Red Weight Krakow 2013
Red Weight Krakow
commissioned by
Fanaberie // Fashionfever // Ferformance Gallery of Contemporary Art Bunkier Sztuki Krakow, 24th September - 10th October 2013
Curated by Monika Drozynska, Justyna Koeke, Cecylia Malik
photograph by Fanaberie Festival
Special thanks to Monika Drozynska, Justyna Koeke, Cecylia Malik and Anna Barkiel.
Red Weight is a one hour performance in public space.
Dressed formally with a skirt made from 600 pieces of used red clothing I pulled the gown with its long train through the streets of central Krakow - Grodzka Street through the Main Square to Szewska Street to Bunkier Stzuki Gallery over the duration of one hour. Dressed and groomed in red, moving slowly in a dignified manner, I pulled the very heavy burden through the city, sometimes struggling with bunched up sections and wrangling with the enormous weight of the tangled pieces of clothing. I often stopped on the way to answer questions of passers by and to discuss the process with interested members of the public. As I am not a Polish speaker these exchanges were frequently gestural with physical signalling.
The audience and participants engaged in a humorous way as the action was clearly doomed to failure. It was impossible to pull this elongated weight. The visual beauty drew attention along with the strong aesthetic spectacle of the myriad red textures and qualities of fabric juxtaposed together. Audience members and random passers by spontaneously joined in to help pull the extended garment along, making a long human chain connected by the train of red clothing.
This work was also performed previously in Dublin at The Hugh Lane, Dublin City Gallery and Project 06 Galway in 2006.
The central concept of the performance is to show the tension between the enormous difficulty of the task and the dignified attempt to succeed. This image becomes a metaphor for the weight of past experience: beautiful and cumbersome, elaborate and oppressive. We carry the weight of all our memories, dreams and accumulated possessions through life, but we do not have to do it alone. We are helped my many others along the way. The use of multiple colours of red alludes to passionate emotional states and the visceral human body.
The entire costume of 700 pieces of red clothing remained, as a sculptural installation, in the Gallery of Contemporary Art Bunkier Stzuki for the duration of the exhibition and festival.