하와이 - 불가피한 탈출 - 서울 HAWAII - Escaping the Inevitable - Seoul

퍼포먼스 PERFORMANCE    |    트흘렛 펄 와이스텁 Tchelet Pearl Weisstub    |    크레딧 CREDITS    |    신청 RSVP

HAWAII - Escaping the Inevitable Tchelet Pearl Weisstub is primarily interested in critically exploring “vulnerability” as a term associated with the “other,” with increased risk, or with reduced capacity to protect one’s own interests. Rather, she recognizes vulnerability as an ontological condition. Her sculptural installations and performances explore the personal as collective experiences that we share. HAWAII - Escaping the Inevitable (2014) was presented as a site-specific collaboration with an elderly care home in Amsterdam. It has been developed in-situ, through a residency in St. Jacob home for the elderly. The artist deliberately featured two young performers and two older performers reminiscent of aging. As a preliminary research of the project, she conducted several interviews with her 95-year-old grandmother about her fantasy vacation and included them as a soundscape. Out of this came a site-specific performance involving mechanical apparatus worn by two young performers which imitated the constraints that elderly bodies endure and action of taking care of the audience. “Hawaii” is a metaphor for a fantasy vacation and the artist issues the topic of the elderly’s vacation. In the work, vacation is revealed 1. As a commodification of free time, 2. As a commodification of the experience of being in nature, 3. As the achievement prize of being a hard worker in a predominant financial structure, 4. As a space of fantasy, 5. As a collection of memorie. By linking this point with the “restriction of the body” that occurs in the process of aging, the artist constitutes an experience in which young and the elderly share their worries and thoughts, communicate and care for each other. In 2018, the artist participated in the ACC-Rijksakademie residency program “Dialogue and Exchange” held in Gwangju. Staying in Korea for three months, she gained a better understanding of the current situation of the elderly in Korea's rapidly developing economy and technology. In particular, the artist said that she was able to get a glimpse of the retro future where technology, aging, and the West and the East were intertwined by spending quite a while in the BANDO elderly dance club, located in the basement parking lot of a shopping mall for obsolete electronic products in Gwangju. The artist presents a new work, Hawaii - Inevitable Escape - Seoul melting the aspects of an aging society in Korea into her existing work. She creates mechanical apparatuses that imitate the constraints that elderly bodies endure. There are two young bodies; one wearing motors that are shaking, and the other wearing wire springs shortening the muscles and pulling the body towards the ground. The young bodies wearing the constraints of elderly bodies, exemplify how in the inevitable process of aging our efficiency deteriorates. Thus, the work revolts against social values that are defined by productivity and speed. Going through a pandemic period in which social relationships were inevitably more segregated, the artist once again realized the importance of intergenerational exchanges while witnessing various manifestations of “vulnerability.” In Hawaii - Inevitable Escape - Seoul, she creates hybrids between young and old, the past and the future, forcing them to inhabit the same space “together.” By incorporating the structure of meeting, communication, and caring for the elderly and young in her work, the artist confronts the audience with their future selves and provides an opportunity to think about blindspots that we have not experienced. With this work, everyone, including the audience, could discuss “our future” together.