laboratory based on practices of space appropriation and nostalgia
The researcher of theater in non-theatrical spaces, Elena Gordienko, a postdoc at Sorbonne Nouvelle, left Russia in March 2022 and now resides in Paris. Alongside Elena, the laboratory was co-conducted by an invited сurator who chose to remain anonymous. Together, they explore questions of creative appropriation of spaces, encompassing both native and "foreign" cities.
In the laboratory, they pondered: how can the feeling of loss be transformed into a quest for roots? How can one perceive the connection with past and future lives in a place devoid of friends and loved ones? How can one accept that the world — both global and personal — has changed, yet ensure it does not vanish?
The curators and participants came together online, engaging in practices such as automatic writing, map drawing, and seeking out sound, visual, and movement-based rhymes. Some tasks were completed in a group chat, while other meetings involved synchronous walks through their respective cities, regardless of their locations. Together, they endeavored to reconstruct the fragmented connections of times and spaces, or at the very least, to feel that "fragments are the whales one can lean on, even if they are in motion."
"Over this past year, many of us have found ourselves far from beloved places. We are separated by borders from our loved ones, and it's unclear how long our separation will last. But that doesn't mean we should or even can forget our old lives altogether. The series of meetings titled 'from nowhere with love' seeks to find new points of connection — to feel connections with the places we've said goodbye to and with the people who are now far from us."
lena gordienko
lena gordienko
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