Jared van Earle travelled to Cluj-Napoca
Oulu’s second artist, Saara Halminen, travelled to Eleusis
Artists’ Statement
I grew up playing video games and watching sci-fi with my mum. She loved being able to go to a different world and experience things you couldn’t in this reality. I think this has carried into my work, to transport people into a little world and experience something extra-ordinary. Maybe voyeuristic is the right word. Immersive theatrical work can be like real life video games. Circus and acrobatics distort reality, transcending normal life and the rules of nature like time and gravity. Acrobatics is an amazing medium of performance as up close it is real and relatable with the human form yet also surreal. Art can be like a ceremony to overcome or find guidance – to help people cope and adapt.
Art can question and bring meaning. Having an emotional issue that you are currently working through portrayed in a performance piece can be hugely validating or cathartic. I like working with elevated ordinary and relatable human emotions. Having studied as a circus artist I love physicality, although I am also continually moving towards more multidiciplinary projects. I enjoy being inspired to use many different artistic techniques, whether it is electronic components to create kinetic movement in installations, projection mapping as scenography or creating new movement material in the dirt and grit of real life immersive locations. Any artistic medium that help you with truly touching someone’s reality.
“I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” – Maya Angelou.
Artists’ Biography
Jared van Earle is an Australian circus, dance and multimedia artist living in Oulu, Northern Finland. He graduated with a Circus degree from Madrid, after an emerging career in photography, video and graphic design and years of travel diving into the worlds of yoga and movement. In the media industry, he worked from design intern into a creative director, from building cardboard robots for video shoots to designing experiential environments in music festivals.
With his love for audience proximity, Jared has performed in multiple immersive performances of the visionary producer Pirjo Yli-Maunula, such as VARIKKO and Varjakka revisited, and currently co-founded POLKU, an artist collective creating immersive performances in natural urban environments with a strong focus in environmentalism. In 2020-22, Jared was a visiting circus artist in Oulu City Theatre’s Kaboom and the power of imagination (Finnish Children’s Theatre award). He has also been part of projects of multimedia and Dance company T A I K A B O X ry, such as Dance hacks in 2019 & -21, and the Beat Hotel, a collective installation for LUMO light festival 2022, mixing historical Beat literature with futuristic installations of projectors, light and sound art, servo motors and rustic artifacts.
Jared and Katariina van Earle’s first own production Shapes of Water received praise from media and the public, was chosen for Flow circus series, toured in Northern Finland and spun off collaboration with Oulu University creating children’s music and new contemporary circus about climate change. Jared also works as a dancer and performed in Negotiation, a piece choreographed by Heli Pippingsköld.
Video from the visit
Visual Gesture
Each artist on the residency programme was asked to create a simple visual gesture for potential inclusion in the ULYSSES European Odyssey book. An image that reflected their visit to another partner city, a moment which stayed with them, something quite simple, even symbolic.
All images are copyright of the individual artists.
