Halina Kliem and Daniel Rothman
Residency:
September 2022

Created by artists Halina Kliem and Daniel Rothman, the Ballona/Waachnga Project is a long-durational, multistage work that, through a variety of media, brings together the imagination and science of the Ballona Wetlands, Los Angeles’s last remaining wetland.

The artists want to thank the American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity, which selected The Ballona/Waachnga Project for the 2022 “Resilience”-themed Bruce Geller Memorial Prize, and they wish to express their gratitude to Venice Arts, with whom they will partner as the project moves into its next stage of development.

The artists also very sincerely acknowledge assistance in its many forms from Ballona Wetland Conservancy, Jim Burton & EcoKai, Dr. Dan Cooper (Cooper Ecological Monitoring), Joyce Dallal, Renée A. Fox, Fulcrum Arts, Fabian Harb (ABC Dinamo), Institute for Jewish Creativity & Sagi Refael (AJU), Karina Johnston (Bay Foundation), Paul Kliem, Robert Adee Koch (Cornell Ornithology Lab), Andrea Loselle, Frank Masi & Brent Imai, Milo, Dr. Margaret O’Brien (Environmental Data Initiative), Dr. Edith Read (E Read & Associates: Ecological Surveys/Restoration), Dr. Shelley Stall (American Geophysical Union), Dr. Michael Stocker (Ocean Conservation Research), Lorraine Suzuki, The Puffin Foundation, Holly Tempo, Lynn Warshafsky & Venice Arts, and 18th Street Art Center. Learn more about the Ballona/Waachnga Project here.

About the artists
Halina Kliem is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in the divided city of Berlin. She uses a combination of media, which often includes video, photography, and the written word to investigate variations and gaps that occur within language and communication. She has always been interested in feminism, nonhuman entities, various wildlife species, and the space between science and alternate bodies of knowledge. Her time-based media installations were featured at MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles (USA), Kunstmuseum Bonn (Germany), the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (UK), Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz (Austria), Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (Germany), the Brooklyn Film Festival (USA), Florida Film Festival (USA), London Short Film Festival (UK), and Pace Gallery, New York (USA). She studied experimental film, photography, and sound at Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh and holds a Master of Fine Arts and Visual Culture Studies from Berlin University of the Arts in Germany. She lives in Los Angeles.

Daniel Rothman is a Los Angeles-based composer and sound installation artist whose work is performed and installed at leading international venues, including LACMA and Zentrum für Kunst und MedienTechnologie (Karlsruhe). He founded Wires Center for New & Experimental Music in Los Angeles in 1991, and Los Angeles River Records a decade later. At CalArts he taught music composition and courses for the Department of Critical Studies, and he was a visiting composer at Brooklyn College Computer Music Center, Mills College Center for Contemporary Music, Darmstadt Internationales Musikinstitut, IEM-Graz, Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (Paris), Dansk Institut fur Elektroakustiche Musik (Århus), and Experimentalstudio des Südwestrundfunks (Freiburg). He has been a recipient of awards from the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the French Ministry of Culture, and his music is available on the Albany, DaCapo, Éditions QB, New World, Los Angeles River, and Zeitklang record labels.

Artist Links
Soundcloud: The Ballona/Waachnga Project
Vimeo: The Ballona/Waachnga Project
Website: Daniel Rothman
Website: Halina Kliem
Instagram: Halina Kliem