C I T Y E S C A P E
/ series of performances in the city /
a plant is a refuge, where one can breathe,
embracing leafy branches, creating a safe island of intimacy,
finding silence and peace amid busy citylife and busy people.
/ series of performances in the city /
a plant is a refuge, where one can breathe,
embracing leafy branches, creating a safe island of intimacy,
finding silence and peace amid busy citylife and busy people.
"Cityescape" is a series of performances with plant-partners, a reflection on city-life frustration, and space for nature in a big perpetually moving mechanism.
City is a high-functioning organism, a stage, where people get dressed and act in accordance with certain norms and codes. Conditioned by high efficiency, schedules, and number of steps daily counted by a smartphone, city life might hit hard those who want to move in other pace and violate the city flow – they become alienated inconvenient misfits. A concentrate of people and industries - the city feels like a mechanism with little space for slowness, pause and contemplation.
I throw myself in the city. Found tree branches – cut off and piled up as the fall season approaches – become a portal to a different narrative in the city. I hide my face in the plant and stand still, hugging them to my chest, blind, feeling how the smell of the cut green leaf black out the street. While I'm in a different "inner landscape", physically I'm present in the city, observable and vulnerable and at the same time, protected by the plant. On one hand, these performances are an attempt to create micro-fractures in the usual city routine, on the other hand – a way to withdraw from continuity, written by an urge to fit a collective endless city act. This is a process of building an island with own flow of time, an intimacy with a plant, that is also an alien on concrete streets. Hiding in its leaves is a longing for nature where the norm is to be authentic as there is no one who expects you to act and follow the codes. These plants are refuges of silence and listening amid busy streets and busy people.
Project is presented in a form of video-documentation of performances that took place in Ravenna, Italy in October 2017
City is a high-functioning organism, a stage, where people get dressed and act in accordance with certain norms and codes. Conditioned by high efficiency, schedules, and number of steps daily counted by a smartphone, city life might hit hard those who want to move in other pace and violate the city flow – they become alienated inconvenient misfits. A concentrate of people and industries - the city feels like a mechanism with little space for slowness, pause and contemplation.
I throw myself in the city. Found tree branches – cut off and piled up as the fall season approaches – become a portal to a different narrative in the city. I hide my face in the plant and stand still, hugging them to my chest, blind, feeling how the smell of the cut green leaf black out the street. While I'm in a different "inner landscape", physically I'm present in the city, observable and vulnerable and at the same time, protected by the plant. On one hand, these performances are an attempt to create micro-fractures in the usual city routine, on the other hand – a way to withdraw from continuity, written by an urge to fit a collective endless city act. This is a process of building an island with own flow of time, an intimacy with a plant, that is also an alien on concrete streets. Hiding in its leaves is a longing for nature where the norm is to be authentic as there is no one who expects you to act and follow the codes. These plants are refuges of silence and listening amid busy streets and busy people.
Project is presented in a form of video-documentation of performances that took place in Ravenna, Italy in October 2017
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
link to video-documentation
link to video-documentation
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
link to video-documentation
link to video-documentation
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
use navigation arrows to see the slideshow
