Artist-in-residence Eli Gras

19 november 2015    nieuws

Really excited to announce that Eli Gras is artist-in-residence at De Perifeer (which is also my own atelier) from 19 to 22 November 2015, working on a live performance ánd a release!

Eli Gras is a multidisciplinary artist from Barcelona, with a career in experimental and underground music since the early 80s. Musically, she has come a long way via traditional Greek music, minimalism, folk, choral, noise, electro pop and free electronica, but her music practice is now mainly focused on experimental improvisation. Her work has been described as ‘scientific bricolage music’. She frequently performs with self-invented instruments, in which visual elements can be just as important as the sounds they produce. She played together with artists like Hans Joachim Roedelius, Pierre Bastien, Jaki Liebezeit and David Fenech. She is the founder of the NoNoLogic festival and record label La Olla Expréss.

Eli Gras will be working on an instrument/object to be used in a live performance in De Perifeer: ACSH #42 on November 22nd (read more here). Afterwards her (edited) recording of this performance and the instrument/object she created are merged in an extremely limited Esc.rec. release, in the Sediment series.

During her work period in De Perifeer, Eli Gras will be sleeping in Lucy Nomad, designed by Maurer Architects & Boris Tellegen. For the time being Lucy Nomad is located on a free lot in between a new housing plot, which just happens to be 100 meters down the street from De Perifeer. Couldn’t be better! Thank you Lucy and Havenkwartier Deventer, for making this possible.

This project is financially supported by Mondriaan Fund.

Update!

The artist-in-residence period of Eli Gras in De Perifeer is over. She worked here for three days, creating a new instrument from scratch. Really quite impressive! The residency was concluded with an ACSH concert in De Perifeer, where she played her new instrument and named it ‘Floating Bridge Round Harp’ aka ‘The Egg’. Check lots more photos overhere.

I really enjoyed this project a lot. Not in the least because of the pleasant personality of Eli Gras. This was the first artist-in-residence I ever had in De Perifeer, which was quite exciting of course. Even though this was a pretty intensive working period for me too, I already decided I want these kind of dynamics in my atelier more often. So having artists working in De Perifeer might very well become a regular thing from now on.

But although Eli Gras has moved on to her next gig by now, this project isn’t finished just yet… After creating and playing the instrument, we’re now moving on to phase three. When she’s back in Barcelona, she will start editing and modifying the recordings of her concert, because the instrument she built is also going to double as the packaging of a 12″ vinyl record release. This very exclusive sound object is to be released on Esc.rec. in 2016, as part of the Sediment series, in an edition of only one.