Manuel Vason (IT/UK): Pure Collaboration

In Manuel Vason’s partnerships with artists including Guillermo Goméz-Peña, Franko B, Niko Raes, Ernst Fischer, La Ribot and Helen Spackman, a performance work is either restaged anew or developed specifically for his camera. These projects, works of pure collaboration, differ in principle from conventional performance documentation in that Vason, camera in tow, is always the sole witness to the singular live event, which also takes place in a non-theatrical space of the artists’ choosing.

As points of departure , each collaboration is predicted on a series of mutual concerns;  a challenge to the role of the camera and of photography in relation to individual and group activity;  a fascination with the body, in its multiple and radical diversity; and an interrogation of new forms of collaborative practice.

At the ANTI Festival, Vason will work with 1-3 Finnish artists performing at the festival.

Manuel Vason (IT/UK)

Originally from Padova, Italy, Manuel Vason (b.1974) is a photo artist residing in the UK. Since 1999, he has been closely collaborating with a number of live art artists in order to bring out the momentariness and the real character of the performances/works. Works of Manuel Vason have been presented, for example, in the magazines ID, L’Uomo Vogue, Flash Art, Frieze and Tate Magazine and he has held exhibitions at, for example, the Tate Liverpool, ICA London, Whitechapel Gallery and Luke & A Gallery London museums and galleries. Furthermore, he has taken the photos for the publications Oh Lover Boy in collaboration with Franco B (2001 Black Dog Publishing) and Exposure (2002 Black Dog Publishing).