Artists

United States of America

Caia Diepenbrock
Together Apart: #Shelter

19.08.20 09.09.20

Caia Diepenbrock is a multimedia artist originally from Rhode Island, USA. She has been living and working in Los Angeles, CA since graduating from Bard College in New York with a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts in 2015.
Her creative practice stems from her undergraduate thesis called Matrix of a Moment, which was an immersive installation focusing on the viewer’s experience of shadows and illusions created from uniquely manipulated mirrors and light. Having used a wide range of mediums and practices for this project, Caia has explored many forms of creative expression in both the art and design worlds since then.
Her experience ranges from designing sets for the film and music video industry, painting both murals and canvases, and designing and printing textiles by hand for her own clothing brand. Working in such a variety of mediums and spaces, the overarching theme in Caia’s work is creating immersive worlds that explore the human psychological experience of reality vs illusion and subjectivity vs. objectivity.

CAIA ABOUT TOGETHER APART: #SHELTER
During the ´ace program, I explored the idea of Shelter as it relates to me through feelings of familiarity, intimacy, privilege, and comfort. I began with a stream of consciousness writing exercise in which I simply wrote down all of the feelings, situations, objects, or environments that remind me of Shelter. With these thoughts in mind, I went on to use an approach I have been exploring for a few years now, which is translation through collage and painting.
Starting with fashion and design magazines, I intuitively pulled images that felt relevant to me and created several collages that circled around each theme of Shelter that I had written about. Selecting one that resonated most with me, I translated this collage into a painting that reflected on the feeling of bliss in being surrounded by nature and water.

This theme of water as shelter continued in the first round of group exercises, since we each found we had that in common. We each provided images of our work relating to this theme for each of us to reinterpret in our own ways. This collaborative process was refreshing to me, as I normally work independently – in this way, I was brought out of my own shelter by being pushed outside of my comfort zone.
The entire ´ace workshop became its own metaphor for shelter, providing a community of artists to relate to while pushing us to grapple with what might have started as an uncomfortable digital format. During a time that has forced us all to reinterpret what our daily, social and professional lives can look like among a global pandemic, it was both a hopeful and stimulating experience.

BIO
Caia Diepenbrock
1993 | Providence, Rhode Island USA
Lives in Los Angeles, CA

STUDIES
2015 | Bachelor’s of Studio Art | Bard College | Annandale on Hudson, NY – USA
2011 | Certificate in Photography | Rhode Island School of Design | Providence, RI

EXHIBITIONS
2018 | Perimeter Group Show – ARTShare LA
2016 | LEXICON Solo Artist in Residence Show | Lehrer Architects, Los Angeles CA
2016 | Translations Solo Show | M. Bird Studios, Culver City CA
2016 | Vision Prizm Part of 7th St. Annex Group Show | DTLA , CA
2014 | Mindscapes Solo Show | Island Heron Studios, Jamestown RI

RESIDENCIES
2016 | Lehrer Architects, Echo Park CA

AWARDS
2018 | Top Ten Artists of the Year, Circle Arts Foundation
2015 | Fund for Visual Learning Grant, Annandale on Hudson NY
2010 | Honorable Mention, Jamestown Art Center (RI)

Related Activities

Exhibitions, Together Apart

#1 | SHELTER: results
Artists in dialogue

16.12.20

During 2020, we carried out the first two sessions of Together Apart. The first session took as a conceptual and practical framework the REFUGE and the second, the NEST.

Through those starting points, both of which refer to caring atmospheres and structures for coexistence, we were able to think and create in a wide variety of directions and layers. We reflected on our pandemic context, a situation for which we had to find ourselves in the virtual non-space, but also a situation thanks to which people from many different countries were able to work simultaneously.

Assuming this complex situation, more than 20 participants per session created new pieces –some in exercise format–, took up projects that they had already worked on in the past or collectively set out to create new projects that will continue to develop beyond the scope of our meetings.

Taking these refuge and nest issues also in their complexity, we asked ourselves questions that made each of the participants involve their personal experiences, memory, memories and experiences from each of their territories. We addressed questions that sought to keep us in constant movement; at times we went through very optimistic or pessimistic visions about the possibility or necessity of having a shelter or a nest, and at other times, we were able to articulate more complex visions, enduring in intermediate and liminal states. For both, we took as a theoretical structure of support and dialogue the thought of Félix Guattari presented in The Three Ecologies (1989). His ethical-political approach that highlights the molecular domains of sensitivity, intelligence and desire, as well as his articulation of the three ecological registers (environment, social relations and human subjectivity), helped us to expand our creations and thoughts in relation to shelter and nest.

During the first session, when asked about the conditions that a refuge can have and the conditions that we would like a refuge to have, the artists (coincidentally and by chance, we had a cohort one hundred percent comprised of women) generated sculptural pieces, artists’ books, photographs, videos, dance pieces and more, reflecting on the permeability or isolation structures that a shelter can have. Also, many artists started from their bodily memories to refer to the refuge and made improvisation and performance pieces. We created in relation to the refuge conditions presented by nature and the refuges that we create to protect ourselves from certain natural conditions. Memory as a refuge and shelters for memory also arose through textile practices or from the use of jewelry or objects with which we build links. Finally, the bonds and the community as spaces that shelter and spaces that imply care was another of the axes that we explored through pieces that included readings of texts and sound activations.

Together Apart has functioned as a program that opened up possibilities for meeting and collaborative creation. It has made possible the creation of new rhythms and synchronies for a limited time but whose reverberations and echoes continue to affect in unexpected directions.

Daniela Ruiz Moreno (curator-in-residency)

Proyecto´ace
Artist-in-Residence International Program

View map

International Airport

Ministro Pistarini- Ezeiza (EZE)
Buenos Aires
45' to 60' trip

Domestic Airport

Aeroparque Jorge Newbery
Buenos Aires

Buses

38, 39, 41, 42, 59, 63, 65, 67, 68, 151, 152, 161, 184, 194 and 168 (stop in the front door)

Subway/Metro

D Line (Green)
Olleros Station (4 blocks, 4')

Train

Mitre Line (either to Leon Suarez or Mitre)
Colegiales Station (1 block, 1')

The Latin America's Paris

Buenos Aires is Argentine Republic's capital city. With 15,000,000 inhabitants, it is one of the largest cities in Latin America and one of the 10 most populous urban centers in the world. Its cosmopolitan and urban character vibrates to the rhythm of a great cultural offer that includes monuments, churches, museums, art galleries, opera, music and theaters; squares, parks and gardens with old groves; characteristic neighborhoods; large shopping centers and fairs. Here we also find a very good lodging facilities, with accommodation ranging from hostels to five-star hotels of the main international chains. Buenos Aires also show off about its variety of restaurants with all the cuisines of the world, as well as to have cafes and flower kiosks on every corner.

A neighborhood founded on the Jesuit farms in the 17th century

We are located in Colegiales neighborhood where the tree-lined streets, some of which still have their original cobblestones, invite you to walk. Although the apartment buildings advance, low houses still predominate. It is a district of the city where about 20 TV production companies, design studios, artist workshops and the Rock&Pop radio have been located. The neighborhood also has six squares, one of which pays homage to Mafalda, the Flea Market, shops, restaurants and cafes like its neighboring Barrios de Palermo and Belgrano, with which it limits.

Proyecto´ace
Artist-in-Residence International Program

2024 Open Call #4
Residencies 2024-2025
Deadline 
October 31st, 2024

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