Martha Atienza is a multi-disciplinary artist specializing in video and multi media installation art. Often creating and presenting installations along with her media art, she explores the notion of identity and space, and employs various multi-media resources to surround the viewer in her multi-sensory experiences.
Endless Hours at Sea is the culmination of Martha’s voyages on international cargo ships from 2010 to date. Martha has sailed from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland, crossed the South China Sea from Singapore-Thailand and Malaysia, sailed to the port of Melbourne, Australia; travelled through the transatlantic; crossing from New Orleans, USA to Köplin, Sweden via Kaliningrad, Russia. Singapore is her next stop in January 2014, before coming full circle and sailing back to the Philippines.
Born in the Philippines to a Dutch mother who worked for a Dutch shipping line, a Filipino father who was a sea captain, Martha has travelled between the two countries constantly. Based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Bantayan Island, the Philippines, she grew up partly on an island in the centre of the Philippines surrounded by water and watching men leave out to sea. Her brothers and relatives also worked in the shipping industry and “ my grandfather was a lighthouse watcher for twenty years - on an island with no more than six coconut trees! ” Martha declares, “In a bid to connect to this history, I have found myself spending endless hours at sea.”
The installation is an examination of the paradox of man’s existence with the fixed yet mutative quality of water, powerful and beguiling. “Atienza’s video installations are culled from her dual heritage, Filipino and Dutch. The notion of ‘stranger’ emanates as a crevice between the operation of understanding and imagining. Her work is almost of a socio- logical nature that examines her direct environment and its relationship with awareness.”
In 2006, Martha received her Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts and Design in the Netherlands. She also participated at the art programme at the Kuvataideakatemia in Helsinki, Finland, in 2005. Previously she exhibited video art, often described as snapshots of reality, as part of installations at galleries. Her works have been exhibited internationally at various art spaces, galleries and video festivals. In 2009, she joined a residency in Green Papaya Project space in the Philippines. She recently was awarded the Ateneo Arts Award with studio Residency Grants in Liverpool Hope University, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo, Australia, Art Omi International Artists Residency New York, USA, and Ateneo Art Gallery -Artesan Gallery + Studio Singapore Residency, Singapore.
Image: © Martha Atienza
