Home­sick
Festi­val

Artists

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  Aldo Giannotti

  was raised in the small seaside town of Massa, not far from the city of Pisa and close to Carrara - a place known for producing most of the white marble used for Renaissance sculptures, including that of Michelangelo’s David. Aldo grew up watching Japanese anime with Italian dubbing on national TV stations which was a booming feature in Italy in the1980’s. He was a big fan of series called "Akira" and "Hokuto no Ken". He always thought he would one day become an animator, but didn't pursue the dream when he realized the solitude of this job. Aldo has lived in Vienna since 2000 and works in various media such as drawing, photography, and performance. His work triggers the imagination of viewers and challenges the common sense and rules of play in their social, political and everyday environments.
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  Krõõt Juurak & Alex Bailey

  were kids in the 1980’s in two different geopolitical contexts. Krõõt grew up in Tallinn when Estonia was still Soviet Estonia. She drank her first Coca Cola at the age of 14 and didn’t like it. Alex grew up as the oldest of three boys in a suburb of Bristol during Margaret Thatcher’s era in the UK. They met each other during their masters’ study in Fine Arts in Amsterdam and started developing projects together. They moved to Vienna in 2013. One of their most notable works is Animal Jokes, a serious and sincere performance aimed at telling jokes to various breeds of animals such as dogs, cats, and donkeys. Krõõt and Alex are currently working on an ongoing performance series called Codomestication, in which they invite their two-year-old son Albert as a collaborator. They take inspiration from their domestic life and initiate a reflection on the elements that make up the nuclear family as well as social organizations.
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  Michikazu Matsune

  grew up in the seaside town of Kobe. When Michikazu was small, his father took him and his brothers to the airport only to watch airplanes departing and landing - a memory that repeatedly affected his life in one way or another. He moved to Vienna in the 1990s as a result of sheer coincidence - a funny story, but not the kind that should be written about here... Michikazu is an artist who utilizes diverse approaches which range from stage-performances, interventions in public spaces, to fabricating artefacts for performative action. His work, often containing poetic absurdity with a subtle sense of humour, reflects upon our globalized society playfully and critically. His urge to deal with his past, childhood, current states of being, and unknown future, inspired him to initiate the first Homesick Festival in Vienna in 2017.
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  Marta Navaridas

  was born in a Basque city next to the ocean. She started training in karate and ballet at age 4. She didn't like ballet so much, but she would have done anything to avoid staying at home. When her mother bought a video camera, Marta started performing regularly, mostly mimicking Madonna choreographies and Shotokan Katas in schoolyards, in gym halls, and on the backseat of her parents’ car. As a teen, she wanted to be more like the boys and played e-guitar in numerous unsuccessful punk bands. At 18, she left for Barcelona to study something real (interpretation: a ploy to make her family believe that she had a plan). Later she took an incidental turn and left for Arnhem and Amsterdam to study something unreal – choreography – an attempt to revive her childhood dreams. Right now, Marta conjures up choreographies for a living, she plays in amateur music projects and travels a lot.
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  Akemi Takeya

  is a singer, performer, and choreographer based in Vienna. Akemi was born and raised in Aomori in northern Japan, where people speak in the same dialect as the Butoh dance legend, Tatsumi Hijikata. Over the years Akemi has established herself as a performance artist who has multiple facets. However, since her childhood, she only dreamt of becoming a singer. She used to sing Japanese pop songs as a daily act before family dinners. She went on to learn Geisha songs. At one point, her wish was to be an existentialist jazz-singer - a mysterious, sophisticated, and dark persona in a smoky nightclub based in a metropolis. Her list of dreams multiplied. Her current focus in life is to be capricious and let herself go along with the flow of her moods.
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  Anna Witt

  grew up in a small town in Bavaria, where, ever since she was born, the inhabitants were fighting against the construction of a nearby highway. Unfortunately, the battle against the government was lost. They recently started constructing a huge highway bridge that looms into the landscape. So the idea of citizen's rights and self-positioning within bigger social and political structures was an influential topic for her from an early age. At the age of 16, on her way to school, she did her first performance in a public space. Since then she continued to realize project after project in various places in her neighbourhood and eventually around the globe. Anna's artistic practice reflects upon specific local contexts and involves other people, passers-by or different social groups.