Bruno Costa
VÃO LIVRE
Bruno Costa
VÃO LIVRE
FESTIVAL PROGRAMME
Are you comfortable yet?
Andra Maria Stoica
My whole life, but especially during the last 2 years, I have faced xenophobia. It`s sometimes subtle, from remarks like “Wow, your English is actually pretty good” to genuinely being stopped while walking down the street by a group of people in the night, to be told to “fucking learn how to speak our language”.
But it is something that I live with, even if I absolutely hate it. And in order to cope, I have to learn to embrace it. The chair becomes this “struggle”, I have to learn how to sit on it with a straight face and not show pain, I have to do it every day and I have to do it by myself. Would you like to take a seat in my seat?
SP- 01
Pietro Iannuzzi
Central to my work is the notion of the craftsman. In this sense, my work is not about creating solutions to world-problems, but about the exploration of the relationship between maker and material, and man and object. To me, this stool, which I titled “Self Portrait 01” came from a continuous dialogue between me and the limitations of ceramics, where I tried to reimagine our general concept of what ceramics are used for. The stool is made up of three slip-casted Earthenware legs, held together by a calf leather seat that is hand-stitched with waxed thread, in turn creating a composition that questions whether a hollow ceramic structure could be enough to support the weight of a human being. Its aesthetic reflects an influence that borrows from traditional artisanal crafts, namely sculpture, ceramics, and leathercraft, reimagined in such a way that I can consider to be how I design and make my objects. Overall, this stool stands as a testimony to me that reminds me that classical unquestioned ways of making can be rethought to create new parameters that can lead to new aesthetics and new ways of crafting.
IVAR (chair, pine) / IKEA I
Robin Becker
IVAR (chair, pine) / IKEA I is the first work in the potential IKEA-series of performative/visual/sound-installations that interprets IKEA’s famous assembly instructions as graphic score for musical performance. The work exists in a multi-fold manner, with two concrete sections: a private (i.e. no audience) musical performance, and the (non-private) installation in which the sound is incorporated. The performance utilizes an acoustically active space, an omni-directional condenser microphone, the packed and unassembled IKEA chair, and the score (assembly instructions). Within this space, the microphone records all the sounds happening in the space, while the performer unpacks and assembles the chair according to the score, resulting in a musical recording. The installation displays the score (assembly instructions), a speaker that plays the music in a loop, and the instruments in the form of the assembled chair. I intend on presenting the installation (see the appended PDF for digital impression).
Objet Trouvé
Erik Tonning Jensen
Objet trouve contains a rewriting of a (initially) 1:1 domestic object; a chair. The chair (in itself) contains different bodily proportioned components, some legs, a seat and a back. In a semantic manner the chair explains the act of sitting, while the morphology of the chair is more of an abstract condition. In objet trouve a found chair is cut into pieces for new elements to occur, not referring to its former function. In the process of reassembling it, new static relations happen as pieces are displaced, and elements are introduced to re-establish static logic. The object maintains a relationship to its former function (miming it), but the new condition of wood and metal describes the object per se, as a spatial figure.
Ch(loveisinthe)air
Renée Schuurmans
In my poem Ch(loveisinthe)air, which I made whilst sitting in a chair btw, I explore the way we use the word sitting (zitten) in dutch in our language. “Sitting” and “the Chair” go hand in hand and we use the word sitting (zitten) quite regularly in our language even when we don’t literally mean sitting on an object.
I’ve always had a connection with words and how we use them in our language. I love exploring variations of words, different meanings of the same word and making word “pun’s”.
In this poem our background cha(i)racter “the chair” is a part of the story without being the center of attention. But is still a much-needed character of the story, because without it being there the story wouldn’t happen the same way.
This representation of a chair I think suits the role it has in our daily lives. The poem exists of my take on a love story (which involves sitting down next to a loved one). And the doubts one can have within life/love and how they can wash away when we’re sitting down (on a chair) and talking to our loved ones.
A chair and a performer
Antti Uimonen
The performance is investigating emerging relationships with the performer and a chair. Through this bodily investigation the performance wants to open space for conversation and discussion about the role of chairs constructing normality in relation to personal identities. Also, the performance seeks perspectives in what matter the performer is bending the concept of a chair as it is generally perceived.
Through this dialogic perspective the performance does not want to set, manage or control the chair. The performance is searching for honest and emergent dialogue, where the chair has their own and equally valuable role and identity as the performer.
5470
Stef Hulskamp
With so much dead people around me, it has been very tempting to keep objects with 'sentimental value'. My fathers' two chairs became my whole childhood in my mind, my whole father. It was very tempting to see these objects as carrying all this significance, which objects clearly do not do. Even though it was their symbolism which prevented me from dying, the chairs fulfilled their function and lost their useful symbolism when I didn't die. ending the story as all stories should end.
Metamorfose
Sam de Laat
During ‘Metamorfose’ (metamorphoses), a man becomes a chair and a chair becomes a man. This process seems to be inescapable, forced by some cosmic power. The process requires strength, provided by the man, and stability, provided by the chair. The man and the chair do not want or need anything from each other, there’s no part of this process that has anything to do with free will. It’s the natural occurring flow of all things.The man is human because of his lack of purpose. Mankind is in a never-ending state of searching for a reason to be. For a chair, a man made object, the opposite is true. A chair is a chair solely because it has the function, the purpose of being a chair. Just as all things, these two must eventually return to a state of chaos; entropy. The man must lose his humanity, he can’t be man forever. The chair must lose its purpose, it can’t be a chair forever. ‘Metamorfose’ is the exact moment these two metaphysical beings lose the things that make them what they are, and at that same moment they inevitably become one another.
RYGGSMÄRTOR
Hannes Schievink
A chair as any other (2020)
Frans van Lent
For nine years the red folding chair was a defining object in the DfbrL8r- archives. In those years the chair was used in at least five performances of different artists. I decided to find it a new home, to take it away from the spotlights and to bring it to a place where it could lose its artistic background and become the mundane object it was meant to be. I spend the week before the presentation to prepare. At the time of the performance the chair moved to its new location, never to return. In the gallery I read a text explaining the process and results. For presentation in this Chair-festival I re-read the text for recording.
Photo credit: Vela Oma
There is a chance
Kadri Sirel
"There Is A Chance..." asks what a dance can be on the backdrop of a linguistic game between a chair's and a human (female) body's definitions. It asks, which bodies can dance? Can a chair dance alone or does it need to be moved by someone breathing, walking, and thus more valuable in order for it to be perceived as dancing? "There Is A Chance..." places a woman and a chair in a dialogue over the cultural predefinitions of what a "good" and a "bad" dance are. It does so to challenge the anthropocentric habit to subjugate what is different to our, human form, to the definitions that we give.
With this project I focussed mainly on the balance between the controlled and the uncontrollable. In the beginning I let the foam grow freely and let the result be unexpected. Further in the process I try to take control over this process. I do this by having fabrics serve as moulds and thereby letting the polyurethane foam grow within those boundaries. Within this project I use materials and fabrics that normally have nothing to do with furniture or stools. Polyurethane foam belongs to construction serving as an insulation material, shower curtains belong in the shower and inside the nets should be fruits and veggies. Separately the stools
maybe look more like crazy sculptures than stools. But when you see them next to each other they reinforce each other and look like a family.
Walking with Chair
Ienke Kastelein
‘ZITTEN IS EEN WERKWOORD’ said the famous architect and chair - designer Rietveld > sitting is a verb (in dutch "werkwoord" meaning: sitting is something that
requires "doing", acting ). This performative walk is embedded in the connotation of the dutch “IK ZIT HIER” (I am sitting here) and "ergens zitten, zijn, in de wereld zijn" meaning: "to be (sit) somewhere, to be, to be in - being part of - the world / I AM
HERE. “ZITTEN” (sitting) is related to the verb “ZIJN” = "TO BE"
To choose a place and put a chair to have a seat is an appropriation of the place - making yourself familiar, comfortable, feeling at home. In choosing the position you express and explore a viewpoint - embedding yourself in space.
Walking with a chair is the existential expression of being on the move, searching - being nomad, restless, vagabond; carrying your home, on the way to your destination. In art usually there is a separation between maker, artwork and spectator. This walking performance / performative walk denies this separation.
As an artist suffering from scoliosis, minding one's posture and getting good support is very important for maintaining the body. The chair in RYGGSMÄRTOR was chosen purely on its aesthetic qualities and offers terrible support.
In RYGGSMÄRTOR Hannes Schievink challenges the relationship an 'owner' has to their objects. In this relation, choices are made about 'form over function' or 'function over form'. Sometimes even to a harmful extent.
The story of a chair and a performer
Zandile Darko
This is the story about a chair and a performer. A chair, which made it all by herself into unknown lands of furniture. Originally coming from natural materials, the chair leaves the conditions behind of being used as an object solely to sit on – until a performer has the naivety to think they could be friends in equally wanting to challenge the perception This is the story about a chair and a performer. A chair, which made it all by herself into unknown lands of furniture. Originally coming from natural materials, the chair leaves the conditions behind of being used as an object solely to sit on – until a performer has the
naivety to think they could be friends in equally wanting to challenge the perception of what’s supposed to be a chair. Recreating the hierarchies of subject/object their journey
ends with the possibility of a dialogue of a different kind. Having fallen into the mud, both the chair as well as the performer face their mortality in this existence. Does this allow them to have a closer perspective on each other? what’s supposed to be a chair. Recreating the hierarchies of subject/object their journey ends with a possibility of a dialogue of a different kind. Having fallen into the mud, both the chair as well as the performer face their mortality in this existence. This allows them to have a closer perspective on each other.
Photo credit: Freya F. Röbbert
The Living Stool
Naïké Guilleminot
