The graphic design of the 24th International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns by Hanna Juta Kozar; Ph: Nina Pernat

Tatiana Kocmur: THE FOLLOWING BODY

Performance

2.3.2023 at 8 p.m.

Alkatraz Gallery,

ACC Metelkova Mesto,

1000 Ljubljana

Whatever pain achieves, it achieves in part through its unsharability, and it ensures this unsharability through its resistance to language.

Elaine Scarry

At the beginning of 2022, Tatiana Kocmur began to focus her artistic research on historical and contemporary problems of physical and sexual violence and the concept and language (or rather non-language) of pain. The Following Body is the first visual articulation of this exploration. This performance shows a hard-to-understand, or, more precisely, unimaginable change and impairment of the organism due to the sudden action of an external force. The internal conflict of understanding, acknowledging, and accepting a different body structure is visible externally in the performance in the form of two semantic entities: The dance of silent formations is sensual and at the same time aggressive. Their interdependence and inseparability define their relationship. At one point they are seen as lovers, but in the very next one as opponents. They become an exhibit of love and hate. In a slow and painful intertwining of the two, the roles of aggressor and victim are mixed. Their movements make (un)pleasant sounds that remind us of everything that didn’t and cannot arrive at articulation because of the post-traumatic syndrome and the fear that appears with a demanding, traumatic experience.

The performance is dedicated to Juana and all victims of sexual violence.

Images and sounds, used to create a composition for live performance, were selected through the artist’s conversations with individuals who experienced sexual abuse in their youth.

“If the gesture itself is thus something that can perhaps, in the broadest sense, be considered an intuitively accessible artistic representation of an attempt to liberate the body from the pressures it experiences in its surroundings, what is so much more interesting is the way in which the performance The Following Body combines and juxtaposes various minimalist, yet semantically very meaningful, elements.”

5.12.2022, Delo, Anja Radaljac

Tatiana Kocmur (1992) lives and works in Ljubljana. In 2015, she graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. In 2020, she completed her postgraduate studies in painting with a master’s thesis, Body installation – between performance and object. Since 2013, he has been exhibiting and performing at various exhibition venues around Slovenia. She presented herself in Skopje, Milan, Bologna and Berlin. Her artistic practice moves between painting and live art, she also works as a producer of contemporary art (producer of Circulation 2, co-initiator of the platform for the production, exhibition and research of performative art TRANSLACIJA/TRASLACIÓN). Her practice is characterized by collaboration with artists from various fields. The works created during close cooperation are a reflection of common interests and carry within them the specificity of the interweaving of artistic approaches that differ from each other – in themes, method of execution and use of materials and media. The common denominator is an interest in live art and/or creating events that involve the body of female artists. In 2021, she received a working scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia. In 2022, she participated in the 5th triennial of young artists in the Contemporary Art Gallery of Celje. Her video works are included in the DIVA archive (SCCA).

https://www.tatianakocmur.art/

https://vimeo.com/778136532

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