, should explode. Will we witness it? It could be visible tomorrow, or in 10’000 years. The idea of a star collapsing and then exploding is breathtaking. An incredible energy i s released, and  for a short time the supernova shines as brightly as a whole galaxy.

After much intensive work, our diploma exhibition «Supernova» will be  vis ible for just a short time in Nova Brunnen and will— we hope—reverberate!

Nova Brunnen

Nova Brunnen is dust, smashed windowpanes, crum bling cement; animals nesting in areas from which they were once ex-pelled without exception; and plants that thrive in places from which all things  vegetative were once ban-ished. The large, decaying buildings bear witness to the past and awaken fanta-sies of what was and what could be. Nova Brunnen has a life of its own-brilliant! It is the old cement factory in idyllic Brunnen-Ingenbohl and has been empty for years. In its place, the development project Nova Brunnen, which will create living and working spaces, is in planning. The place possesses a special charisma, a result of the mixture between that which is abandoned and that which will soon be reshaped.

Transformation

The temporary use of the site for our diploma exhibition “Supernova” is a transformation of the former factory into an art space. The concrete structure creates a frame for our works and  places them in the context of its history. Different things can be formed from traces and fragments. According to the performer Mike Pearson and the archaeologist Michael Shanks, the past «as it was» is neither stable nor homogeneous; it is ultimately an illusory category. Reading the meanings of a place is a social practice.^¹ The encounter with a place produces multiple experiences. In this sense, we understand the exhibition as a moment of encounter, in which relationships between the giv-en location and other past, present and future environments are explored. Questions of sustainability and the coexistence of people and other- than-people are negotiated. Everyday life and the actions associated with it are examined through performance and installation. The importance of memories in their fleeting and materialised forms, the question of how questions about our future can be addressed, these are the matters at hand. We occupy ourselves with social norms, personal destinies and fetishes. The analogue space finds its entrance into the digital, the digital into the analogue and worlds merge, be it linguistically, performatively, or through visual media.

state of tension

Again and again, we have travelled to Brunnen, to discover, research, and discuss. The landscape at Lake Lucerne, with its steep mountains and deep lake, is impressive. So far, we have only gotten to know Brunnen in the sunlight, almost as if the shadowed sides of the place remain hidden. The Muota flows calmly along-side the exhibition site. According to the Schweizerisches  Idiotikon, the name Muota derives from Muet, which originally meant «intense excitement». The exhibition in Nova Brunnen takes place in a similar state of tension: We want to make waves without overflowing, as the Muota regularly does. Instead, we want to shine.

Graduating class Master of Fine Arts 2022

¹Mike Pearson and  Michael Shanks, Theatre/ Archaeology, (London:  Routledge, 2001) pp. 11, 53.

Künstler*innen

Adrina Casutt Antonia Röllin Clemens Fellmann Delia Schiltknecht Elsbeth Iten Fabian Werren Gabriel Kessler Ivan Röösli Karin Vogt Laura D'Arcangelo Luca Caluori Maria Beglerbegovic Matthias Schönbächler Melissa Frei Mirta Lepori Noemi Gamma Patric Blanck Piero Good Raphael Schmidt Romana Jeker Shaun Dziedzic Veronika Nepple Xenia Joss