An interview series with participating artists and artist collectives of the event: archive of futures II by Montag Modus, July 2023. These conversations are to give a deeper understanding on artists’ working methodologies, their thoughts on the dichotomy of East and West, and in particular, the works they present at Montag Modus’ archive of futures II. Interviews were conducted with Przemek Kamiński, Alicja Rogalska, Marta Ziółek, and Hollow by curator and art historian Zsu Zsuró on the occasion of the event.
Zsu Zsuró: Can you talk about your artistic practice?
Marta Ziółek: I think of choreography as an art of speaking in public. I work with the social dimension of the body as well as dancing, and voicing. The latter also has a relational aspect: it’s always between me and others, I’m not just a separate entity, I’m always in a relationship. That’s why part of my practice also has a political dimension.
I think of the voice as my “sounded self”. It is a way of taking space as a female artist as well as a dancer, a performer, a citizen. The word that I use for my practice is “mouthing”. From the moment I open my mouth, I’m opening “the gathering point”. Agamben talks about the idea of a ghost in relation to theatre, a figure that’s in between realities: the living and the dead. Both of these elements refer to the concept of thresholds: the gate, the place from which to enter into another realm. My mouth is a gate, from which I can taste, touch, kiss, vomit, and I can set the boundaries. If the skin is a border, the mouth is an opening point: this is the portal from which I speak but also receive. The same applies to my sexual organs, the anus, my pussy, these are the means through which I speak.
I consider the mouth as an operating engine, as this place of production of different forces: from that place I can act, stand against, resist, I can do things that make a change. Art can only be done in relation to protests and social engagement from a place where I’m not separated from the environment. I have an impact on it, but it also has an impact on me too. I allow these encounters to happen, from the inside and outside in. I am the socialising system, I don’t need to look far, there is the whole map and territory within. Let’s take the language as a system for example. The embodied sexual and sensual experiences come from the visceral desire, but by language we are able to redefine ourselves as female subjects.
Agamben also mentions the term “mask” (“larva”) in relation to theatre. In my dictionary the mask is not to hide something, as in psychology, it is rather to protect us. It allows you to travel, to go beyond yourself. For me dance and choreography are practices that are not individual manifestations but on a collective level these are able to manifest a trans-individual experience. The emancipatory power of dancing comes from the question of how do we act as a common body, but also how do I travel beyond myself. How fierce can I be as a female subject on a collective level?
The example of Black Protest in Poland [the 2020-21 women's strike protest in Poland, Strajk Kobiet] is a great example that there is something that is beyond the typical art spaces. I remember the feeling that I felt very connected to at the time: that actually the real performances and choreographies happen on the streets. Elements of such an impression were the wave of crowds in which we participated and shaped through our voices and bodies collectively, and the raging feeling that was visionary. These notions also raise the question in regards to my own artistic practice. How do I root myself enough in this fierceness so that I can be very grounded in my position in that body, in my desires, in my sexuality, and at the same time, to have the power to act with and create forceful actions with others. My actions, my voicing matters. When I say “my" of course I’m rooting myself in that body but I’m also going beyond that body because I feel like I’m part of the collectivity that’s moving something together. The very powerful potential is to be able to move something. As a result, I created ‘Ceremonial Dances’ with dramaturgist Anka Herbut. It was inspired by the Black Protest in Poland and refers to the history of protest. The work considered the analogies of this particular transformative moment in Poland and observed the social choreographies of similar events that were taking place in Poland and elsewhere. These different strategies of protesting really informed my own practice.
Zs: Let’s talk a bit about the piece ‘Ring of Fire’ you are presenting at Montag Modus and the wider context of your project ‘Future Rituals’.
M: ‘Future Rituals’ is an ongoing research, focused on the search for new ceremonial alliances, for different ways to rewrite the very dimension of ritual. Coming back to the origins of theatre, building up the relationship with oneself and others, creating more communal experiences are elements of the project.
“Future Rituals” is also approaching the politics of emotions as something that is rooted in the body, where the transformational power is. It searches for the answer to how we can emancipate ourselves from that space and arrive into the space of the community? Travelling from an individual experience to a trans-individual experience is something that I feel very forceful. It happens a lot in the contexts of protests, and of different social engagements that are based on the power of mobilisation, and resistance. The threshold of the ritual is the place where you are not yourself but you’re also not someone else. It is this space, a very vulnerable one, in which the transition is taking place. When I started to investigate that idea of future rituals I was very much interested in this place of crisis, that is happening when we say “No, fuck. I don’t agree with this bullshit. I need to take a stand”. The social dimension of acting as an artist in society through choreography and through dance is connected to the act of saying “No”: I take a stand, I resist, and it’s a very powerful moment for the subject, especially for the female subject. Then there is another dimension. If I know my borders, and I set them, and I ground myself in that “No”, then how do I say “Yes”? For me, there is this link from rage to sexuality, and it is crucial. Through sexuality I can say “Yes”, I can actually have a pleasure inviting this world into my own experience. The place of crisis is particularly important and interesting for me, this is what “Future Rituals” is about: the moment of hyper-vulnerable space, it can be this place where we’re entering crisis as a society, at the moment we disagree on something. It can also come from a personal level: an experience of a personal crisis creates a threshold in your understanding of who you are. These are very powerful places for us to act in society as well: when your heart is broken everything is trembling, everything is falling apart, that is the place where the transition is happening. It is very interesting for me to trace how parallel these realities are, and to observe how this dimension of a crisis in me can resonate with the dimension of crisis outside of me. This series tries to show how we can subvert reality, turn it into something else. If I don’t agree with a current reality then I am in search of a different one. Then I act, move and dance from that place.
For Montag Modus we are performing ‘Ring of Fire’. On one hand the name refers to the ring, to the basics of communal dancing, to structures of rituals, and also to a non-hierarchical space. On the other hand, it also indicates the idea of the fighting ring, a battle ground. For the creation of this piece I looked at the personal dimension of crisis, of ritual thresholds, and of getting in a space of vulnerability.
I then thought of the figure of a magician, but as a female archetype: if you think about a woman with a wand, we think of the stick as a phallus, but actually in many ancient traditions the persona holding the stick in the left hand is generating and transcending the power, it’s a lightning power. This magician figure also brings the very notion of transformative fire, which is present in all of us. There is something about establishing the “No”, searching for the “Yes”, which is deeply rooted in sexuality, a ground for the fears of female bodies where we can act, generate our own speech and movement. My starting point was a vulnerable place of the crisis, and I started to create from that place, revealing something and travelling beyond that. ‘Ring of Fire’ comes from the Johnny Cash’s song:
“I fell into a burning ring of fire
Went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire”
I feel like everyone went through these types of rituals, but we also encounter a sort of ritual, a “social fire” in the very dimension of society: here the protests are happening and the manifestation of the need for change.
The masks we use in ‘Ring of Fire’ allow a trans-individual experience but also to travel between dimensions. They play a bit with archetypal figures but also sometimes with our characters as well. I use the term “fierce body” a lot. What these masks transmit is also the idea of the fierceful entity. They put us in front of something that we don’t want to see, but at the same time they also play with beauty. I love that combination a lot. The “Savage Beauty”, as in Alexander McQueen’s exhibition [held in 2011 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]. This piece tries to navigate along such ideas.
Zs: Are you interested in the locality in your artistic practice, especially in terms of Poland and the social issues present there?
M: Thank you for this question, I think this is really important. I’m interested in the situated experience. I came back to Poland because there is a lot to say. As a female artist my practice is really much bound with what I do with women. For instance I do this by teaching, by creating a set of emancipatory practice workshops for women, by trying to set up a space where I can build a community and give support. These are for sure very much bound to the local. When I travel to other places, where I also teach, then I realise that there are different needs. For example in terms of body, sexuality, there are different taboos. We can find a common ground, but the needs and what we are allowing ourselves to express can be very different.
When I decided to move to Poland and to create my work there, it was not only because I come from there. I realised that there is so much to do there very fast and it really makes a change to feel like you’re needed, you can be of service. You’re not only making something for your well-being, or for aesthetics and beauty, that was never my main goal. There is also this social dimension of education, of an art practice that can go beyond the means of production, creating new kinds of experiences. I work a lot through therapeutic means, dance therapy, tension release therapy, I facilitate a kind of body work that has more of a social and therapeutic approach. Even though I’m not a therapist, I deal a lot with that dimension.
Zs: How would you describe yourself: as an artist, or an activist?
M: Actually most of the times when I start to talk about myself, I do so as an artist. I’m always a creator, I feel that even the most therapeutic work is a creation tool. As an artist, I also feel I’m facilitating, and not just forcefully using power. It is more about how we can redefine those power dynamics and the dimension of power that we are facing. There is something very interesting in how one can allow being in that different position, how one holds space for oneself, for others, in the social field. You need to have your stand in order to act in a certain way, but to be there for the things to happen you also need to allow yourself to become a vessel for the actions, the voicing, and so on. I’m not a very product-oriented artist, I feel it’s more interesting to create an experience and long term processes - things that evolve, change. By having these different roles one can also think of their body in relation to mouthing. The mouth is a powerful agent. If we trust that, we allow the change to happen. This applies to the social, the art, the educational dimensions.
Marta Ziółek is a choreographer, performer, educator who graduated in choreography from SNDO in Amsterdam. Referring to collective techniques of bodily participa- tion, she explores the emancipatory and socially healing power of dance. Marta sees dance not only as a space for the in- dividual manifestation of bodies but as a collective action that can become a tool of resistance and a kind of kinetic weapon. In her choreographies she creates hybrid forms, moving from the rebellious gestures of street culture to art and deals with the is- sue of self-staging of the female body and voice. She works in dance, film and theater and offers empowerment workshops for women. Among others, she created the per- formances Sir, Only Dances (together with Anka Herbut), Monstera, Poison, Make Your- self, Pamela, Larva and Free Bodies.
Zsuzsanna Zsuró is an art historian and curator with work experience in cultural institutions and relevant knowledge on contemporary art and culture. As a PhD candidate, she is researching socially engaged art practices in the Hungarian diaspora. Zsuro is specialized in modern and contemporary art theory and practice; cultural policy; alternative art institutional strategies; decolonisation in the CEE region. Zsuro writes to cultural publications as well as presents at conferences locally and internationally. She has created exhibitions such as ‘Resisting Erasure: Queer Art in Hungary’ in Cologne (DE) and ‘Let’s Alter The Narrative’ at Tate Modern, London (UK); was curator of artistic projects like ‘AUDITION’ critically acclaimed by Vogue and Dazed; and created residency programmes such as Project Hu (Ghost Relics) in London (UK). She also has an experience working in major cultural institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest.