Platform for Young Performance Artists 2011
Flutgraben e.V, Berlin
28th - 30th 2011
I-pah summer Camp is an annual week long set of workshops in which young performance artists have the opportunity to work with, and learn from, more established performance practitioners. This is a particularly intense week during which the participants not only get to develop and show multiple performances to each other but also get an opportunity to talk about their work and expand their ability to critically engage with the performances of others. Without the pressure of a public audience or the desire to entertain inhibiting experimentation, participants may let go and experiment and practice in a way that is less possible in the somewhat more academic framework of the university. PLATFORM YOUNG PERFORMANCE ARTISTS is the culmination of this process and brings together work by a selection of artists from the summer camp alongside work by more experienced performance artists from all over the world, including those who led the workshops. It also facilitates further opportunities for those involved as either performers or audience members to discuss in more depth the work that is being shown.
On Thursday the 28th the event will open with a series of short performances by the summer camp participants which will be followed in the second half of the night by performances by Aline Benecke, He Chengyao, Jurgen Fritz and Yannick Ross. The second night will commence with a durational group performance by workshop members and will be followed in the second half by a further series of short performances by Christine Haase, Ray Langenbach, Laura Mello, Sarah Wendt and Alexander Wilson & Erin Sexton. In conjunction to this programme there will be additional satellite performances and discussions during the week, please see the accompanying timetable for more details.
No artistic form, from the most traditional to the most contemporary, consists of practitioners who hold a consensus as to what an artist should and should not do in order to make a strong work in that medium and it is in the medium of Performance Art that the absence of this consensus is arguably the most evident. The underlying cause of this absence can be found in a number of reasons from the smaller proportion of seminal discursive texts on the subject to the fact their is less of a cannon to create comparisons from. Reasons that all result directly or indirectly from Performance Arts ephemeral and transient nature in comparison to that of the other mediums. This means it is far harder when selecting artists to participate in an event such as this to pick out similarities in motivation or stylistic approach, prevalent trends or some form of a zeitgeist, then when organising an exhibition consisting of work of other mediums.
The focus of this year’s PLATFROM is to lay bare the spectrum of approaches to making work that exist within the amorphous and ever shifting understanding of what is Performance Art and the differing outcomes that are a result of this. This approach aims to distance the event from any claims of being a survey or cross section of current practices and avoids attempting to outline similarities devised by the curators or impose a sense of cohesion amongst such a disparate collection of work. Thus if there is a conversation that runs as a thread through this contrasting selection of work it is to be extrapolated solely by the audience.
The diverse selection of work presented over the two days includes a ritualistic site specific soundscape created by Erin Sexton and Alexander Wilson from chaotic open circuits and complex algorithms which is inspired by the light and sound spectra that we normally cannot perceive or detect.
In contrast the experience of the work of He Chengyao’s is likened to that of the concept of spiritual catharsis in psychology. Drawing on her own life story as well as her understanding of her families past for subject material she re-enacts painful memories in order to release suppressed pain in an attempt at purification.
While Sarah Wendt will create an improvised commentary on the architecture of the workshop hall within Flutgraben using her body as the tool for this commentary, the artist will use movements derived from everyday activities such as walking or opening and closing a door, isolate them and analyze them to reveal what they really do in the space.
Further approaches will include, subject or concept driven performances, dance influenced work, sound work, ritualistic and endurance actions and performance lectures amongst others.
In terms of the work of the I-pah participants, the intense nature of the workshops in which they have developed their performances in will most likely be reflected in the work which they will exhibit. Inherent in the workshops is the strong sense of togetherness that is created from the artists living, working, eating and socialising in close proximity to each other and this feeds into their work in a number of ways. On a more formal level this can be seen in group performances were, while working individually but in unison, the artists intuitively know the limits and nature of how they can interact with each other, on a more conceptual level it can be seen in the performance of Rex Vlcek, Tabea Hörnlein & Beate Linne were there is a direct engagement with the process of working together in the form of a discussion on the work of their peers. In addition to this, due to the need for artists to create performance after performance within the workshops with little opportunity to overtly pre-plan work or source materials, many performances are made directly as a reaction to the architectural and socio-political facets of Flutgraben and utilise many of the materials which are contained within it. Though again, to attempt to devise a conceptual or aesthetic framework which all the work conforms to would be counterproductive.
Curators: Neil Jefferies & Janine Eisenacher
Artists: Aline Benecke, He Chengyao, Jugen Fritz, Yannick Ross, Christine Hasse, Ray Langenbach, Laura Mello, Sarah Wendt, Alexander Wilson & Erin Sexton