We are delighted to welcome our fourth Residence of 2022 Ingrid Wildi Merino

We are very pleased to welcome artist Ingrid Wildi Merino who joins us here in Longyearbyen for a residency until July. 

Ingrid lives and works in Santiago de Chile. In 1981, during Chile’s military dictatorship, she migrated to Switzerland where she studied at the University of Fine Arts in Zürich and at the University of Fine Arts in Geneva. Her work investigates issues of migration, exile, memory, identity, dislocation, and social and cultural movement. During her stay at Artica, Ingrid will explore the historical parallels between cultural memory and geological memory, examining the copper industry in the North of Chile and the coal industry on Svalbard, and the reflection on populations in non-places from a historical, cultural, political, economic and social point of view.

In her artistic research film/video essay about the memory of Svalbard, entitled 'Listening to the molecules of the Arctic', she analyses as a concept "conductivity and behaviour through raw materials", comes from previous works in relation to raw materials, the properties of the material and its relationship with history. She works with that other narrative revealed by copper, coal, oil, water and the reservoir of seeds and other raw materials, like “historical” ice that reveals the history of our planet as it melts.

The purpose of this artistic research is to open a field of reflection that focuses on the historical relationships and transfers of cultural imaginaries - from and in the arts, science and technology, to economics and politics – showing that cultural practices of extractive industries have always been present in the development of modernity and capitalism -- showing that there is a continuity that culturally, epistemologically and politically links coal, copper, oil, among other raw materials, with the development of modernity and coloniality, thus configuring what she calls “Transfer Architecture”.

Ingrid has been nominated by our key partner Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) To keep up to date on all our residents make sure to follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and check our news page regularly.