2023
The Feast
(zastolie)
(zastolie)
Victoria Underground
january-february 2023
january-february 2023
In the days around Christmas and New Year, we unfolded a performative exhibition in a gallery space, and anyone could be its guest. Each week, invited artists of different media presented their visions of what could happen at/on/behind the table. Thus, an endless end-of-the-year/ beginning-of-the-year feast spread around several weeks and a series of performative events, each resulting in a documentary exhibition.
The feast is one of the ineradicable practices of a society. We gather around the table to celebrate and to mourn, to welcome and to say goodbye. The feast is altogether a model of family traditions and a space for creative expression. Through the feast, one can understand the family hierarchy and read the locus communes and traumas of society.
A table in its existential meaning is a place of a ritual, a space of collective being in a joint experience. And through this co-presence, we can question: what do we experience here and now? Why do we gather together?
The feast is one of the ineradicable practices of a society. We gather around the table to celebrate and to mourn, to welcome and to say goodbye. The feast is altogether a model of family traditions and a space for creative expression. Through the feast, one can understand the family hierarchy and read the locus communes and traumas of society.
A table in its existential meaning is a place of a ritual, a space of collective being in a joint experience. And through this co-presence, we can question: what do we experience here and now? Why do we gather together?
Feast N1. Snezhana Mikheeva.
She is busy with work.
She is busy with work.
"The pre-new-year and post-new-year feasts actualise a number of social roles of a woman: a mother, a daughter, a wife, a lover. This project is about a habitual body, its movement and manner of action, entrapped in chackles. A key question is: how does the life of a woman change in a time of geopolitical tragedy? Nohow. This is a normalised catastrophe, the witnesses of which we all are."
Feast N2. Anastasia Albokrinova.
Breath score N1. Dedic. to Tamara Ivanovna.
Breath score N1. Dedic. to Tamara Ivanovna.
An immersive performance dedicated to the phenomenon of memory. This evening by the table a speech was said, a feast offered, a breath score performed and something was broken - dishes, and maybe hearts.
This performance Anastasia Albokrinova dedicated to one dead person. Through a performative action that reveals personal vulnerability and a physical fragility of memory, the artist invited to visualise what does it mean - to be alive.
Breath score: Nu Simakina
Performers: Julia Avramenko, Olga Bondarenko, Snezhana Mikheeva, Galina Zybanova
This performance Anastasia Albokrinova dedicated to one dead person. Through a performative action that reveals personal vulnerability and a physical fragility of memory, the artist invited to visualise what does it mean - to be alive.
Breath score: Nu Simakina
Performers: Julia Avramenko, Olga Bondarenko, Snezhana Mikheeva, Galina Zybanova
Feast N3. Maksim Molokh.
Untitled.
Untitled.
Maksim Molokh, artist mostly known for his monumental animalistic paintings, presented an installation at Feast N3. Together with the artist we experienced its death and took part it a strange feast, where people could consume parts of the sculpture.
Feast N4. Ksenia Timofeeva.
The Feast.
The Feast.
Food is a main topic and tool of multimedia artist Ksenia Timofeeva. She is interested in the topics of vitalism, the common energy unit present in all the living, and also food as a tool for communication. The sounds performed while in the process of eating become the material for somatic research and the main plot for artistic action.
It was a 5th version of The Feast for Ksenia - each time it takes a shape of an acquaintance, a romantic date, a friendly meeting or a celebration. This time two performers met at the table to experience food, sound and movement in the format of a friendly encounter and collective cooking.
"The format of a friendly meeting appeared to be supportive in the times of change. I've been in Armenia for a while - there I've met support even from the strangers, also through the food. There you can instantly find yourself on somebody's birthday, where you'll be welcomed, drunk and fed. In a museum of Sergey Paradzhanov, I liked his pardon for pomegranate - how much it means for the film director, how rich in associations it is. This is why the pomegranate is present on my table."
Performers: Julia Avramenko, Rodion Uvarov.
It was a 5th version of The Feast for Ksenia - each time it takes a shape of an acquaintance, a romantic date, a friendly meeting or a celebration. This time two performers met at the table to experience food, sound and movement in the format of a friendly encounter and collective cooking.
"The format of a friendly meeting appeared to be supportive in the times of change. I've been in Armenia for a while - there I've met support even from the strangers, also through the food. There you can instantly find yourself on somebody's birthday, where you'll be welcomed, drunk and fed. In a museum of Sergey Paradzhanov, I liked his pardon for pomegranate - how much it means for the film director, how rich in associations it is. This is why the pomegranate is present on my table."
Performers: Julia Avramenko, Rodion Uvarov.
The Feast
Performative exhibition
Curator: Anastasia Albokrinova
Project chronology:
January 6th: Snezhana Mikheeva. She is busy with work.
January 13th: Anastasia Albokrinova. Breath score N1. Dedic. to Tamara Ivanovna.
January 21st: Maksim Molokh. Untitled.
January 29th: Ksenia Timofeeva. The feast.
February 2nd: Oleg Zakharkin. Color buffet + 0 calories.
Curator: Anastasia Albokrinova
Project chronology:
January 6th: Snezhana Mikheeva. She is busy with work.
January 13th: Anastasia Albokrinova. Breath score N1. Dedic. to Tamara Ivanovna.
January 21st: Maksim Molokh. Untitled.
January 29th: Ksenia Timofeeva. The feast.
February 2nd: Oleg Zakharkin. Color buffet + 0 calories.
