Marianne Skjeldal / Inger-Reidun Olsen
SHAKE THE MOUNTAIN! Monte Verità (CH) 2019
LATERNA, in collaboration with Robert Steijn and Monte Verità:
SHAKE THE MOUNTAIN! became a 3-day ritual where artists again gathered in the magnetic place of Monte Verità with the intention of making a temporary collective returning to dive into the myth of this place. We were tracing history to get connected with the place, shaking up who we are through different practices to become able to plant new intentions.
As artists, we were interested in how the spirit of a place influences how we are in this world, how we make work, how we think of life, the world and ourselves. We see our three days together as a gathering ritual to make ourselves at home in this place, to let go of fixed beliefs, and at last to plant new intentions, that hopefully can reverberate into the world.
The ritual was based on the research, dialogue and long artistic collaboration between LATERNA and Steijn.
It sounds perhaps a little bit much for three days, but we worked already on several practices that made the perfect frame for our collective ritual, proposing a schedule for our stay as well as opening up for the group to share their practices and thoughts. Open conversations, where each individual got time to speak without being interrupted became an important activity and practice which we practised several times a day. This was a special and beautiful way to hear each voice part of our collective, and made it possible, on our last day together, to all be responsible, have trust in each other, and find our place in the structure of the Open Performance event that we invited to on August 31st at the hour of twilight at the compound of Monte Verità with its surrounding nature, where people from near and far, came to join us.
Who are “WE”?
We are; Julia Adzuki (AU/SE), Kyuja Bae (KR/NO), Ezra Fieremans (BE), Stephanie Maher (US/DE), Liv Kristin Holmberg (NO/DE), Jakob Schnack Krog (DK), Lilach Livne (IL), Christoph Leuenberger (CH), Ana Matey (ES), Inger-Reidun Olsen (NO), Marianne Skjeldal (NO), Robert Steijn (NL), Raúl Vargas Torres (CO/NO) and Daniel Zimmermann (AT).
Working at Monte Verità in Switzerland which has been a huge inspiration for us with the birth of the counterculture that started growing there, and the years that followed from the early 20´s on, is a way to link our artistic interests to this specific time and place in history, and draw connections from the people, artists and visitors who resided here over decades, their dreams of Utopia, (a better society – a return to nature) and to look at - what could be artistic responses to this phenomena - in our own time?
Supported by Arts Council Norway
SHAKE THE MOUNTAIN! – Closing Ritual
Performance ritual August 31st at 19:00
Photo: Daniel Zimmermann, Annelies Strba and Liv Kristin Holmberg
Tree days preparation ritual with all the artist at the compound of Monte Verità
Photo: Marianne Skeldal, Inger-Reidun Olsen, Ana Matey and Liv Kristin Holmberg
As preparation for this ritual gathering, LATERNA and Robert Steijn spent 11 days in April working on certain practices, exercises and rituals connected to this place and its history, preparing the ground to receive a group of artists to stay at Monte Verità and SHAKE THE MOUNTAIN with us.
Photo: Marianne Skjeldal and Inger-Reidun Olsen
Monte Verità rises on the hills above Ascona and Lake Maggiore, and has always been a magnetic pole of convergence of ideas, trends, experiments and historical figures. The alternative and vegetarian colony of the early twentieth century marked the birth of the myth of Monte Verità, with the presence of artists, anarchists, philosophers and thinkers, as well as illustrious guests including Hermann Hesse, Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, Isadora Duncan and more. After a brief period in the early twenties, in which some expressionist artists created a small art centre, the Ascona hill was bought by the banker and German art collector Baron Eduard von der Heydt. Monte Verità became a modern hotel centre, which welcomed great personalities from the artistic, political and cultural worlds. Today, Monte Verità is a state-of-the-art congress and cultural centre run by the Foundation of the same name. Immersed in the quiet and green of a park of more than 7 hectares, with an incomparable view of Lake Maggiore, this place offers visitors a unique experience. Link!