'Present/ Non Present Bodies'
Night Café is proud to announce, Present/ Non Present Bodies, a trio exhibition that explores live/ing archival methods, questioning what happens to the materiality of performance once the body is removed. Presenting works by emerging artists Romane Courdacher, Emily Fielding and Julia Mazur; collectively the works engage with themes of physical transformation.
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Essay
By using elements of performance and sculpture as a means of constructing identity/ies, connecting with real and imagined histories and deconstructing the role of the body Mazur, Fielding and Courdacher’s works synthesise presence and duration, further questioning the impermanence of the live.
Emily Fielding’s approach focuses on artificial and historical landscapes, inviting audiences to participate in the performativity of archeology and unearth alternative perceptions of bodily form. Fielding's installation Re-enactment Strategy enacts a set which also takes the form of an archive. Recreating archeological scenes made up of ‘genuine’ and ‘fake’ artefacts, focusing on archiving as bodily experience. Her ritualistic performance style will activate the installation throughout the duration of the exhibition as a mode for exploring a sense of self-grounding and rooting within non linear historical timelines.
Romane Courdacher works with the attitude of a gleaner, gathering images, discarded items, fragments of texts and materials, constituting an ever-growing visual and conceptual collection that feeds into their research and making process. “Do not fade. Do wither. Do not grow old” presents a collection of objects and sculptural elements that form the life of an inhabited character, ultimately representing the multiplicity of queer identities. The trace of the fragmented identities is presented as a constellation of objects to be used as props during performances and left as the ghosts of bodies.
Julia Mazur’s Performative Sculpture takes the form of a sculptural garment that distorts the body, forcing performers to adapt in new ways to create movement. Newly commissioned work TIREMAN, dehumanises bodies to create a form of hybrid connection between body, space and object. Cramming 3 bodies into a tire-like wearable sculptural object, the performance seeks to remove recognisable human aspects to propose a human hybrid object. By connecting bodies through specially designed carriers and harnesses, Mazur transforms her creations into living, dynamic sculptures, presented alongside a video work that details the intensive movement rehearsal process.
