Introducing Ashley Wright, Thomas Bradley and Konrad Ross; three artists with dance, painting, music composition and garment design expertise. In intuitive, subconscious dimensions of flow, these three artists, driven by the subversion of their inherent conditioning, merge disciplines in search of the unforeseen. Free of predefined choreography, LANDBREAKERS lets movement emerge from impressions, bringing the body and the sensuality of perception to the fore of the investigation and happenings. By intentionally exposing the audience to this typically hidden part of creation, the vulnerability, struggle, joy, and chaos of art-making is revealed.
Large, white rolls of paper cover the entirety of the surface of the floor and walls. In a dance of his own, visual artist Konrad Ross attempts to capture fragments of inter-twining trajectories and imprints of ‘being’ across the once pristine paper. The traces accumulate over numerous hours, across successive performances to become a perplexity of colour, texture and narrative; metamorphic artworks that archive the experience of both performer and viewer into a tangible ‘product', a valuable object.
LANDBREAKERS is held in public locations such as galleries, museums and urban landscapes as a performative installation with an aim to connect with new audiences beyond the theater. Within this installation setup, viewers are encouraged to physically invade the space customarily reserved for ‘performing’. Ordinarily, the viewer holds back. LANDBREAKERS nudges them forward. The intimacy of viewer and performer form a shared encounter that is critical to the work. There is no fixed duration to the performance as time becomes the space in which it floats. Performances will last several (4-6) hours at least.
Landbreakers strive for an expansion of social fields of perception; how to think, act and respond in a future-oriented way. It offers reflection on a society struggling with notions of proximity and intimacy, setting out to further dissolve the void between performer and audience. Using contemporary dance, costume making and music composition techniques, LANDBREAKERS generates its own genre of storytelling through the exposition of creative effort.
L A N D B R E A K E R S
Production manager Angelica Morgen
Residency supported by Elvie Barlach, Barlach Halle K, Hamburg,
Residency curated by Valentina Gioia Levy, Pier Paolo at Guidecca Art District