by Alain Chivilò
© Alain Chivilò
In Kuopio, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival, from 12 to 17 September, with live art and site-specific works from international and Finnish artists.
For artists are nominated for the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art in its 10th edition.
As announced, the artists in ANTI are Autumn Knight (United States), Jota Mombaça (Brazil), Joshua Serafin (Philippines/Belgium) and Tiziano Cruz (Argentina).
The Shortlist LIVE! programme:
Sanity TV – Autumn Knight(US)
Sanity TV is a participatory and experimental performance by Autumn Knight, which takes the form of a talk show; a live p erformance with an open-ended structure. The artist drives the performance from point to point with improvisation, sound, and space activation. The viewers collaborate to determine the shape of the moment and breathe life into the infinite possibilities.
“It is an extremely experimental work for me that takes the form of a talk show in which the audience is imaginary and the “guests” – that range from objects to people- are invited into an imaginary dissociative conversational space by myself, the host. This work feels important, yet effortless; it achieves my goal of working with my strengths as an improvisational performer while instantly critically engaging my ongoing inquiry into psychodynamic theory”. Autumn Knight.
Drawing from her training in theatre and the psychology of group dynamics, the artist makes performances that reshape perceptions of race, gender, and authority. Knight scrutinises institutional spaces that regulate African American subjects or that assert their absence, often putting black women at the centre of the conversation to usurp the dynamics of a room with humour and with purpose.
sinking could be – Jota Mombaça (BR)
sinking could be is a site-specific work by Brazilian artist Jota Mombaça. It continues a cycle of the artist’s recent site-specific compositions in which an assembly of materials including blue light, sound and cotton textiles are activated in order to inform a practice of elemental sensing. In sinking could be water cuts through aluminium sculptures, raw cotton banners, sand, blue window foil, dried flowers, bass and voices together showing us the power of water.
Jota Mombaça’s interdisciplinary work derives from poetry, critical theory, and performance. The sonic and visual matter of words plays an important role in their practice, which often relates to anti-colonial critique and gender disobedience. Through performance, visionary fiction, and situational strategies of knowledge production, they intend to rehearse the end of the world as we know it and the figuration of what comes after we dislodge the Modern-Colonial subject off its podium.
sinking could be was initially produced with the support of the Ammodo Foundation, and presented as a performance and installation at de Appel, Amsterdam.
VOID – Joshua Serafin (PH/BE)
Void (25’) is a live performance by Joshua Serafin, which narrates the birth of a new God based on non-binary identities from pre-colonial religion in the Philippines. Through the use of dance and sounds, the work proposes the foundation of a queer mythology; the nascent moment of a ‘queer spiritual force’ coming out of an apocalyptic era, perhaps our current one, that has arrived to give birth to a new kind of humanity.
In the performance, Void – his speculative new God – appears on earth to live in the mortal world and better understand what it means to be a god of a new time. In the words of the artist, the impetus for creating this work is to decolonize the self and to question heteronormative ideologies that were implemented through religion by the west – in the Philippines and across the world. It takes as a starting point the Filipino pre-colonial identity which is fluid and doesn’t conform to binary representation, as is the case in many other pre-colonial societies.
The live performance of Void is a physical manifestation coming from the video work. This piece is a conversation with a live musician and a prerecorded soundscape.
Joshua Serafin is a multi-disciplinary artist who combines dance, performance, visual arts, and choreography. Born in the Philippines, they are currently based in Brussels. Their works deal with questions about identity, transmigration, queer politics and representation, states of being, and ways of inhabiting the body.
Soliloquy – Tiziano Cruz (AR)
Soliloquy – I woke up and hit my head against the wall is a performative monologue by Argentinian interdisciplinary artist Tiziano Cruz, based on a series of letters written by the artist to his mother during the pandemic in 2020. Reaching her across boundaries of geography and class, Cruz uses the letters as the starting point for a critique of economic, racial and institutional oppression.
As an Indigenous artist, Cruz speaks about the suffering his people have endured under a system of white supremacy, examining the role Buenos Aires plays in Argentina’s culture of inequality. Using the power of theatre and the precision of language, Cruz poses a difficult question: -What does it mean for him to use his body for art in a country where bodies like his are not supposed to exist?
Tiziano Cruz is from a town called San Francisco that belongs to the Valle Grande department of the province of Jujuy, in the north of Argentina. He was born and raised on the border between Chile and Bolivia, original homeland of nine indigenous communities: the Atacama, the Kollas, the Guaraníes, the Tobas, the Ocloyas, the Omaguacas, the Tilianes and the Toaras. His work fundamentally brings together the visual and theatrical language, performance, and artistic intervention of public space.
by Alain Chivilò
© Alain Chivilò
In Kuopio, ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival, from 12 to 17 September, with live art and site-specific works from international and Finnish artists.
For artists are nominated for the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art in its 10th edition.
As announced, the artists in ANTI are Autumn Knight (United States), Jota Mombaça (Brazil), Joshua Serafin (Philippines/Belgium) and Tiziano Cruz (Argentina).
The Shortlist LIVE! programme:
Sanity TV – Autumn Knight(US)
Sanity TV is a participatory and experimental performance by Autumn Knight, which takes the form of a talk show; a live p erformance with an open-ended structure. The artist drives the performance from point to point with improvisation, sound, and space activation. The viewers collaborate to determine the shape of the moment and breathe life into the infinite possibilities.
“It is an extremely experimental work for me that takes the form of a talk show in which the audience is imaginary and the “guests” – that range from objects to people- are invited into an imaginary dissociative conversational space by myself, the host. This work feels important, yet effortless; it achieves my goal of working with my strengths as an improvisational performer while instantly critically engaging my ongoing inquiry into psychodynamic theory”. Autumn Knight.
Drawing from her training in theatre and the psychology of group dynamics, the artist makes performances that reshape perceptions of race, gender, and authority. Knight scrutinises institutional spaces that regulate African American subjects or that assert their absence, often putting black women at the centre of the conversation to usurp the dynamics of a room with humour and with purpose.
sinking could be – Jota Mombaça (BR)
sinking could be is a site-specific work by Brazilian artist Jota Mombaça. It continues a cycle of the artist’s recent site-specific compositions in which an assembly of materials including blue light, sound and cotton textiles are activated in order to inform a practice of elemental sensing. In sinking could be water cuts through aluminium sculptures, raw cotton banners, sand, blue window foil, dried flowers, bass and voices together showing us the power of water.
Jota Mombaça’s interdisciplinary work derives from poetry, critical theory, and performance. The sonic and visual matter of words plays an important role in their practice, which often relates to anti-colonial critique and gender disobedience. Through performance, visionary fiction, and situational strategies of knowledge production, they intend to rehearse the end of the world as we know it and the figuration of what comes after we dislodge the Modern-Colonial subject off its podium.
sinking could be was initially produced with the support of the Ammodo Foundation, and presented as a performance and installation at de Appel, Amsterdam.
VOID – Joshua Serafin (PH/BE)
Void (25’) is a live performance by Joshua Serafin, which narrates the birth of a new God based on non-binary identities from pre-colonial religion in the Philippines. Through the use of dance and sounds, the work proposes the foundation of a queer mythology; the nascent moment of a ‘queer spiritual force’ coming out of an apocalyptic era, perhaps our current one, that has arrived to give birth to a new kind of humanity.
In the performance, Void – his speculative new God – appears on earth to live in the mortal world and better understand what it means to be a god of a new time. In the words of the artist, the impetus for creating this work is to decolonize the self and to question heteronormative ideologies that were implemented through religion by the west – in the Philippines and across the world. It takes as a starting point the Filipino pre-colonial identity which is fluid and doesn’t conform to binary representation, as is the case in many other pre-colonial societies.
The live performance of Void is a physical manifestation coming from the video work. This piece is a conversation with a live musician and a prerecorded soundscape.
Joshua Serafin is a multi-disciplinary artist who combines dance, performance, visual arts, and choreography. Born in the Philippines, they are currently based in Brussels. Their works deal with questions about identity, transmigration, queer politics and representation, states of being, and ways of inhabiting the body.
Soliloquy – Tiziano Cruz (AR)
Soliloquy – I woke up and hit my head against the wall is a performative monologue by Argentinian interdisciplinary artist Tiziano Cruz, based on a series of letters written by the artist to his mother during the pandemic in 2020. Reaching her across boundaries of geography and class, Cruz uses the letters as the starting point for a critique of economic, racial and institutional oppression.
As an Indigenous artist, Cruz speaks about the suffering his people have endured under a system of white supremacy, examining the role Buenos Aires plays in Argentina’s culture of inequality. Using the power of theatre and the precision of language, Cruz poses a difficult question: -What does it mean for him to use his body for art in a country where bodies like his are not supposed to exist?
Tiziano Cruz is from a town called San Francisco that belongs to the Valle Grande department of the province of Jujuy, in the north of Argentina. He was born and raised on the border between Chile and Bolivia, original homeland of nine indigenous communities: the Atacama, the Kollas, the Guaraníes, the Tobas, the Ocloyas, the Omaguacas, the Tilianes and the Toaras. His work fundamentally brings together the visual and theatrical language, performance, and artistic intervention of public space.
by Alain Chivilò
