UNFOLD Nan Hoover
Reinterpretations of Nan Hoover's legendary oeuvre.
On Wednesday 19 May 2021, artists, experts, writers and programmers shedded light on the oeuvre of the media art pioneer Nan Hoover (1931–2008). The reinterpretation festival was the third edition of LI-MA's reinterpretation programme and gave many possible answers to the question of what the work of Nan Hoover is, or can be, today. The events took place live over the course of one day and remained online for one week. The central question was “What does it take to keep a media artwork in constant flux, continuously appropriated by artists and makers of all sorts?”
Celebrating Nan Hoover
The rich programme of the day was offered both online and at LAB111 in hybrid form. In panel discussions, live streams, Zoom sessions, performances, sound installations and video works, countless possibilities of art transfer were discussed, explored and performed. With the restrictions reinforced due to the coronavirus, the event was hosted online, offering visitors a different experience that in essence proved the same: rediscovering, seeing and experiencing Nan Hoover's groundbreaking work.
More than ten contemporary artists were invited to perform and present Hoover’s work in a new, unconventional way and experiment with hybrid forms. The programme included a text-based sound installation by Sandra Sterle: a reply to a voice message from Nan Hoover that she received 25 years ago, a walking performance and a multimedia installation by Vera Sofia Mota, wherein the artist explores the notions of time and movement, and a text based reinterpretation of the artist’s work by theatremaker Judith de Joode. In addition, Davor Sanvincenti gave a lecture on Hoover's notation studies on transposing and expanding the visible forms into a new visual language.
The festival also provided a space for reflections on Hoover's oeuvre and its activation. Like other years, students from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (DOGtime) took part in this edition of UNFOLD. The participating students Alla Amma, Britt Geerdink, Mieke de Roo & Emily Bernstein, Giulia Capineri, Cassandra Dinah de Giorgi, Nicolas Dagieu, Noël S. Keulen, Martijn Janssen and Marjolijn Houdijk were supervised by teacher Willem van Weelden. Gaby Wijers and Fransien van der Putt reflected on the students' first results in a workshop.
A collection of works, reinterpretations, performances, talks, and lectures was put onto an online platform, which provided viewers with an opportunity to explore the diversity of Hoover’s oeuvre in one place. Use the link below to be transported back to the one-day festival.
LI-MA Online: Nan Hoover
In the run-up to the UNFOLD: Nan Hoover festival, on Hoover’s birthday, Wednesday 12 May 2021, a special broadcast of LI-MA Online with guests Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens took place, wherein Hoover’s work was discussed with her former students and dear friends. Amongst many things, the video portrait My Life as an Artist by Racké and Muskens was screened.
This event was supported by the Mondriaan Fonds, Nan Hoover Foundation and AFK. Artwork by Bin Koh.
