Alisa Oleva ‘Port-to-Port’
Port-to-Port
Commissioned 2020 - 21.
Publication, walking score, workshops and broadcast.
Multiple venues in Felixstowe and online.
Port-to-Port was an expansive artwork spanning workshops, walks, sets of artist edition postcards edition, broadcast and online discussion. Alisa Oleva was commissioned by Felixstowe residents who formed a Community Commissioning Panel and was rooted in contributions by those living in Felixstowe.
As a starting point, Alisa invited people to share places that inspire them day-to-day or hold particularly special memories. A new, emotional cartography of the town was created, formed of personal landmarks and experiences at locations across Felixstowe.
Harnessing her networks developed through international residencies, the artist sent each of these locations to someone living in various port towns all over the world with an invitation to respond. 25 exchanges across all corners of the globe took place, inspired by Felixstowe’s globally significant port.
The resulting postcard sets and audio were symbolic of these two locations ‘meeting’. The photographs of the paired towns were overlaid, creating a visual hybrid of these places whilst the audio featured mirrored recordings, with resident voices from Felixstowe describing the memories and places outside their hometown. Whilst the contributors did not meet in-person they felt the presence of another person’s life, within a port town, elsewhere. Commissioned during the pandemic, Port-to-Port was a call to look outwards and seek commonality. Elements of the project toured to Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCAD) in 2022.
Port-to-Port comprised;
- A deep-listening workshop
- Two artist-led walks
- A printed edition featuring a set of postcards
- Slow Salon, an online discussion
- A live broadcast of an audio walk featuring collected sound material and recordings sent direct and on request by the artist.
You can register for the broadcast here: https://forms.gle/3dyap9afUiyUuDUS9
-A commissioned text by artist and researcher Gudrun Filipska, ‘Port to Port: Making Connections Near and Far. Transmissions of Care and Collectivity across Liquid Boundaries.’
A review by Ella Taylor in Canadian Society for Education Through Art can be read here. Head to page 93.
In March 2022, aspects of Port-to-Port toured to Canada, opening as an exhibition at Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCAD) Canada's largest and oldest educational institution for art and design.
We are grateful to all those who made this possible. Special thanks to Pam Patterson (assistant Prof. TIS, Cross-Disciplinary Art/Faculty of Art OCAD University.
You can access the artist edition using the button below.
Port-to-Port was made possible by the following contributors;
Sound Artist: Olesia Onykiienko (also known as NFNR)
Postcards Design: Uliana Bychenkova
Commissioned Text: Gudrun Filipska
Technical Support (Broadcast): Timothy Maxymenko
Slow Salon Contributors: Diana Berg, Natalie Pace, Maria Sarycheva
Catalina Carvajal, Felixstowe, UK - Hannah Reeves, Ipswich, UK
Annie Watson, Felixstowe, UK - Pam Patterson, Picton, Canada
Gill Bellenie, Felixstowe, UK - Duncan Stuart, Gothenburg, Sweden
Natalie Pace, Felixstowe, UK - Greg Giannis, Reservoir, Victoria, Australia
Chris Smithers, Felixstowe, UK - Daniel Payne, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dawn Pretty, Felixstowe, UK - Natalka Revko, Odessa, Ukraine
Amanda Bowden, Felixstowe, UK - Vira, Mariupol, Ukraine
Laura Locke, Felixstowe, UK - Ekaterina Tokareva, Auckland, New Zealand
Alli Burke, Felixstowe, UK - Katerina Verba, Novorossiysk, Russia
Caroline Corker, Felixstowe, UK - Eliza Soroga, Diakofti, Kythira island, Greece
Kate, Felixstowe, UK - Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey
Rosa, Felixstowe, UK - Slava Redov, Murmansk, Russia
Donna Duncan, Felixstowe, UK - Daryna Kyrychenko, Singapore
Marion Jepson, Felixstowe, UK - Johnny Tal, Haifa, Israel
Annie Watson, Felixstowe, UK - Claude Wittmann, Toronto, Canada
Colin Millar, Felixstowe, UK - Blake Morris, Brooklyn, New York City, USA
Gideon Bowden, Felixstowe, UK - Nobuko Hayashi, Rotterdam, Holland
Caroline Corker, Felixstowe, UK - Aurora De Santis, Civitanova Marche, Italy
Anonymous, Felixstowe, UK - Guillaume, Biarritz, France
Edie, Felixstowe, UK - Mar Salvá, Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Lauren Carr, Felixstowe, UK - Elspeth ( Billie) Penfold, Whitstable, Kent, UK
Holly, Felixstowe, UK - Saulius Kmita, Neringa, Lithuania
S A Cartwright, Felixstowe, UK - C.C., Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Christian Hadwen, Felixstowe, UK - Masha Zhuravleva, Vladivostok, Russia
Catalina Carvajal, Felixstowe, UK - Ursula Troche, Maryport, UK
Voices: Rowan Foot, Clare Baker, Louise Stratford, Bryony Graham (Felixstowe resident and Director of Hamilton MAS, the micro arts space by the sea), Vicky Burling, Emma Foot, Wade Ablitt (Actor, Cafe owner), Stephen Blyth, Elly Clarke, Victoria Petchey (Artist, gallery owner), Steph Merrett (Library Manager), Joanna Blyth.