Kristīnes’ conversation with Performance - installation “Resignation” performers.
Kristīne: “What does the work “Resignation” mean to you?”
Toms Ceļmillers: “I’m the god of zombies. I thought for a moment and understood that actually my position, my place in performance are great strength.”
Agnese Virovska: “This work becomes organic and interesting for me because of my personal experience in panic-like situations when it seems that it’s too much of everything, it all happens too fast, subjectively nothing matters, at the same time as though everything should be done, but it’s not possible to make it in time and waking up is the most terrible moment of the day.”
Klāvs Liepiņš: “The work “Resignation” makes me feel the existing absurdity – “it is what it is’’. Intensive rhythm of life is made as such normality, so the biggest challenge is to stop and to be calm – to experience your own body, which is not running, which is not responding with a constant movement on the basis of nervous subconsciousness, to experience the mind, which does not reproduce the visions of the future and doesn’t dissect the past.
It all makes me aware of the necessity to transform this anxiety, which has become as a matter of course phenomenon, into conscious, controllable state.”
Alise Madara Bokaldere: “To me “Resignation” is a melting and merging of my inner and surrounding processes into one. It’s a search for strength when it seems there is nothing left from it, and at the same time it’s acceptance of where I am now, where I am going and maybe even more important - acceptance of the fact that it did not work out as is was planned.”
Jūlija Jansone: “I was abroad for almost 20 years, it is interesting for me to see and try to understand how movement and performance art in practice of Latvian artists developed over the years.”
Linda Bodniece: “At first this work gave me an opportunity not to be in the audience as usual, but for the first time to experience the creation and implementation of the work from the other side – already as a participant. From a slight interest in the beginning, step by step it has brought me into deep personal contemplation, in different meditative states, sometimes also in a sleep, sometimes into agitation. It is interesting that as if looking from outside so seemingly slow and passive process can be so dynamic and diverse. “
Kristīne: What is your experience in participating in it?
Toms Ceļmillers: “In the beginning I learnt movement, then – nonmovement. Very interesting and perfecting.”
Agnese Virovska: “The work “Resignation” for me means a very unique experience to look behind the scenes of creative process and inner reasoning. There is a lot to reflect on and to learn, especially how to change an attitude towards processes and experiences which I’m trying to exclude consciously from my awareness in everyday life.
Klāvs Liepiņš: “This process is seemingly the most challenging I’ve ever had. In contrast to the previous experiences, where the limitations of the body have been challenged through high intensity to have honest and open body, this process requires the absence of consciousness, through that happens arriving to state which I would describe as transcendental.”
Alise Madara Bokaldere:” It’s a process and meditation. My breath literally counts the time and body follows the touch of surroundings.
Jūlija Jansone: " It seems to me that there is a lot of everything. I feel the small movements and could be too much of bigger movements.
Linda Bodniece: “The process of the performance has taught me greater self-acceptance, also in the areas where I cannot, acceptance of fragility, of not wanting, not knowing how. Of all the states. Also the state of just being with myself and my feelings.”
Kristīne: ”What is this work about to you personally? “
Toms Ceļmillers: “About interaction with people, about the flow from one to another.”
Agnese Virovska: “My experience, participating in this performance, is a novel specificity and quality of movement as well as the work with my own body and its subjective feelings in contrast to the readable outer expressions and their significance in the framework of each task.”
Klāvs Liepiņš: “To be with several unknown bodies in one room where it’s safe, and to do it by your free choice, letting yourself to be at the most vulnerable state – the state of quietness and sleep – this is very exclusive, intimate and therapeutic experience. “
Alise Madara Bokaldere: “This is work about inner necessity. While this necessity is not a burning and rushing one, it is rather constant, but accepting. And this opportunity is such a privilege – to sleep and to think about your necessity, not to try to move forward by all means.”
Jūlija Jansone: “About peace, self-confidence, observing your own feelings, and how these feelings can be found.”
Linda Bodniece: ” How often we try, move on by force, but it’s also possible by peace, acceptance and surrender. Through this performance I can feel myself as a part of greater organism. We all are connected, we cannot escape from the flow of time, from gravity, we are part of processes of the world, we are part of the nature and also nature itself. During the performance, by feeling the flow of the body and at the same time adapting to the sounds of the world, profound sense of merging arises and that can be frightening sometimes and also very beautiful and calming.
Agnese, Ina, Kristīne and Tobias are talking about the process of creation
and it’s place in their lives and daily
Tobias Draeger: ”The intimacy of a sleeping individual is the beauty of all of us. An common act, an intimate private ritual we all know and experience. Every human being.
At the end and beginning of the day, we have the memory of an essential common ground that connects us with all human beings, animals and beings of this world, worldwide.”
Agnese: “Overall it is about the state which is familiar and natural, therefore, I think, the watching can become a bodily experience quite quickly. At one stage I strongly felt that this work is about humanity. Developing a quality of movement in my body, which is the base of this work, I perceive that part in me is an organism. In the human body you can find several similarities with other phenomena occurring in the nature, for example, crumbling mountain range or ice floating in the ocean. There is identical part of the organism for every human being. This is the unifying element. In this work you can experience liberation from the hurry and striving, as well as the fact that everything is temporary, also a human being. The work is all-embracing and transcendental, at the same time it's ascetic and very simple.”
Kristīne: “Observing how quickly my daughter grows, I realized how quickly I’m dying or coming closer to the death by aging. The death will come inevitably. But it will come sooner than I would be able to realis it. How am I using this remaining indeterminate time? What shall I do with it? How to approach the death doing as less harm as possible? Considering those questions I returned to the initial realization – it’s time to go to sleep for everybody giving time to the world and ourselves to recover. It’s said for a reason that if something seems wrong, return to the point zero and start it all again. Aggression facilitates aggression and hatred increases hatred. Sleeping is something that unites as all and we all “Resignation” is about this utopia, when humanity has gone to sleep, giving a space for the nature and its processes, involving us as a part of it and allowing a human being to be weak, tired and helpless. To admit that you are tired and you cannot is revealing.”
Ina: “Our morning conversation about humanity. It’s beautiful to talk about that, and the subject is deep enough to convert it into piece of art by tools of art. About compassion, about humanity, about being a human.
Every action causes counteraction, and the only way to end the process is to stop reacting and that’s why – what could be more enjoyable than sleeping? It’s enjoyable and the most important – not to react together. It felt rejuvenating and real to sleep instead. Besides sleep revives, only through that you can truly relax. Also the tiny movements. Being at peace and in sleep, but at the same time this peace and sleep includes several movements – the body does not cease to function, also sleep is active as it protests. It’s a process of inner accumulation.
Wide space to think about. I don’t need and I don’t want a story and chapters to watch this work.”
Kristīne: “Yes, to admit that you are tired and you cannot is revealing. I don’t want to be able to. I am tired to cultivate success in times when so much has been ruined.”
Agnese:” I’ve been interested in body’s inability already for a long time, and I’ve been willing to discover feelings and sensations through this inability. And when, Kristīne, you told how this work evolved and that it can happen everywhere, I understand that it merges with life, with everyone of us and our lives. What we have sensed is that it is close to the everyday processes. How to leave it natural? Not to make it as art for art’s sake. The work is all-embracing and transcendental, and maybe the work isn’t about anything. And it depends on who watches and sees it, it depends on experience. What makes you to get up in the morning? Is it the will to live?