Unforeseen Deviations

Alisa Berger’s work explores the family tree of her mother, whose ancestors fled Korea during the Japanese Empire. She intertwines this history with those of other Japanese and Korean diasporas, creating a textile collage. Additionally, she presents a new video work that focuses on a friend from Donbas—a region where war has persisted for a decade. This friend, displaced and unable to visit his home for the past six years, is depicted in a unique digital confrontation with a 3D model of his home.

Prolile
Alisa Berger was born in 1987 in Makhachkala, Republic of Dagestan, and raised in Lviv, Ukraine. She studied film and fine arts at the Academy of Media Art Cologne (KHM) and at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá. With her diploma film and fiction feature debut, ‘The Astronauts' Bodies’, she was nominated for the Max Ophüls Prize and for the FIRST STEPS Award of the Deutsche Filmakademie. She was also the recipient of the Best Film Award for New Directors at Int. Film Festival Uruguay and the Screenplay Award of H.W. Geißendörfer.
Alisa Berger creates films and installations, often in a collaborative process, that are accompanied, created, changed or destroyed within performative interventions. She has had solo exhibitions at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon (Seoul), HMKV (Dortmund), or PATARA Gallery (Tbilisi) and participated in many group shows like the Museum Biennale (Krasnoyarsk), Kindl – Center for Contemporary Art (Berlin), KAI 10, Arthena Foundation (Düsseldorf), MMOMA - Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow) or the BACC Bangkok Art & Culture Center (Bangkok).
Since 2011 she has collaborated with Lena Ditte Nissen under the name bergernissen. She is co-founder of the international film production company FORTIS FEM FILM, which dedicates its work to increasing the visibility of women and their stories in film. Additionally, Berger works in sound performance and hosts a monthly show on dublab.de as a DJ.

HP  linker  vimeo  Linkedin  Twitter  Facebook  instagram

Irem Tok (b. 1982) lives and works in Istanbul. My works found their base on concepts such as helplessness, fragility, temporariness of being a human and develop through one’s relationship with nature and knowledge. Nature’s coexistence with humanity and civilization, as well as it’s clash, holds an important place in my works. Besides, the concept of constructed history and the irony of human’s attempts to understand the whole universe even if we still can’t understand the origin of life comes interesting to me. The main character of the movie Dersu Uzala (1975) says “Everything is small in the face of nature.”. My works share the same idea, human is very little in relation to trees, mountains, sky and inside the life’s obscurity that one fell. Literature and poetry, as the products of human’s inner life, also science and philosophy as the products of struggle to understand the cosmos are my inspiration. I usually use different mediums, it change and transform in relation to the concept which I’m working on. I create dialogues between mediums such as sculpture, painting, animation, ceramics and scenes, atmospheres with fine details. Encyclopedia, history books, dictionaries appeal me with their content and as objects. In my works, encyclopedias find their place as symbols of knowledge and culture. Just like geological layers, I cut pages of history books and constitute natural scenes. I dig each page as an archeologist who tries to dig the history of world and humanity. On every new surface we encounter a time purified from past, a moment I witness. And sometimes a prehistoric time freed from writing comes out of the blue. Artist-in-residence programs: Kamiyama Air, Japan (2018) Cité des Arts, Paris (2013), Villa Waldberta, Munich (2012), art.homes, Munich (2011), School Gate Project of Incheon Foundation for Art & Culture, South Korea (2010), Litmus Community Space, South Korea (2009). Solo exhibitions are “Close Up” (Pilot, İstanbul, 2019) “Heian No Mori” (Kamiyama, Japan, 2018), “Where I Fell into Earth” (Pilot, Istanbul, 2016), “Against the Wind” (Pilot, Istanbul, 2013) and “Fade Away” (Outlet Galeri, Istanbul, 2011). Selected group exhibitions include; Buch Welten, Book World, Sinclair Museum, Frankfurt, Germany (2017), “Desire: Selections from the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection”, Istanbul (2015), “Signs Taken in Wonder”, MAK Museum, Wien (2013), “Blur”, Weltraum, Munich (2012), “Etats d’Ames” ENSBA, Paris (2010), “Mind Models: the First Show”, Borusan Music and Art Center, Istanbul (2010)

HP  pilotgaleri  instagram Facebook

Born in Nagano as the third generation of Korean residents in Japan, she "got married and came to" Korea in 2017. After visiting Andong Hanji Workshop in 2018, she visited her great-grandfather's permanent residence in Korea. She was so moved and touched that she called her parents and found out that it was his memorial ceremony day. She felt the fate of being led by her ancestors. Currently, she is producing artwork and performance using a unique 'paper' by directly combining 'Hanji' with 'Matsuzaki Washi' from her hometown, Shinano Omachi in Japan. The main theme is to explore the diversified identity of Japan, Korea, and Korean residents in Japan, and to visualize gaps resulting from cultural and historical differences. Her recent exhibitions include ,Yellow Memory2023,Baggat Art Exhibition (Korea),Shinano Primitive Sens Art Festival (Japan 2015), the Korean Diaspora-Hanji airplane2022 (Incheon Art Platform), the SadoIsland Galaxy Art Festival 2021 (Japan), Intangible Residency #2 Ha Jhon-nam solo exhibitions, etc.

Youtube  Facebook  instagram HP 

Organiser of this exhibition. She depicts what stories the land has to tell, not with a brush but with strokes of thought. She began his career with the performance ‘Umareppanash!’, in which she returned her influence to the area where he grew up, using temples and shrines in Tokyo as stages. In 2004, Began making installations. Also began writing critiques and other writings for art-related web media (2007-). Since 2010, she has also organised and curated exhibitions.
The installation ‘It Can't Happen Here’ (2013, YumiSONG Solo Exhibition, Chukyo University Art Gallery C-Square, Aichi) intersects the memories of the Jeju 4.3 incident (massacre) that her father experienced as a child and the artist's own memories of intimidation after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and is an abstract story that can happen to anyone, anywhere. 'Philosopher's Room'(2011, Nakanojo Biennale, Gunma, Japan), a bus tour through the town to follow the memory landscapes of the people who live there, which have shifted without being verbalised. 'Make a GOD' (2012, Shigaraki Act, Shiga, Japan), a collection of teacups that have been used for a long time by people living in the area, and a tea party dealing with the 'existence' that emerges from the materials triggered by the memories of the teacups.
She co-curated the exhibition 'When The Wind Blows'(2015, Millennium Court Arts Centre - Portadown, Northern Ireland) as an overseas trainee for emerging artists with the Agency for Cultural Affairs. General director of the 'ARAFUDO Art Annual' (2013, 2014, Fukushima, Japan) Curator of 'Fuji no Yama Biennial 2014, Travelling Theory' (2014, Shizuoka, Japan). Director of Kazenosawa museum (2014-2017, Miyagi, Japan), among others.
Since 2016, she has organised irregular Wikipedia editathons to increase the number of female authors. She also founded the artist-run Baexong Arts (2016-).

HP  Twitter  Facebook  instagram Wikipedia