Location One is happy to present new work by Hermelinde Hergenhahn (Germany) and Mafalda Santos (Portugal). Hergenhahn’s installation will consist of a series of pencil drawings gathered from experiences of quotidian life, and a video projection and wall etching in the gallery. Santos plays with the architecture of the exhibition space to reflect on the particular conditions of being an artist temporarily displaced from her customary work space, while she also considers the evolution of her work in a hand-drawn map for a new website.

In hundreds of very small, or very large drawings Hermelinde Hermelinde explores human hopes and fears, with relentless humour and ambiguity. Her writings, films and installations in public space (video/billboard) analyze the connection between these anxieties in private and how they occur in the arena of everyday life (media/advertisement). She described her approach as one of a “critical nearness”.

For the installation at Location One, she has gathered words heard on the street, snippets from conversations and accidental meetings, transformed them into video projections, and transported them into the gallery where they are given temporary shelter. In the process vulnerability and aggression are revealed, depending on the point of view. “With special thanks to Vicky, Howard and a nameless person, who discovered me, hh, in NY, January, 2008.” Hermelinde Hergenhahn.

Organizational schemes, networks, interconnection and principles of scale and composition are crucial in Mafalda’s work. Expanded drawings on walls and floors cull their information from computer interface, books and archives to create a simplified imagery that reflects “a moment/place in a mental or social structure of relations.” The artist also considers that they offer a comment on the specific context for which the work is produced.

The series of drawings presented in Site Specific, 2008, have been developed by Mafalda for her website (in collaboration with Sebastien Sanz de Santa Maria, Location One’s residency program coordinator). Each drawing corresponds to a page of the website, and the links between them are laid out, creating a full “site map”.

For the installation Artist in Residence, Mafalda toys with the architectural structure of the exhibition space, as a reflection upon one’s capacity to adapt to different circumstances and environments. The title makes reference to the particular condition of being an artist in the context of a residency, and by extension the distinction that lies between what is work and what is leisure.

About the Artists Mafalda Santos received a Masters in Painting from the Faculdade Belas Artes do Porto, Portugal. She is also founder and co-director of the artist-run space PêSSEGOpráSEMANA in Porto since 2000. In 2007, Mafalda participated in the Young Artists Award EDP (Electricidade de Portugal). Recent exhibitions include: 2007 – Museum of Contemporary Art MACE, Elvas, Portugal; MUDAM, Luxemburg. She has exhibited at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and is represented by Galeria Presenca, Porto and Lisbon. Mafalda’s residency at Location One is supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation and Luso American Foundation for Development.

Currently based in Amsterdam, Hermelinde Hergenhahn studied at the Städelschule, Frankfurt and earned a postgraduate degree at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht. She has shown extensively in Europe. Recent exhibitions include: 2007, AnyoneAnywhereAnytime, Nidwaldner Museum, Stans, Switzerland and – Loyal Rooftops, 2007. Hermelinde’s residency at Location One is supported by Schloss Balmoral, Stiftung Rheinland Pfalz für Kultur.

LOCATION ONE is a not-for-profit organization devoted to convergence between visual, performing and digital arts in a time of rapidly changing technology. We invite artists from different disciplines and from different countries to work in our studios. We ask them to experiment with the new technologies of artistic creation, interaction and delivery. We urge them to collaborate in creating new works and give them virtual Internet spaces and physical gallery space to exhibit the results. Our goals are to foster the creation of new work, new forms of expression, and new capabilities in artists, and to advance new awareness in all those we reach.