Tintin Wulia

25 Feb 2015

What

Tintin Wulia is a visual artist, working with participatory methodology. Tintin received funding to undertake a self-initiated residency series in North America to explore the area of socially-engaged practice, working with hosts in Mexico City, New York City and at the border cities of Windsor, Canada and Detroit, USA.

In Mexico City Tintin worked with the artist initiative La Galería de Comercio, who usually make art for public on the street. In New York City she observed and worked with the Immigrant Movement International, an initiative of artist Tania Bruguera, hosted by the Queens Museum. At the Windsor-Detroit border she worked with Art Gallery of Windsor where she was able to connect with local partners.

Tintin was able to produce new works during the residency delivering the Make Your Own Passport workshop-performance in Windsor and Detroit in markets and local organisations. In Mexico City Tintin produced Three Études for Mexico City, a set of three site-specific public art events in various locations responding to the challenge to develop and present public art that was autonomous, requiring no maintenance and leaving no residues in situ. Videos of the public art events can be found in the links.

Image of Tintin Wulia

When

June to October 2014

Where

Mexico City, Mexico; New York City, USA; Windsor, Canada; and Detroit, USA.

Arts Queensland contribution

$9985 – Individuals Fund

Outcomes

The residency series helped Tintin develop new directions in her practice, particularly allowing her to reflect on the role of objects in her participatory methodology. It also developed her research skills and served as preliminary research for an upcoming solo show in Hong Kong, opening at the end of 2015.
Tintin produced several new works during the residency: Make Your Own Passport and Three Études for Mexico City. She is planning to adopt these models in other cities with a specifically-local context.
Tintin participated in a follow-up exhibition at the Art Gallery of Windsor in January 2015, which involved non-artist participants she met during the Make Your Own Passport workshops in Windsor and Detroit (www.agw.ca/exhibitions/current/404).
The residency has created a North American presence for Tintin, and resulted in new networks in Mexico City, New York City, Windsor and Detroit. These networks may be able to support Tintin’s project The Citizenshop Randomizer that she aims to install more permanently in publicly accessible places internationally.

Learnings and reflections

Organising the residency program herself provided some challenges but also clear benefits for Tintin:

“The residency gave me an invaluable opportunity to experience and connect in person with people in a part of the world that I normally only read about or communicate with through the internet. This was the first time I organised a self-initiated residency and the biggest challenge I faced had to do with the lack of infrastructure usually offered by regular residency providers/hosts. I designed the routes and periods of residencies (three periods with three different hosts in three different areas) based on my previous experiences in structured residency programs, and while it was possible to produce optimum results within the three weeks I assigned for each residency in this series, it could have been less challenging if a short break in between the residency periods was arranged. I noticed that the first and the third/last residencies were less exhausting than the second.

The model of this residency series aims to explore and initiate connections within a relatively focused geographical area (in this case North America) within a short time. Although challenging because of the limited time span, there were factors that made it work. For example, it was perhaps because I have previously lived in the US that it was easier to adjust within the short timeframe. Language was a problem in Mexico City, but the focus on the city allowed me to explore different modes of communication. I also found that further into the residency series it became easier for me to settle down and adjust to a new place, so perhaps while it is physically demanding, the model is effective in developing a sort of sensitivity to a place.”