Avantgardeners studio portfolio

The Avantgardeners Studio is a community of eco-feminist visual artists taking on themes of utopian/dystopian futures, ambitious new identities, queerness and intimate relationships with nature across diverse artistic mediums. We come together in an ethos of collaboration in our collaborative atelier space at Bündner Rigi in the Bündner Alps where we explore the diverse qualities of visual creation and we create a space where ideas and dialogues spring in a flurry of making. Bündner Rigi, nestled amidst the mountains near Ilanz, serves as an open space for inspiration and collaboration allowing the Avantgardeners Studio members to immerse themselves in the inspiring natural wilderness and remotedness of the mountains while harnessing their creativity.

OVERVIEW OF THE AVANTGARDENERS STUDIO’S
SOLO EXHIBITIONS

SOLO EXHIBITION @GRAND PALAIS BERN

FEBRUARY 2024

Photos taken during the vernissage of the exhibition

solo exhibition @Zentralwäscherei

SEPTEMBER 2023

solo exhibition @Kunsthalle Wil

JUne 2021

Photos by Johann Otten & Laila Kaletta during the finissage of the exhibition

FUTURA @Kulturfolger

January 2021

Corona was obliging museums to be closed; the first item in the exhibition was a sofa bed that would function as a nest, a hibernating object that allowed FUTURA to grow and mature over time. We sensually focused on the corporeal and the fluids; on flesh, textures and tissues of the DIABOLICA RAVER, as well as their rituals. The DIABOLICA RAVER creature embodies Livia Rita’s first single AGE OF FATALITY which came out in 2021.
Johann Otten captured the growing FUTURA ecosystem from the windows of Kulturfolger. Livia Rita was still nurturing and exploring the DIABOLICA RAVER - the creature incarnation of her first single AGE OF FATALITY.

Photos by Anna Maysuk

Avantgardeners Studio team

The Avantgardeners Studio is comprised of a fluid configuration of artists, which currently includes Hanh-Dung Nguyen (Digital Arts), Livia Rita (Visual Arts, ArtFashion, Multidisciplinary Arts), Arie Niellson (Sculpture), Ella Dobbson (Visual Arts), Leander Albin (Wood), Hannah Grüninger (Photography), Lydia Perrot (Graphic design), Hao Zhang (Animation) and Ella Yolande (Visual Arts).

Hanh-Dung Nguyen is a contemporary media artist and freelance game designer/3D artist who uses game design related mediums to make media art, installations and small poetic experiences.

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Livia Rita is a visual artist who works with the mediums of fashion and sculpture. They have forged a unique practice in the form of ArtFashion creations, which are visceral sculptural, wearable pieces of work. They take a bold multi-disciplinary approach to creation, bringing their ArtFashion pieces to life through the integration of movement and music.

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Hannah Grüninger is a photographer and artist, focused on images and language in an interdisciplinary manner, as well as spatial installations and video. She is interested in the connection between different media and their message.
CV: https:// hannahgrueninger.ch/cv/

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Lydia Perrot is a self-employed graphic designer and research assistant in typography/ type design at the ZHdK. They are currently exploring animated graphic direction with William Crook, to be shared February 2024 at the Winter School (ZHdK).
CV: https://lydiaperrot.ch/info/

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Ella Yolande is a visual artist driven by a curiosity around interspecies entanglements, metamorphic states and queer ecology. Her practice explores the fluidity and resilience of non-human organisms. She works across video, 3D animation, sculpture, textiles and text to create surreal biomes that reference microscopic life forms, sci-fi and botanical architecture.
CV: https://www.ellayolande.co.uk/cv/

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Ramon Königshausen is a Zurich-based cinematographer, whose focus is on narrative storytelling, both fictional and documentary. He seeks a style that serves the story and evokes empathy with its characters and explores shooting both spontaneous and intuitive as well as elaborate concepts. Notable projects include Millimeterle (First Steps Award 2015), Les Heures-Encre (Swiss Film Prize 2019, Camerimage 2017) and Cru (Camerimage 2019). CV: https://ramonkoenigshausen.com/ Asa Hendry is a writer featured regularly in newspapers and magazines. She won the 2016 Term Bel writing prize, and published her debut novel "Sin lautget" in 2018.

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Tim Cowbury co-founded Made In China Theatre company in 2009. He is a graduate of the Royal Court Theatre’s invitation writers group, and has led writing groups and workshops for Arcola Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre. He has an MA in Writing For Performance from Goldsmiths University, for which he was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council scholarship.

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Orrow Bell is a London-based artist whose work encompasses making, performing, dramaturgy, facilitation, and curation. They enjoy slipperiness across embodiment, movement, language and queerness, their practice born of a binary-busting fervour.

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Ernestyna Orlowska’s artistic practice combines various media, including visual arts, theatre, performance, and dance. Her works have been showcased and performed at numerous venues, including the Bone Performance Festival Bern, Schlachthaus Theater Bern, Südpol Lucerne, Dampfzentrale Bern, Les Urbaines Lausanne, Buzz Cut Festival Glasgow, Theaterspektakel Zürich, Transeuropa Festival Hildesheim, Kunsthalle Basel, and Ming Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai.

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Tom McLuckie (Toma) is a versatile multi-instrumentalist and composer who enjoys working both on stage and in the studio, utilising specialised software and hardware to create transformative, transmedia auditory experiences.