Artistic spaces
It’s Friday again. It’s a week that every day could count as a week by itself. I am sitting in the theater and I am thinking of another week I spent here and the references I gathered and presented today. Angelopoulos - Venner for Søvn - Milk pie. There is again a triangle that I worked on.
Site - Monologue - Feeling. Firstly, when I think about my research on site-specificity, the connection that comes up to my mind is Theo Angelopoulos, and they way he worked with scenography and characters. A hand pops up from the sea, which lacks the index finger, and we experience the sadness that affects the souls of the children and the feeling that God does not bring redemption in the end. God? It is a word weirdly used when you were born and raised in a theocratic society. God is certainly no longer the same that people who built religions had in their minds, nor is the savior that many still seek to come from nowhere. The only power over us is nature, which if we think we are sovereign, then we have lost the game of living together peacefully. And we built theaters, halls, amphitheaters, scenes, and we closed the art in a glass box with a don’t touch note, in a perfectly secured room, in a museum that you would never visit if you don’t have the money to pay for a ticket. Art exclusive and only for a few. Great artists, bigger museums. Great theaters, bigger productions. And suddenly this need to go outside again came again, bringing with us our creations, to combine it with the art of nature. Should we ask nature first?
Tonight we can all participate in the performance. Maybe there is acceptance, maybe there is denial. Let’s respect it. Let’s take a few steps back. Let’s leave as if nothing ever happened here. Let’s thank nature. Venner for Søvn. Friends with nature. Nature, forest as an endless Black Box Theater. Concepts that are based on the respect for nature and the charm of its unpredictable conditions. Sound, whether it’s a melody or a song, combined with the sounds of the forest. Text as a starting point and a familiarity, generosity from the artists to the audience.
Generosity, that was exactly all my childhood. My grandmother, a typical grandmother figure, the friendliest and kindest person I have ever met. A strong and creative woman, having gone through war, poverty and many other difficulties throughout her life. But always with a smile. She grew up in a mountainous village in Epirus, making kneading an art. Bringing back memories I can’t forget the smells of her food, and the milk pie I made is a recall of that smell, a bit of my childhood and doing what my grandmother taught me. To offer.
