Darkroom Contemporary's #UNFINISHED vol.7 was performed at Youngblood Gallery (Cape Town) last night. For this collaboration I did a live drawing performance with Doke Pauwels - an Amsterdam based dancer, choreographer & theatermaker - and Gustavo Fasani, a musician from Argentina.
During our initial meeting we explored new ideas and creative possibilities, enabling us to connect our various works-in-progress into a possible structure. Working with the ideas of memory, layering, paper, movement and sound we collectively decided to work with a CNN video clip described in an earlier blogpost. Gustavo created a new electronic composition based on the audio track, starting with the echoing sounds of young children separated from their parents at the Mexican border in mid 2018.
The drawing performance started with these wailing sounds that re-initiated a gut-response in myself to the audible distress and pain. Entering the drawing performance with these cries reminded me what the work was about and the necessity thereof. The new languages-of-lines I created onto the canvas was, for me, the re-imagining of giving voice to the voiceless.
The collaboration challenged me to deconstruct my own artwork. The #unfinished canvas which Doke danced on as well as a large-scaled drawing reflecting all intersecting lines on the initial canvas, were eventually crumpled into two separate heaps. Seeing my artwork being deconstructed during the performance was somehow freeing in an odd way: I started imagining new beginnings and directions that could inform new inquiry. That magical space.
photo: @JemimaKola