The beginning of this work lays in the image.
Many images.
To see them is to inhabit them, they say.
Yet the few people who appear in them seems to be employed rather as prototypes of humans than individuals – figures frozen in positions, gazing mildly into unknown, waiting, withdrawn unto themselves, isolated, often lost as if being thrown into existence without any choice – suspended–detached from space and time. And the images seem like full of suspense stills whose narrative character is suggested by the picture but still cannot be read in its entirety on a purely visual level. They seem asking for imagination and emotional engagement of the beholder invited to think further into the story suggested by the image, dig in his/her own archive of images and gestures and start its narrative motor.
And here is where we enter the stage…
But the piece is first of all on the practice of looking. And seeing with images, rediscovering their traces in reality that surrounds us. The work examines possibility of conflating modes of perception and experiencing of the visual and of performing arts. The stage window of theatre we believe (like aperta finistra of the image) has the power of inviting viewers to see things with a total new eyes and offers them a pure vision abstracted of necessity ever present in a daily life.
Cause only what exists for no other purpose than to be seen, we really look at, been also said. But …to see the world, one needs first to make it model or memorize its image… And that is why we entered this work knowing also that art cannot change the world. But what it is hopefully able to change is the onlooker, and his/her relation to the world… (Jeff Wall)
performed by Aleksandra Borys, Márta Ladjánszki, Janusz Orlika
music Zsolt Varga
exercised by Aleksandra Borys, Márta Ladjánszki, Joanna Leśnierowska, Janusz Orlik, Zsolt Varga and Halina Chmielarz
graphic design Michał Łuczak
concept and shooting Leś&Łuczak
production manager and technical realization Łukasz Kędzierski
produced by Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk
with residency support of DeVIR/CAPa, Faro; El Graner, Barcelona
thanks to Ana Rodrigues & José Laginha, Mara Maso & Elena Carmona, to Peter Pleyer for his support during kick off residency in March 2013 and always for the Team of ASF’s performative program