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Context
Context
is a project of co-operation and exchange amongst artists
which will travel through seven different cities -San Miguel
de Tucumán (Argentina), Jakarta (Indonesia), Bamako,
(Mali), Durban (South Africa), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Mexico
City and Mumbai (India)- in the frame of Rain
network.
The projects proposed by the artists invited
to take part in each of these cities will research the relationship
between text and context.
The work will take the shape of a collaborative
chain between a pair of artists. Each participating artist
will fulfill two roles: as an assistant and host in his/her
own city to a guest artist who will develop his/her project,
and as a guest artist invited to make his own project assisted
by a local artist in another city.
Context is a proposal by Claudia Fontes for Rain.
The starting point for Context was San
Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, and the performance
Point of view.
This activity took place thanks to the
support of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Development
Cooperation through RAIN.
Trama is a partner in the RAIN Artists' Initiatives Network.
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Point of view
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From July 9th to 23rd
Dutch artist Germaine
Kruip will debate, prepare and present her performance
Point of view with Tucumán artist Jorge Gutiérrez
and the theater group La
Baulera, who will assist her in the making the event.
Jorge Lovisolo, a philosopher from Salta, will offer a theoretical
frame to the experience.
This first collaboration is co-ordinated in Tucumán
by Carlota Beltrame.
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Punto de Vista at Independence Square, San Miguel
de Tucumán, July 21st, 2002.
Performer, the public, the passer by (who looks in the camera,
involving the photographer),
the journalist, and an observer in the back (with a painted
face) staring the whole situation.
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In performance
Point of View by Germaine Kruip, the viewer becomes a participant
of the scene. Rather than a piece of art-work, it is a workframe
meant to be developed in urban public space, which consists
partly in a scene created by the performers directed by Kruip,
and partly by the passers-by or people who uses that public
space everyday.
Point of View enables the viewer/participant to create its
own world. There
are several scenes, different worlds and different realities.
Hence:
different Points of View.
In Argentina the performance took place at Plaza Independencia
on last July 21st at the historical center of San Miguel de
Tucumán city.
Performers directed by the artist (the theatre group La Baulera,
created by Jorge Gutiérrez) mixed up with the regular
passers by to the square: a woman walking her dog, a man reading
a paper, another man running, provoking a tension between
reality and fiction, between idea and realisation conditioned
by the context, that is the particular text of this piece
in this collaboration.
Germaine tells the results of her experience:
"(The experience in) Argentina was
so profound that it sharpened a lot of aspects of my work.
But also my work seemed to diffuse into the Tucuman everyday
reality, because the environment was theatrical in itself.
The place we chose is bordered by icons of power: the cathedral,
the bank, the House of Government and the police station.
The most meaningful place for demonstrations. Here every
Thursday the "Mothers" used to make their presence
known by turning in a steady fashion, at the same hour in
a clock-wise fixed pattern around on the Square. As if this
clock of their presence is the reminder of the missing family
members.
A group of unemployed men, clapping each morning their hands
in front of the House of Government to draw the attention
of magistrates, to let them know that they should not be
forgotten. Like someone entering a house, clapping hands
to tell: 'Hola, I am here.'
With this gesture of applauding they turned the House of
Government into a theatre set, a scene for a play, a fiction
that only bore a visual significance and lacked any content
to demonstrators and the public at large.
The House of Government served as the background of a stage,
where people were entertained during the weekend.
The above events relate very much to my work. The question
that I put forward in public places is: 'Is this real or
is this fiction?' What do I really see, in which the public,
the participant or witness, rewrites their own environment.
In Tucuman in particular, this turned out to be a political
deed.
In Argentina an important connotation to reality is dictatorship.
History in general, like the House of Government of Tucuman,
is a façade, not open for interpretation.We had deep
discussions about the meaning of performance in Argentina.
Performance is often described as the art of disappearance.
But here in Argentina it is more interesting to think about
performance of appearance.
Like the "Mothers" that appear showing their presence
to remind the missing. Introducing presence in a public
space, especially presence of young people, has another
connotation in a country like Argentina."
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