Láibmat II
With their performance in the Chemnitz River, Margrethe Pettersen, Maia Birkeland, Dana Tomečková and Christina Disington perform a healing, cleansing ritual. The video shows how four people in colourful, handmade costumes carefully approach the water. One by one, they enter the water, forming rectangular, circular and crossed shapes with their bodies. In this way, they drift downstream from one bridge to another, moving with the water. The artist belongs to the Sami, an indigenous Nordic people whose culture views time in a circular way, as something that comes as opposed to going. The artists have also approached the river over a longer period of time; with letters and conversations. The Chemnitz, Kamenica, was once freely meandering, stony and biodiverse, then straightened, hidden, polluted, it became the driving force behind the industrialization of the city. Pettersen says: “I want to make the water and the river more accessible to the people who live there and bring back the river as an entity. I hope to open up thoughts about how important water is for all living organisms, but also the power it holds, stories and wisdom.” How to learn from indigenous communities is just as central as how to deal with the climate crisis. Questioning consumption and production, the relationship to and knowledge about nature, a notion of time that is not money but rather contemplative and responsibility for one’s own actions are just as much a part of the work as vulnerability. This is always based on the elementary connection and equal status of humans and the environment.
The video documentation of the performance is currently defect. Screening dates will be announced in the calendar.