Conjure Migration
Performance: 35 min
Exhibition: Berlin Biennale 9, 2018
Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Germany
Curators: DIS
Photographic documentation
Photography, Maansi Jain
PDF / Soundtracks below
black.mp3
green.mp3
lavender.mp3
orange.mp3
Conjure Migration is a performance that takes place on a cruise boat traveling down the Spree River through Berlin's city center as part of the performative program of The Berlin Biennale 9.
Upon entering the ship, each audience member receives a detachable cotton polo shirt collar created in collaboration with designer Telfar. The given collars feature four colors: black, green, orange, and lavender. Each color represents four unique fictive characters. By wearing the collar around the neck, everyone is visually acknowledged as their color persona while the entire audience collectively transforms into a unified group identity. The mutual wearing of the collar accessory loses boundaries between performers and the audience. The act of being collared implies ownership and designates the following characters: Black - Slave, Green - Developer, Orange - No one, Lavender - Freelancer.
Each character's story is told in consecutive order during the performance while enacting choreography on stage. One by one, the four staged performers assist a fifth unnamed character that represents all, migrating her from each color's fictive story to the next. From the slave or the developer and so on, the choreography they employ examines autonomy within the transformation: Positions like forced actions, wandering, aggression, and passivity employ movements to reclaim lost histories.
The performers unpeel different layers of masks and shirts from the nameless figure and the eventual shedding gestures leave all four colors stories told through the narratives played via a concurrent soundtrack. A verbal score made up of the artist's transformed vocals narrates the four characters' interpretative journeys, identifying each color with a distinctly different tone.
Included performers: Claudio Campo Garcia, Tarren Johnson, Kat Hernandez, Hrefna Hörn Leifsdóttir, Analisa Teachworth
- Painting / Sculpture
- Altered
- Alter
- Configurations
- Othering
- Fish Soda
- Installation / Video
- Anthem of Flowers
- Tribute Pallet
- Plunge
- Birds
- Performance
- O V A
- Dependency Demographics
- Conjure Migration