The Constant State of Emergency, Public action in Montelupo, Firenze (2017)
Featured on Our Prime Property, written by Joy Harris
“I am closing this exhibition with the work The Constant State of Emergency by Ana Mrovlje. In this multi-day performance, Mrovlje moved from place to place, assuming the role of a beggar. Paradoxically, location becomes both an essential and arbitrary component to the performance. While the location determines what kind and how many people will see her work, her desire to transform spaces, to devolve them to something previous, is not contingent upon any particular place. Mrovlje’s work, as an ontological process, is not site specific yet its outcome can yield experiences that tap into the many concrete ways we see ourselves and interact with others. “Please I want more,” the sign she uses, could be a pleading from a vulnerable person or the battle cry of a group of protestors. The Constant State of Emergency reminds us of our dual identity as both individual and collective.
More broadly, The Constant State of Emergency as a portable work, residing in a location of specificity and universality simultaneously, points to even larger conversations around what we want more of as people in a shared world. It would be easy to see the work as a simple meditation on greed and poverty, because Mrovlje assumes the status of a beggar, but I believe the work is more than that. The Constant State of Emergency also reminds us of the personal and humanitarian struggles that surround us. Though we may not know what ‘more’ is for others, we can reflect upon that feeling ourselves and take action to alleviate the distress we see in the world. If, as Mrovlje writes, enantiodromia is about the natural process of oppositional change, then I hope The Constant State of Emergency is a catalyst for deeper sympathy in a troubled time. ”
http://www.ourprimeproperty.org/ana-mrovlje.html
Photos: Enzo Correnti
Blame the Big Bang
performance, Venice (2016)
Photo 1,2 by: Lorenza Cini
Photo 3, 4, 5 by Jürgen Fritz
B#SIDE WAR Venice Stage /exhibition opening on the 14th of October 2016 at the Caos Art Gallery Venezia
“Key themes for the third edition of the festival are: captivity, prisons, multi-vocal and poly-focal vision of history. For the opening (called “Venice Stage”), the art direction has involved the international artists Ana Mrovlje, Manca Bajec and Dan Allon, which will inaugurate the third edition creating a week of intense and unique performative acts, interconnected by a common necessity of re-reading the war stories the artists have experienced on their skin (the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in the Balkans), or the war stories of which they are heirs (the first and the second world war).
The Opening Week wants to involve the audience in exploring issues related to repression and inheritance of the conflict, entering into a contemplative space in which to undertake new interpretations and relive a necessary poly-focal and multi-vocal perception of war facts.”
International Venice Performance Week, Vest and Page WS 2016, Forte Marghera
What would you like to heal?
Ana Mrovlje as a part of performance at Human Space action by Graham Martin. VENICE 2016
Photo credit: Jürgen Fritz
International Venice Performance Art Week, workshop series (2016)
There is something easy about hard times, there is something silent in the Big Bang.
Photo credit: Lorenza Cini
Labeless, Rome, 2016
Memento, Lose Your Labels
Diary
