WE

We meet in the garden. At its hard edges and soft transitions, down by the roots in the earth we dream and up above, in the arms of the pine tree, we breathe. In between, in the green thicket, it wobbles, chirps and hums. We tune in.

Ulrike Bernard, Kathrin Köster, Lise Chevalier

As a TRIO (Lise Chevalier, Kathrin Köster and Ulrike Bernard) we co-operate at the interfaces and transitions between art and ecology. We create indoor and outdoor spaces. In doing so, we weave a lively network of exchange, of give and take - with each other as artists and in contact with the respective (social) ecosystem. With our artistic methods such as ceramics, painting, poetry, textiles and artistic reading, we open up fields of imagination and encounter. As part of the multi-year artistic residency programme A.T.E.N.A in Sète (southern France), we have been giving our shared vision a variety of forms since 2020.

photo by Anna Blomme

Ulrike Bernard (Italy) lives and works in Berlin.

website

As a visual artist I create installations and performative encounters. I transfer my interest with (eco)feminist perspectives into textile works that become activated in the context of gatherings and exhibitions. Whether in the course of a performative gesture, a dialogical reading format or within a participatory installation, I´m particularly intrigued by the references and the connections that arise when participants come together, which can be sensed through the presence of the body, beyond language and everyday logic. I love to initiate spaces that allow for well-being, dialog and play. I work as a solo artist as well as in collective constellations. In my and our work, we are constantly exploring performative formats that allow for deeper ways of participation, activation and presence and that challange our usual ways of perception. I´m active in environmental and cultural education and the founder of the Atelier Of Liveliness, an indoor and outdoor workshop laboratory for artistic and environmental life forms. I grew up in the Dolomites with a direct view of the mountain Schlern/Sciliar and have lived in Berlin since 2006.

photo by Olympia Gauguet

Kathrin Köster (Germany) lives and works in Berlin.

website

As a visual artist, I work on shifting boundaries and transitions, ambivalences and states of suspension. I mainly work with movable and permeable materials, such as textiles, simply fired ceramics and drawings and paintings on loose surfaces. Foldings and their variability - the unstable and deformable - determine the material interaction: additive, cumulative, successive: through folding and unfolding. In addition to my own artistic work, I am part of several collective structures: e.g. co-founder of the artist collective traces and the frontviews collectiv, an association of artists and theorists with a focus on ecological themes and processes of dissolution. As part of a teaching assignment at the UdK Berlin, I worked with students on the theme of the garden and designed an exhibition on this topic.

photo by Ulrike Bernard

Lise Chevalier (France) lives and works in Sète.

website

I am a visual artist and poet, my approach is characterized by a multiplicity of media, the use of

traditional skills and projects abroad. In reciprocity with the living, I create an “inner mythology”.

Megaliths rub shoulders with ferns, and a “plant genesis” is revealed in my inks, papers and ceramics. My artists’ books and installations invoke a rite of uninterrupted dialogue with nature.

My work is exhibited in France and abroad: Auberge de France in Rhodes, Centro Cultural Metropolitano in Quito, Institut français in Kyoto, Topographie de l’Art in Paris, MO.CO Panacée in Montpellier. Committed to the visibility of women artists, ecological research and multicultural exchange, I am the founder of the A.T.E.N.A artist residency program and the A.TE.N.A garden in Sète.

FRAGMENTS / ARTWORKS

by Ulrike Bernard