Nina Haab
Identity of a Resident Stranger

 

 

12 January 16

 

Nina Haab: The Life Around a Fake Lake, 2015, 41 min., HD video, video still, © Nina Haab
Nina Haab: The Life Around a Fake Lake, 2015, 41 min., HD video, video still, © Nina Haab

 

Nina Haab works with various forms of storytelling, addressing different themes, most recently her grandmother’s decline from Alzheimer’s. During her residency at ABA AiR Alexanderplatz in Berlin, she developed a new work considering memories of others which she will seize and enhance at her event at the Studiolo.

During this residency in Berlin, Nina Haab has been holding Salons as part of her research and process of memory collection and exchange. The Salon at KW Institute for Contemporary Art offers participants the opportunity to encounter the topic of memory trough different perspectives: Is memory selective? Can we trust our memories?

These issues have been ongoing subjects of investigation for both artists and scientists, and represent also the starting point of Haab’s new project. She is particularly interested in the archetypal dimensions of autobiographies and how they relate to different locations and their respective local cultures. In that sense, memories construct personal and collective identities, and whether they are true or false becomes less important than how they may provide new narrative material.

Nina Haab (born 1985 in Bellinzona, CH, lives in Geneva, CH) is a photographer and video artist. Her practice explores the memories of others through their life stories, personal archives, and meaningful places. These elements constitute the main inspiration and source material for her work, and her installations and films reimagine and represent her collaborators’ stories.

**Program**
18.30 h: Talks held by Regaida Comensoli (art historian and curator), Andrew Bender (cognitive neuroscientist and experimental psychologist), and Elisa Rusca (art historian, writer and curator)

19.45 h: Apero-dinner and discussion with Nina Haab and speakers

20.30 h: Film Program Investigating Memory:
Nina Haab: The Life Around a Fake Lake, 2015, 41 min, French with English subtitles
Angela Marzullo: Sputiamo su Hegel, 2015, 10 min., Italian with English subtitles
Maria Iorio/Raphaël Cuomo: Appunti del Passaggio, 2014/15, 40:55 min., Italian with English subtitles

The evening is part of Performing Encounters, curated by Yvonne Reiners.