http://www.camberwell.arts.ac.uk/39575.htm
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‘Claudia Wegener is an artist based in London working with writing and performance. As a member of the artist initiative foreign investment, she participated in events such as the Istanbul Biennale (1997), the Venice Biennale (99/2000), Rio Trajetorias (2001) and the London Biennale (2000, 2002, 2004). Excerpts of her on-going street wrting project ’24 hrs’ have been published in ‘Untitled (Experience of Place)’ by Koenig Books, London 2004. She contributes regularly to periodicals, such as Performance Research and Third Text. Wegener studied Fine Art at the Kunstakademie Münster and at the Royal College of Art London, and completed a doctoral dissertation about the concept of ‘the monumental’ at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 1998.
Work in collections
including Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum London; National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum London; Royal College of Art Collection London; Kunstverein, Westfälisches Landesmuseum Münster; and Museum Man, Liverpool/Berlin.
Recent Research – Artist Statement
“The ongoing project of texts and audible writings of the ’24hrs’ series are a point of departure for everything I’ve done more recently. Handwritten footage of street observations translate into texts, audio and radio work. Translation process continue between the ears of a listener: acoustic movies, moving images on inner (acoustically projected) screens. The work took place in cities such as Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paolo (2001/02); London (since 2002); Istanbul, Athens, Nicosia (2004) and Johannesburg (2006). [.. ] A forthcoming collaborative project with artists Nicolas Robbio will include a joint exhibition and the publication of a new ’24hrs’ text in an artist book (2008).” – Claudia Wegener
Current Projects
An offspring of the ’24hrs’ project and funded by the Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts scheme, ‘Streetwriting’ (2006) is a collaborative series of text and sound pieces produced in workshops at Crisis/Skylight in London’s East End, which culminated in a Weedworks limited edition CD release of words, songs, whispers, stories and slogans, as well as a serial broadcast on Resonance104.4fm between June and November 2006.
Other projects include a series of ‘dramatic field recordings’ in’Radio Armed Response’ (2007), one of several projects based on Wegener’s interactions with street life in Johannesburg, S.A. Commissioned by Goethe Institut Johannesburg, the project presents audio-visual footage of two suburban communities: in a series of door to door interviews, through intercom systems and across gates,Wegener asks questions which reveal an insight into some of the emotional undercurrents stirred up by questions of fear, public safety and security. The project was initiated during a Triangle Trust’s residency programme at the Bag Factory Fordsburg Artist Studios in Johannesburg, where Wegener also organised ’Long Walk’, a public chess tournament across the fence between Joubert Park and the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), created in association with artist Pitso Chinzima. Broadcast on RADIA network in Jan-Feb 2007, the audio recordings in ’Long Walk (abridged)’represents a poly-lingual collage of on-the-spot translations of excerpts from Mandela’s biography (entitled Long Walk to Freedom) .
Funded by the Arts Council England, Camberwell College of Art and Southward College, NO-GO-ZONES is a two-month black youth radio project of audio workshops and broadcasts with young people in South London, in association with Resonance104.4fm.’