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UNDER THE SURFACE
ras Spielraum&Collective Waves
The most recent project of Katerina and her collective on recently very hot topic of surface mining, post-mining landscape and the post-mining syndrome of human society.
Portfolio: Welcome
Recent project of ras Spielraum&Collective Waves - team of creators from a various backgrounds creates the diversity needed for dialogue in a broader context. They are united by an interest in rhythm structures, visuality, communication and a long-standing interest in social issues and natural processes. The engine of ,,ras Spielraum&Collective Waves” are Kateřina Szymanski - performer, dancer, visual artist, researcher and Kristýna Svobodová - scientist, activist, environmentalist. Collaborators on the project are Natascha Noack - dancer, facilitator, translator, researcher and Jan Vorlíček - teacher, musician.
The idea and goal of the project is to emphasize the issue of coal mining - specifically in the area of Gatzen near Leipzig, where this leads to the devastation of the landscape, its irreversible negative changes. Point out and share this topic to the wider society, raise awareness, sow questions, encourage thinking, open up space for dialogue ... because the future is now! It is now very essential to discuss environmental issues, as well as to encourage oneself and others in the neighborhood to make positive active changes in this regard. We go from the local to global and back from the global to local.
Project is supported by Czech-German Future Fund, Studio Alta and Bazaar Festival.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: My Work
HEREAFTER
Studio Alta/2021
A solo performance of Kateřina Szymanski with no chance to find ,,a prescribed" narrative.
Portfolio: Welcome
An eyesight gliding across a framed space. It's me who determines the place - point - moment on the map. "HERE" - I say, I show and I know I'm far away. I want to get closer. I touch with my finger, for example - the table top, for example - the paper with the drawn structure, which belongs to the past. I understand. The layers in which I find myself, to which I pay attention, I form a new landscape and a new map. I'm with you. My heart is beating, with you...
A performance in which Kateřina Szymanski works with the body, objects, material and space. Through the optics of "distance, time and rhythm" she invites to travel between the layers of contemporary existence. This work is a spatial alchemy without the possibility of capturing a prescribed narrative. In the gap between our subjective perception and reality, our bodies are located, and as long as we are aware of it, we can call this moment an experience.
Project is supported by Studio Alta and Zero Point Festival.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
∞ LIMBS
Cabinet of curiosities/Studio Alta 2020
An poetic act.
Portfolio: Welcome
Urgent needs of ones body and soul can be transformed into performative poem. Intimate, healing, speaking to us from our subconscious - for performers as well as for an audience. Piece ∞LIMBS worked with very basic theme for a human body - walk - it's constant repetition, forward movement and desire for renewal...yet - each step we make is unique and new, each repetitive movement we make is unique and new. To be a sensitive and patient observer is sometimes hard thing to do.
Poetic act composed for a traditional event of Studio Alta inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky's psychomagic acts and language of tarot cards.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
DIGRASSION
Prázdno_Naplnění - the public space exhibition/Pardubice/2019
Public space performance for the opening tour.
Portfolio: Welcome
Public Space performance, reacting on Artur's Magrot installation. Collaboration with Václav Janoščík_on text./Pardubice - as part of the opening tour of the exhibition Prázdno_Naplnění.
The theme of insatiable hunger, this hunger is due to our own inability to digest the very obvious oversupply of material goods, informations, complicated relationships - everything we are part of. In the end, we still have the same hunger, which leads to further hysterical consumption - of things, of ourselves.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
PROMOTERS
4+4 days in motion/Desfour's palace/Prague/2018
social event for 10 participant on the construction of contemporary ritual
Portfolio: Welcome
Collaboration with Artur Magrot on a performance for 4+4 Days In Motion festival.
The core of the ritual as such is the exact repetition of proven actions.
Rituals are not subject to purposive rationality (they do not have a specific intention and goal), but they can have important functions.
If we take away the object of the promotion, we are left with the ritual.
10 participants wearing masks with self-dimming glass observe a series of flashes, produced by different sources, in precise dynamics. The promo-ceremony is accompanied by uncompromisingly soothing elevator music.
A flash we'll never see.
In the mask, we do not see the whole of reality, we are surrounded by the phantoms of the situation - the hazy consistency of the flow of events.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
MACHINES AND BODIES
Automatic Mills/Pardubice/2018
Video-performance
Portfolio: Welcome
Collaboration as part of an artist residency with Artur Magrot and Václav Jánoščík.
The Automatic Mills are not only an example of unique architecture, but also a place where the history of the food industry, technology and capitalism was written. We do not want to exhibit, illustrate or present, but to bring the Mills and their space to life. The video_performance guided participants through the main parts and revealed the connection between building and mind, space and history between machines and bodies, mills and capitalism.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
STATES AND THINGS
GAVU/Academy of fine arts/Prague/2018
An exhibition where all of the objects/installations were created by a performative acts.
Portfolio: Welcome
Collaboration with Artur Magrot and Václav Jánoščík.
To create an exhibition means to give meaning to things, to put them into relationships and states. But in everyday life we impose order on the world around us. We organize things and people alike, creating relationships and hierarchies, constraints and possibilities.
The moment that brings things and people into relation is usually referred to as the body. It is not just a physical shell, but the very form that gives us the possibility to enter into different states and relationships. Not only does the body exist and show itself in space, but also the outside, the things and people with whom we share space, inscribe themselves into our body.
The exhibition States and Things attempts to experiment with these relationships. To bring authors, viewers, things and texts into a mutual dynamic.
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
LEAVE IT TO A HORSE
Event of The Stolen Gallery/Wenceslas Square/Prague/2018
Public space intervention
Portfolio: Welcome
Intervention for Stolen Gallery's regular event.
On the pedestal of the statue of St. Wenceslas in Wenceslas Square I left a sugar cube for Wenceslas' horse. I pressed the 10 x 10 x 12 cm sugar out of about 4 kilos of bagged sugar. It is therefore almost in proportion to the horse. Sugar serves as a source of "quick" energy, but nowadays its overuse acts as a poison and a source of many diseases of civilization. Humans often do not know, how to balance use of sources in a correct way.
"Leave it to the horse, he has a bigger head."
Portfolio: Text
Portfolio: Pro Gallery
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