STILL TRANSFORMING

This month I transform my usual written + video format into something combined. Click below for the TV version:

And if you wish to cut the chase and go straight into

A slideshow of the recent performative event While Making It Together in London:

Credits

ONE HAIR ONE PURPOSE
Concept & realization Alicia Velázquez

with 
Tarek J. Waked > Concept creation

and:
Alicia Olmos > performance video and still photography, production assistance
Enrique Caruncho > final video
Sonia Dorado > final video production management
Lisa Bodrug > final video make-up & hair styling
Miki Martín Corner > final video sound mastering

With special thanks to:
Dimitrina Sevova, curator & Corner College Zurich > host of week 1 performance and event
Sebastian Schäffer & UNO partner > hosts of week 2 of performance
Anabel Jordan & K-Styling > hosts of week 3 of performance
Milenko Lazic
Clemens Winkler
Luke Franzke

WHILE MAKING IT TOGETHER

Concept & realization Alicia Velázquez

with 
Tarek J. Waked > Concept creation

and the donation of objects, personal time, wrapping skills and absolute presence of:
Eric Guibert
Juan Cañizares
Maria Gil Uldemollins
Ephraim Joris
Marlies Vreeswijk
Michael Wildmann
Petra Marguč
Hanne van Reusel
Ana Kreč

and, during Adapt-r event, of so many generous, enthusiastic colleagues.

THANK YOU

Special thanks to:
Kate Herron & AmbikaP3
Marcello Stamm, Richard Blythe, Sigrid Ehrmann @ RMIT
Purple Princess for the performance's photos & videos

and Johan Verbeke.

WMIT is made with the support of

Adapt-r Logo


Practice-based research fellowship with university KU Leuven in Brussels.
Funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013.

Would you kill it?

Would you kill a beloved object?

While Making It Together.

A project, just kicking-off, in which I invite a small group of people to come, one by one, and make an object together with me. We'll make an object composed by objects, each one brought, killed, sacrificed, by each one of us. A personal object which belongs to their life, with a meaning and history to them, and which they are willing to say good bye to.

I started sacrificing the first object: a green chair. 

And I say sacrificing because the feeling while starting to wrap it was of killing it, actually. It was quite an emotional moment.

I welcomed the chair into the atelier, in LUCA School of Arts, in Brussels. Unwrapped it from its traveling plastic sleeve. Mounted its legs. Then, said goodbye to it. 

Good bye, thank you for the times together. I remember buying you in the flea market, cleaning you up, moving you from home to home, from Madrid to Zurich. I remember sitting on you, having many friends and family sitting on you too, moving you around, seeing you day after day. Now I have you in Brussels, where I say goodbye to you in your current form and life. Goodbye, and welcome to your new form and life.

I picked you up to make my very first exercise of connection with an inanimate object: 50 Resting Postures With Chair. That was the beginning of this crazy shift from working with and from concepts into working with and from the body, the start of exploring what happens when giving time and attention to the objects around us. 

If I wouldn’t kill you, I would let you die a slow death. You would be part of my home and life for a few more years, and one day you would be weary and old, not as bright. I would change you for another pop, and would donate you or put you out in the street. I'd kill you by letting you age and slowly die - as an object, and in my life.

I said goodbye to it, then started wrapping it in bright pink thread. 

 

Which object would you choose to kill?

With a goodbye ritual, and giving it a bright new body.
And sacrifice it to link it to other bodies, unknown bodies. Perhaps awakening it into a new life.

Or, would you rather let it die?

Looking forward to your thoughts in the comments below.