ART NEWS Alserkal Residency Appoints 3 137 to Create Intervention-based Commission Rhodiola

Alserkal Residency has selected 3 137 to curate Rhodiola, the first commission under Alserkal Avenue’s not-for-profit Alserkal Residency. Rhodiola, a project by Athens-based collective 3 137 — made up of artists Chrysanthi Koumianaki, former Alserkal Residency artist-in-residence Kosmas Nikolaou, and Paky Vlassopoulou — will launch on 18 March 2019 during Art Week at Alserkal Avenue. The programme based commission will serve as an intervention in Nadi Al Quoz in The Yard, and will act as an informal group portrait of participants, visitors, and hosts. This will mark the 19th artist commission by Alserkal Avenue.

Alserkal Residency was founded by Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal and the Alserkal family as a not-for-profit platform for artistic and discursive exchange, seeking to support cultural practitioners as they realise projects pertinent to their respective practices. Designed to be immersive, the Residency focuses on research-based and socially-engaged practices, and engages the local interdisciplinary community through a series of public events and conversations.

3 137 / Courtesy of Alserkal Avenue

Rhodiola, curated by 3 137, explores the idea of maintenance in everyday life. Borrowing its title from the rhodiola rosea flower, a perennial golden root which grows in wild Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, the commission is inspired by rhodiola’s healing properties and its ability to help combat stress, anxiety and fatigue.

“Rhodiola is a time-based and people-oriented project, with the objective of creating a temporary community, a group of people who are engaged in new encounters and shared experiences,” says 3 137. “The collaborative aspect of the project reflects the ethos of 3 137, intending to generate a value-system where diverse voices act independently, but also interact within the shared responsibility of creating a tool for a common imaginary space.”

2017, Kids workshop by James Edmonds and Petra Graf in collaboration with Kid A / Photo by Gabriela Cruz / Courtesy of Alserkal Avenue

2016, Lenio Kaklea, Arranged by Date, performance / Photo by Fanis Kafantaris / Courtesy of Alserkal Avenue

3 137, an artist run space founded in 2012, endeavours to create meeting points for exchange, discussion, and research. Its practices, which focus on artistic production, collaboration, and hospitality, are engaged with the environment in which they are presented — as they will be throughout the duration of Rhodiola. “A first programme based commission, it demarcates spatial geography and challenges our perceptions around the commodification of public space through numerous immersive interventions within the built environment of Alserkal Avenue,” says Vilma Jurkute, Alserkal Avenue Director. “The collective will closely engage with the many publics of Dubai through its six-week programme, shaping new patterns of social production here.”

2016, After the explosion…you hear the light, A project about Greek 70's / Photo by Ilias Seferlis Frantzis / Courtesy of Alserkal Avenue

2014, Jonathas de Andrade, Artist Talk / Photo by Chrysanthi Koumianaki / Courtesy of Alserkal Avenue

For six weeks, Rhodiola will unfold through talks and interviews, exhibitions, performances, screenings, and community activities. It will run sporadically, at variable tempos, acting as an amplifier at times and as an ambience at others. Looking at hybrid forms of communication, Rhodiola takes its inspiration from radio frequencies, and will come to life across five ‘Waves’.

• Wave 1: AC/Scaffold

• Wave 2: Cookies

• Wave 3: Dentist

• Wave 4: Snooze

• Wave 5: Sunscreen

Rhodiola challenges ordinary perceptions of domestic life and public affairs, and offers a place for moments of active pause.