Trabeska by Gerard Ortín
Forest trail, performance and artistic intervention
With artist Gerard Ortin as guide
“Nature (that reified, mythical thing over
yonder in the mountains, in our DNA, wherever)
dissolves when we look directly at it”.
Tim Morton, Queer Ecology (2010)
This is the start-up to the LaPublika programme and a statement of intent for the whole project. The proposal by Gerard Ortín, Trabeska, follows the transect method to delve into concepts that cover landscape or territory, and the tension between map and experience. The transect is a method whereby a portion of land is marked off for study. Tracing a straight line upon a map and experiencing the tension between it and the physical place it occupies. When this piece of land is examined, rather than a space being found, it is produced.
Trabeska offers an exploration of a space that is untamed, off the beaten track, traversing areas of dense vegetation. Sound takes us into a changing environment. A foray into a controlled space where walking becomes an activity of appropriation. The symbolic construction of the place and the physical experience of it work both as a stimulus and an obstacle. Far from presenting a bucolic or romantic notion of landscape, what is under exploration is its elusive nature. The supposedly untouched, “over yonder in the mountains”, original, virginal and innocuous, has become outworn as a point of departure.
At the same time, Trabeska is the first sound piece created for the project’s online radio format, the radio-web LaPublika, which can be accessed for a different experience of this work.
Practical information
Participation in the activity is free.
There will be organized travel to the intervention zone, around Besaide.
The route is of average-high difficulty. You will need hiking shoes and suitable clothing for negotiating areas of dense vegetation, brambles and mud.
This is not an activity for the minors.
How to register
Prior registration by e-mail is essential (until all places are filled, maximum 15 people per group).
If you are interested, send a mail to info@lapublika.org before Friday 16 October, specifying whether you are leaving from Bilbao or from Donostia. Confirmation will be sent via mail.
Departures
From Donostia. Meeting at 09.00 (Bus station- Pío XXII). Approximate return to Donostia at 15.00
From Bilbao. Meeting at 13.30 in Plaza San Nicolás. Approximate return to Bilbao at 19.00
LaPublika is a project directed and coordinated by consonni, produced by Donostia / San Sebastián 2016, and Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture, with collaboration from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and support from Bilbao Ekintza, the Regional Council of Bizkaia and ehukultura (Bizkaia).
Gerard Ortín (Barcelona, 1988) graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and studied at l’Aula de Música Moderna i Jazz (Conservatori del Liceu). He was awarded a Master’s degree at the Sandberg Insituut (Amsterdam) and presently lives and works in Donostia- San Sebastián. He combines his artistic and musical training via experimentation with various audio-visual, sound and performance formats. He has collaborated with the group Sons de Barcelona (UPF) and on Jaume Ferrete’s Voz Mal project. Gerard Ortín is an artist.
His latest performance, Vijfhoek, produced as part of the Festival of Choices (Amsterdam, 2015) consisted of a series of “haptic” trails exploring the idea of toxicity in nature. Previous to this, he performed Intravia in BCN Producció (2012) and Secció Irregular - Mercat de les Flors (2014) involving various nocturnal itineraries in the Serra de Collserola (Barcelona), thereby concluding a specific work in that area that lasted 4 years.
Exhibitions he has participated in include: Fictions. Caves/Cascades. Blindness of Love in Stedelijk Museum Buro of Amsterdam; Love Letter to Mars in Office for Contemporary Art (Oslo) and Al Mawred Foundation (Cairo); Viaggio al centro della Terra at Museo di Città (Sassari, Sardegna); El espacio cósmico estaba allí, en dos o tres centímetros in Galería Espacio Bacelos (Madrid); Biennal Leandre Cristòfol (Lleida); and Reykjavik International Film Festival // Hot Tub (Reykjavik, Iceland). In June 2014 he took up a residency in Marfa (Texas, USA) organized by TAAK (Amsterdam). Gerard works with Galeria Estrany – de la Mota in Barcelona.
