2019
Performance
The Session is a gathering in a room, with performers occupying the periphery of the chamber, and the audience freely entering and exiting the space. This arrangement manifests a spatial collage, composed of movement, reading, moving-image projections, and live sound performance.
Artist reads out loud fragments of the text from the Mondo, by J.M.G Le Clézio, that speaks about the experience of an immigrant boy that travels alone and his encounters with dwellers and institutions of the coastal town that he temporarily inhabits. Parallel to that she is showing and closing images, videos, and maps on the projection that all complicate the familiar representation of ‘otherness’. Dancers maneuver around the perimeter of the room – jointly or in separation, occasionally coming into contact with each other, acknowledging each other’s trajectories. Another performer is live mixing radio waves, wandering through unpredictable sound spaces.
The character in the book, Mondo is visiting parts of the city that are unpopular to the locals, he is moving slowly, paying attention to the changes of the shadows, the appearance of the smoke, waves, and the variety of citizens, and through that perception, he builds his connections to the city. His way of living fits the image of “the unwanted” among the city institutions which brings him additional trouble. His walks, encounters, and observations resonate in the created environment of The Session, focusing the viewer’s attention on minding all human bodies that move in the same plane and actively acknowledging each other’s presence.
Alongside numerous relevant efforts to show social injustice that makes immigrants leave their countries, The Session deals with the idea of the complex and heterogeneous lives of immigrants that are all looked through the same lens: immigrants are the generator of the problems.
The Session is made in collaborations with performing artists: Eva Kocić and Gendis Putri and sound artist Hrvoslava Brkušić. It was performed as a part of Open studio organized by WHW Akademija at David Maljković studio in Zagreb in 2019.
Photo credits: Matija Kralj
