In 2020 due to the Corona restrictions six artists have founded ZAC (Zest Artist Collective). We have weekly online meetings, where we explore different creative ideas and projects.
The artists are: Karin van der Molen (Netherlands), Karen Macher (Peru/Italy), Lucia Loren (Spain), Elena Redaelli (Italy/Norway), Sally Kidall (Australia/UK) and Imke Rust (Germany/Namibia).
Projects:
2023 Wild Feet / Dialogue with Terra – CAFKA.23 Biennial, Canada
STAY WITH ME
June 3 – July 23, 2023
Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge
Working from a collaborative, co-authored practice grounded in cross-disciplinary experimentation, during their two week international artist residency ZAC – Zest Artist Collective connected with Riverside Park using walking, listening, and mind-mapping practices, exploring ways of (re-) connecting and dissolving boundaries between culture and nature, and using creative strategies to face an uncertain future.
2022 ImagoInsecta – Dak’art OFF
ImagoInsecta
Zest Artist Collective_ZAC
Dak’art OFF
19 May – 22 June 2022
SOKHAMON HOTEL DAKAR SÉNÉGAL
ZAC artists have immersed themselves into the parallel reality of the insect world through engaging in empathic and ecocentric dialogues with particular insect species indigenous to their country. By using various mind-mapping techniques as a framework for their research ZAC artists have generated speculative narratives and hypothetical imagery using different medium. These include photographic montage, conceptual installations, textiles, drawing, sculpture and embroidery. Through their art practice ZAC artists endeavour to explore and highlight insects’ inseparable symbiotic relationships with the ecological balance of our planet. MORE INFO
2022 Dialogue with Clouds – Villoslada de Cameros, Spain
International Exhibition
Lomos de Orios Hermitage
Villoslada de Cameros (La Rioja, Spain)
ZAC Collective & Roberto Pajares – Spain, Pat van Boeckel – Netherlands
9 July 2022 – 4 September 2022 EXTENDED to 1st of October 2022
Dialogue with Clouds is an exhibition project by Zest Artist Collective (ZAC), continuing their intimate dialogue with nature. The Hermitage of Lomos de Orios, surrounded by an enchanting mountain range, is a unique environment for the collaborative artistic process that offers a connection with the essence of this special place. MORE INFO
2022 Residenza Insecta – Respirart, Pampeago, Italy
“Residenza Insecta” evolved from the “Terra Insecta” research. The artists of ZAC have studied the world of insects through different approaches: scientific biological, social, spiritual, physical, emotional, intuitive, historical, etc. The project for RespirArt, through practical and poetic actions, underlines the importance of positive collaboration between human beings and the different living beings within our ecosystems. “Residenza Insecta” emulates a human interpretation of insect dwelling, mimicking the way insects build their nests and live in organized colonies. The various elements are combined in a colony as if they could host different species and live as one body. The work is made out of steel and steel wool, and is about 3,5m high.
The work was conceived by various members of the collective and created by Imke Rust and Sally Kidall on site for Respirart Pampeago.
The Pampeago RespirArt Art Park is one of the highest artparks in the world. Founded in 2011 by Beatrice Calamari and Marco Nones, it moves your steps along a 3km loop, between the Agnello Refuge, at an altidude of 2.200m, and the Chalet Caserina, at an altitude of 2.000m. MORE INFO
2021 Nature’s Dance – L’AND ART 2021, International Biennale of Andorra
Six environmental artists from all around the world created a tribal and ritual circle, recreating the painting “The Dance”, by Henri Matisse. By doing so, the artists recognize their relationship with nature and immerse themselves in the rhythms and the vibrations of their environment. The lesson of this is that we all belong to nature, and it has the intrinsic power of renewing and regenerating. We take profit from it, but we must not take it all without giving something in exchange.
For this piece, the artists took part in a symbolic dance with nature, supporting the need to highlight the role of humans in the net of life.
This international artist collaboration was set up during the confinement due to the Covid pandemic. Unable to travel and get together, they met online every week. Even today, they still have intense exchanges. Meeting online, they research and do brainstorming about new concepts regarding their current existence and their effects on their own countries’ ecology.
The artists bring us the result of sharing a professional artistic practice that is nomadic, sensitive to places, and created communally, despite the distance. MORE INFO
Some details:
2020 Wireless – Video Documentation
A video documentation about ZAC by Karin van der Molen:
2022 Cross Pollination – EB MUSEUM SCHOKLAND, Netherlands
Six artists from 4 different continents bring their ideas together in this installation. The six women know each other from their international nomadic artist’s existence, which suddenly came to a halt due to the corona pandemic. Encounters and exchanges are an important source for transcending a low tide situation. The idea for a ‘message in a bottle’ project originated from an intensive exchange via digital channels. They sent seeds, plants, soil, bones and ashes from Namibia, Australia, Peru, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, to represent a small collection of our worldwide ecological DNA. Long ago, the continents of the six women were originally linked together and our soil, plants and ancestors share a similar yet very different DNA. Our continents remain connected by the oceans and the air, which share the global consequences of our existence. Cross-pollination is necessary to keep it liveable. MORE INFO
26 Juli – 26 Oktober 2020
About my contribution:
Based on the idea of communicating through messages in a bottle, I am offering messages about the essence of life. They are preserved and sealed in isolation of the bottle and can travel safely through the oceans of the world. Together with the bottles of my fellow artists they form a database of knowledge, beauty and a symbolic starter-pack for a new future.
I am interested in the connection between the physical and non-physical world. In my art I explore the relationships between myth and reality, in order to create meaning.
Therefore, my messages take the form of physical, mythical and soul essences. Three types of Namibian seeds (representing ancestors and beginnings, beauty & pain and nourishment); fertile ground from my home country Namibia, and soil from my current home in Germany; my hair, as an essence of myself; huge white thorns of the Camelthorn tree, as an essence of protection and a decayed leaf as a thought about death.
Please click on the image to read more about the contents of the bottles.
Imke Rust 