What about the body?

November 3, 2019 Petra Mrša

2019

Three-channel video installation, text, performance
Artists: Nina Kurtela, Maša Milovac, Mejra Mujčić, Petra Mrša, Jasna Jasna Žmak / Initiator: Petra Mrša

Video still

What about the body? conceives the body as a way of being in the world, as a tool for learning about oneself, others, and the environment. In a time of increasingly mediated reality, the scope of activities that can be performed from one place, in one position, usually behind a computer, is increasing, so the occasions for the body to unfold as a perceptive tool are declining. Invited by Mrša, five female artists from different artistic backgrounds (visual art, performance, design, and dramaturgy) gathered to tackle the issue of the body in contemporaneity.
After several gatherings for sharing and connecting their ideas and interests around this topic, each one commented on a body in daily activities through recording her own body. The role of the body in performing those activities is given to the examination in the three-channel video installation. They self-composed the questionnaire that asks for disputing the categories in which the body is thought through.
The questionnaire and artists’ scattered answers were positioned on five different reading stations along with video installation. The artists performed them together with the audience; comments, new answers, and questions about the body were shared through the physical presence of the bodies. The whole project was made processual, in which various moves – exercises, served as a switch to start or continue the focus of the conversations on the issue of the contemporary body and to question the extent to which our bodies are the bodies of the current power structure system.

Catalog / Text by Olga Majcen Linn
Bookmark
Review by Tihana Bertek for Kulturpunkt.hr