art embassy

Art Embassy is an artist collective, founded by Nora Ruzsics and Emmerich Weissenberger in 2014, produce artworks and artistic interventions on the interface of Art and Sustainable Development.

ArtEmbassy has travelled along the migration route from Columbia through Central America to California in 8 months in 2014-15, collecting signals of the Good, the True and the Beautiful.
Signals are works of Art, such as films, photographs, paintings, drawings etc, that have arisen in the course of the journey.


SIGNALE - signals for the promised land
an art project by Nora Ruzsics and Emmerich Weissenberger
 
• What does it take that makes people viable for the present and future?
• What is the good, the true and the beautiful?
• What models of human and collective action serve as
good role models and effective signals?

We, the artist couple, Nora Ruzsics (norarufilm) and Emmerich Weissenberger are ambassadors of these signals. We are being, together with our team, in the middle of the implementation of our art project, which began October 2014. An art-stations-travel (see blog) along the migration route, where works of art, movies, drawings, sculptures, installations are created, with interventions and art activities, from Colombia towards north to the "promised land", the United States, Los Angeles / California. (final exhibition at 18th Street Art Center, SantaMonica)
We visit and cooperate with environmental and social projects, science camps, museums, local artists and local people along our route.
We do this trip as artists, partners and parents. As a result, the experience will be perceived from different angles.

SIGNALS are works of art created during this journey. They accompany us, and serve also as a documentation that brings "ART EMBASSY" to Austria and to other countries as well through fixed art exhibitions (see program, eg "Volunteers Fair" at the MAK Vienna in October 2014, or 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica / CA ...), through the media, social web (interviews, articles, etc.) and the online blog. The journey is undertaken by us as an art-pilgrimage, and ends in May 2015 Los Angeles / California, where it terminates in form of an art exhibition "SIGNALS - signal for the promised land".

Yours sincerely,
Nora Ruzsics & Emmerich Weissenberger 
ART EMBASSY






Partners and Ambassadors:
Plenum GmbH (Alfred Strigl)
Philiana Foundation (Alexandra Abensperg-Traun)
Gesellschaft für Beziehungsethik (Robert Rogner)
Volunteers Fair 2014 Vienna MAK,
Open Source Gallery, New York
Galleria Spazio Linea, Florence
Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella
18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica / CA


 



Artistic work of Art Embassy 2014 - 2015
(current status February 15th 2015)

Conceptual art, media art, drawing, communication, sculpture, art action

1. ART EMBASSY IN COLOMBIA:
From October 9, 2014 - January 6, 2015
The current central theme of Colombia is PEACE. (Currently in Havana / Cuba there is a peace dialogue between the parties contained in civil war for over 50 years. This dialogue has medially a strong presence in Colombia itself.)
Starting from this situation we are faced with the question of signals on peace. Our meetings and our art works are characterized by the central questions:

• What do people need in their individual situations?
• What contributes the region to it?
• What does the system allow?

Examples in this topic -

- "Social peace" (Bogota / environment)
1. Art Embassy -. Research and signal / MURAL "AGUA ES PURAVIDA"
Concept to a flexible “Mural” in the barrios, with accompanying workshops and art activities on "The right to clean drinking water in urban areas" with the Comuna / Alcaldía "El Rosal" = Project Partners / Cundinamarca.

2. Art Embassy - CSR Research, drawings to an interview
Daniel Bernal's initiative to implement social responsibility in the legislature, a business model for counseling and support in Colombia / Cundinamarca.

- "Ecological Peace"
 3. Art Embassy - Research and signal / norarufilm "Vaca", 5 min.
Interview (message) with Andrés Astrauskas - holistic cattle breeding in Honda / Tolima.
4. Art Embassy - Art action with Terzo Paradiso / norarufilm "Sierra Nevada", 5 min, drawings, photo
edition.
Interview (message) with the Mamu Amado Villafania - the culture of the Arhuaco Indians and the Sierra Nevada are threatened by climate change and hunger for commodities ..
Research in the Sierra Nevada and art project "Agua" at the waterfall "Kurakata".
In the year 2016 further actions and a long film by norarufilm will follow.

- "Economic peace"
5. Art Embassy - Support / concept and design of a holistic bike showroom
Carlos Bernal (entrepreneurs, sustainable values as awareness, and sports as an extended public space
for humans) in Facatativá / Cundinamarca.

6. Art Embassy - "Wayuu, unequal in the Guajira desert" / norarufilm - research and interview, drawings for an interview, photo edition
Interview with a Wayuu leader José Matute (message) in Cabo de la Vela, a 7-day art event with a
Wayuu family / installation, norarufilm, photo edition

- "Spiritual / psychological peace"
7. Art Embassy -. Research and signal / norarufilm "Carlos U", 5 min, drawings, art action, photo edition
Interview (message) with the operators of Taller7, an art-cooperative, and with Carlos Uribe Uribe (visual artist and historian, dean of the Fundación Universitaria Bellas Artes, ormer director of the Museo de la Memoria in Medellin / Antioquia). In September 2015 Workshop / Exhibition of the Fundación Universitaria Bellas Artes is fixed, in collaboration with Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella / Italy.


2. ART EMBASSY IN PANAMA:
From January 7, 2015 – January 16th 2015
Theme: FREEDOM
Invitation by Arestides Urena Ramos.
Art event in Panama City at the Plaza de los martires on January 9th 2015 on the "dia de los martires" /students demonstration1964

3. ART EMBASSY IN COSTA RICA:
From January 17th - February 27th 2015
Theme: RECYCLING and SOCIAL CYCLES
1. Art Project "Reciclamax" with the Comunidad Longo Mai: metal scrap sculpture 4m x 3m x 3m, and a monumental flag installation, a 7-day art project entitled "Recycling and social intelligence" with the people of Longo Mai
2. Art Action "Mi droga es vida pura" / Interamericana / San Isidro de el General
In cooperation with the local Circo Fantazztico and the renowned artist Guadalupe Urbina,
Installation, photo edition, drawings, norarufilm


Itinerary and schedule

• Place 1: Bogota / Colombia // arrival October 9th 2014
Concept for and with the Comuna / Alcaldía "El Rosal" / Cundinamarca.
Guidance for Carlos Bernal (in the establishment of a recycling bicycle shop. Bicycle Culture Club,
connected with social responsibility, recycling of old bikes = youth work, workshop and meeting with local transport of messages) Facatativa / Cundinamarca.

• Place 2: Honda / Colombia // October 9th-30th 2014
Interview with Andres Astrauskas - holistic cattle breeding at the Finca La Roca, Honda / Tolima.

• Place 3: Facatativa / Colombia // November 1st-18th 2014
Daniel Bernal's initiative for social responsibility in the legislature, to implement a business model for counseling and support in Facatativa / Cundinamarca.

• Place 4: Medellin / Colombia // November 19th-22nd 2014
Interview with the operators of Taller7 (Art Cooperative) and Carlos Uribe Uribe. Planning a workshop /exhibition in Sept 2015
Cooperation with Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto (Contact: Juan Sandoval)
http://www.cittadellarte.it

• Place 5: Santa Marta, Tayrona Park / Colombia // November 23rd – December 14th 2014
Kogi Indians (former Traiona Culture)
Film lab in the “Casa de los indigenas” in Santa Marta - elaboration of part 2 to the film from the year
2009 (http://vimeo.com/103839654), together with Amado Villfania, Arhuaco Mamu Expedition in the Tayrona National Park, Pueblito, former Kogui area

• Place 6: Valledupar, Nabusimake / Colombia // December 18th-21st 2014
Expedition to the Sierra Nevada, Nabusimake, capital of the Arhuaco Indians, as part of the project with Amado Villafania, Arhuaco Mamu

• Place 7: Riohacha, Cabo de la Vela, Guajira / Colombia // December 22nd-30th 2014
Research and interviews with the Wayuu Indians

• Place 8: Panama // January 7th-16th 2015
Research and interviews in Panama City and the District of Chiriqui

• Place 9: Costa Rica // January 17th- February 25th 2015
La Gamba - Visit of the La Gamba Troopical Station of the University of Vienna (focus on clean food and ecology) Contact: Peter Weiss
Longo Mai movement - Finca Sonador - subsistence, clean food and resilience in the surrounding area, contact: Roland Spendlingwimmer
Creation of the recycling-sculpture “Reciclamax” with the young people of Longo Mai
Art action on the Interamericana in San Isidro el General Circo Fantazztico, Feb 25th 2015

• Place 10: Nicaragua // some days between February 26th- March 30th 2015
Social project with Horizont3000. Contact: Martina Luger.
Topic: Environmental Education and Climate Change

• Place 11: Guatemala // some days between February 26th- March 30th 2015
Film Festival. Contact: Kathi Bosch

• Place 12: Mexico // some days between February 26th- March 30th 2015
Matriarchal stuctures in society in Juchitan de Zaragoza. Contact: Theresa Distelberger.
Presentation at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Mexico City

• Place 13: Los Angeles, California // April 1st- May 31st 2015
Los Angeles, Artist in Residency at 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, exhibition May 4-10th, 2015
Show in LA at Moore Gallery