Elena Chemerska / All is funny when you have a sense of tumor
Skopje, Macedonia 2014/ 2017.
A city traumatized by an outrageously overprized renovation project executed by a now ex-government regime designed to shape a perverted hybrid identity and promote ethnic division in a multicultural community and profit from it, enormously. Malice spreading with a frightening speed. The quality of life has changed. Manipulating the past, physical violence, neglect, violation of law, urban mafia, poverty, uncontrolled pollution, cancer, a lot of it; outbursts of pure primitivism that often takes an evil form. Protests. Devastated health system. Arrogance and the assumption of an absolute power. That must be wrong. Ignorance and boredom and poison. Poisoned animals everywhere. The occasional flame of rebellion demonstrated in the creative potential of individuals and groups. Music that defies oppression and aggression over life itself. Interrupted beauty, brutal and blunt. In the midst of that disturbing unfamiliarity that was once familiar, the remaining of a home that is changing, the narrator talks about the last day in the battle for the life of a loved one.
Defne Tesal / Falling Needles
Needles falling down on a shiny, white, uneven surface. They create an audial and visual composition.
I think of myself as not the maker but the observer, or at least the collaborator.
My role is to set the camera, pour down the needles.
Right away the Needles start to create a visual and audial composition, a movement. I am opening a space and time for it to happen. Every material with its own attributes has a potential. And maybe my part in this is to create an environment for the material to perform.
A moment for it to do its own choreography, its dance, its ephemeral and undetermined performance…
Marta Meng / We are light, we are night
I used an old second-hand camera to capture what I saw when daydreaming. It was a wonderful feeling that you knew you were alive but could not feel yourself. Until I read Nietzsche’s night song, I realized that even the lonely feeling can be magnificent.
My work is an animation film, I shoot, I draw, I write poetry, I read aloud, I create background music myself, this work is full of my mark, but anyway, I hope when the audience see it they can have a sense of empathy, as if, once in a while, they were also the stickman in this movie
We are all light, and we are all night.
Simon Oosterhuis / Performance
With my performance I want to show how everyday objects can get a higher meaning by using them in special way, like in a ritual. A ritual is described as a scripted performance with a supernatural goal. What interests me in this is that when an action with an object is performed in a certain context with a special reason, everyday phenomena, like a sip of wine, or a piece of bread, become meaningful, even supernatural for the people that use them. A piece of bread becomes for them the flesh of the Son of God, and a sip of wine His blood. This elevating of everyday objects, the transformation of a common thing to something that is supernatural I address with my performance. By doing this, by elevating everyday life I express my understanding of the world as a place that seems ordinary but can suddenly, in a flash, reveal itself as a mystery.
Murat Yildiz / 0+1+0 (They are silent for themselves)
In this work we can hear hundreds of people (an audience) talking at the same time inside a theater house. One may imagine that they are there for similar acquisitions.
In the middle of the sound piece you can hear that they are becoming silent. And after a short while, they immediately start to talk again, instead of continuing to be silent. It is like, as if they were silent for themselves.
Ami Tsang / C-H-IN-A, HI-A-CA, A-HI-CA, I-NCH-A, N-I-CH-A, AH-CHI
Pride when sharing the recent economic achievements, insecurity when explaining the assertion of the Communist Party and a deep grief over my family history. Video compresses my feelings. When limited time and storyline requires me to capsulate a communicable idea, I make a detour. Research allows me to stand still when I am confronting others, meanwhile light-hearted performance gives me a rest to breathe out and generate more open-minded and inclusive dialogues.
Raffaella Huizinga / MMM
“Because of my name, my religion, and the poor reputation of the community I live in, I am considered by some parts of the population, and of the world as a potential terrorist” – Mohamed el Bachiri
How is it possible that this combination of words generates prejudices? What do the words Moroccan, Muslim and Mohamed do separately and what do you think of when you hearing these words?
Alireza Abbasy / Being Iranian, a comedy
– So where are you from?
– Iran.
– [Pause, Contemplating, trying to digest, the smile on his face melting down, feeling kinda “guilty” because of something] It must be tough over there.
– [Totally innocent] Well, it’s not easy. Living is complicated; the culture, the people, the politics…
– [Surprised] Well, that too, but I mean, geographically, you live kinda in the middle of a desert right? It must be tough, no?
– Oh sorry, my bad… Hmm, yes, the desert, absolutely, Just imagine waking up every morning before sunrise to milk the camel for breakfast.
– [Not sure what to say, just repeating] Yeah life is tough over there.
– [Too serious] It is man! It really is!
