Andres Montes residence at RC Villanueva de los Infantes

The Mexican artist living in Madrid Andres Montes was developing two projects at our headquarters in Villanueva de los Infantes (Ciudad Real) during the weekend from 8 to 11 June 2012.
RuralC supported the project by providing room and board, counseling, documentation and dissemination activities.

The project WHOLE HOUSE consisted of a performance in which Andrew dug a hole in the ground, building a living space.

We streamed his performance in La Mora, internationalizing a isolated action happened in the "middle of nowhere" (10 people from several countries were connected).

here you can view the streaming videos.

For the hardness of the ground Andrés had to make the performance in two days.

Whole House from RURAL Contemporánea on Vimeo.

The project  TRANSPOSED | DISPLACED | TRANSPLANTED, is a continuation of his project Tactics Identity. Andrew explores the territorialization of space as constitutive of identity tool. It involved two rural areas in two different geographies: La Mora, an special spot in Villanueva de los Infantes, and the outskirts of Madrid.

1m2 of soil removed from each place to "transplanted" into the other and create a photographic record of this action. The intention is to explore, because of subtle mediation, the poetics of displacement, the thought of uprooting.

+ info at his web  http://regionestransitorias.wordpress.com/transposed-displaced-transplanted/

There was also a public presentation of their projects and career in RC Villanueva de los Infantes
It was a pleasure to have Andres on RC Infantes and be partakers of his actions.

Kenneth O’Halloran’s “Fair Trade”

FAIR TRADE

10 July 2010

Puck Fair, Killorglin, County Kerry, Ireland

Fairs in Ireland are more than places of trade, often forming an important social and cultural event in the county calendar. Women regard them as occasions worth dressing up for. Many fairs focus on horse-trading, carried out to a large extent by traveling people, who belong to an ancient Gaelic nomadic tradition. Some fairs have histories dating back for centuries. 

Kenneth O’Halloran’s project “Fair Trade” captures the flavor of a group of Gaelic nomads with a tradition of gathering on special occasions to trade horses, ponies and other goods. He says women regard the trading fairs “as occasions worth dressing up for, lending a kind of delicacy to the day, a femininity to counterweigh the spit-in-the-hand dealings of the men folk. There is a vibrancy of colour, red hair, freckles and a range of ensembles.”

O’Halloran is currently based in Dublin. Kenneth O'Halloran comes from a small village in the west of Ireland, where his father is the local undertaker. He completed a course in commercial photography at Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design (now IADT) in Dublin, and after graduating went on to work with Press 22, a photographic agency in Limerick. He then freelanced for a time in Dublin, before joining Independent Newspapers, where he worked for 15 years, ranging from news to sports photography, with regular trips to cover the conflict in Northern Ireland, and to European and World soccer championships.

Rimaldas Viksraitis

GRIMACES OF THE WEARY VILLAGE

“Rimaldas Viksraitis is a Lithuanian photographer who works in and around the villages where he lives, and photographs a way of life that is fast disappearing. In his world, any apparent dysfunctionality, propelled by liberal drinking of home brew, appears to be an asset because people seem to be having such a great time. He goes to parties, he sits and drinks and talks with his subjects. Their lives are not overcome by the gadgets of modern day life, which so often eradicate any meaningful communications between families. You can tell he is enjoying himself and at ease with his subjects. Viksraitis's sitters also seem to enjoy taking off their clothes. I assume this helped by the home brew and rather warm temperatures, or perhaps they are all having frequent sex?

Against this backdrop, numerous animals seem to be part of daily life. They surreally pop up everywhere; they too seem to fit in effortlessly. They share the family's domesticity with the greatest of ease. 

The resulting images, displayed (or published) here are slightly insane and wonderfully surreal. They are quite compelling, and if I spoke Lithuanian, I would love to join in the party. However as this will never happen, Viksraitis provides us with a ring side seat, with all the emotion, the drink and the ensuing madness.”

Martin Parr, November 2008