Xchange Part 1

× Through enmeshing musical and visual art on stage, the curatorial aim is to have a ‘relational tension’ created, one that offers a unique interpretation based on the blending of art mediums. In colour theory - as used by the Pointillists in the 1880’s for example - two distinct pure colours placed side by side can create the image of a third colour. The eye ‘blends’ the colours. The technique relies on the ability of the eye and mind of the viewer to blend the colour spots into a fuller range of tones.

We are attempting a conceptual ‘blending' on-stage of music and visual art, aiming to deepen our understanding of what is possible in performance. The viewer, in this case the audience, will blend the mediums.

The work is experimental and undefined as expressed within outcomes. The structure of the performances (5 in total) is intentionally set up to not have predictable results, nor to overly pre-plan or compose the two parallel forms as presented.

Part 1 features Anh Le and Marina Hasselberg

Anh Le

Anh Le regards tattoos as personal symbols of meaning and memory, marking and attributing the essence of the imagery onto the individual. She loves client collaborations - when a client brings ideas, images, stories or memories to weave into their body - as well as creating her own designs to offer.

Multi-disciplinary in her earlier visual art practice, she has chosen to focus on drawing since 2015, researching and amalgamating elements from the worlds of graffiti, calligraphy, biology, geometry, psychedelic art, tribal and contemporary tattooing.

Tattooing mainly in an ornamental style of black line work, Le’s designs are reminiscent of mandalas, yet are often abstracted into a vertically symmetrical shape. She thinks of her designs as insignia; evocative of a blotchy Rorschach test, these biomorphic forms use various weights of tightly woven lines and dot-work to create calligraphic images of plants, animals and ocean life. These insignia could function as personal symbols of meaning and virtue, selected to mark and attribute the wearer with the essence of defined and implied illustrated elements.

Le has tattooed since 2018, trained by several professional tattoo artists. Before arriving at tattooing, she had a career in various areas of art gallery administration, exhibition production and curatorial work from 2007-2018. She studied visual arts at North Island College and Emily Carr University, completing a BFA in 2007. She has a private studio on Salt Spring Island, BC.

Marina Hasselberg

Boundless inquisitiveness sits at the very heart of award-winning cellist Marina Hasselberg's rich artistic practice. Over the past decade, she has traveled a distinctive route that has variously led her through early music, free improvisation, the fringes of pop songcraft, electronics, contemporary chamber music, and an array of interdisciplinary collaborations that resist classification.

She's a powerful player that's nourished by her immersion in classical training, but by no means limited by it. Her relationship with the cello was ignited at age 11 during her studies at the musical academy of Évora, in her native Portugal. She later completed a Bachelor's degree in Lisbon, and in 2008, she came to Canada to pursue a Masters degree in Literature and Performance from the University of Western Ontario.

Georgia Straight journalist Janet Smith wrote of Hasselberg that she “has become a standout presence on Vancouver's music scene.” Meanwhile, speaking to her imagination and versatility, veteran writer Alexander Varty describes her as “a spark plug in two very different musical worlds.”

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