Bear, my Love (2023)
Bear, my Love is a transdisciplinary project that researches the complex love-hate relationship between an immigrant genderqueer body and a Russian nation-state by the means of performance art and dance and through working with an oversize costume of a headless bear.
Currently, I am continuing the development, research and production of the work which will realize as a dance video work in collaboration with a video artist Alena Tereshko and a sound designer Oula Rytkönen.
Photos by George Kondylis. MIRfestival in Athens, GR. November 2023.
Initially, Bear, my Love was realized as a site-responsive live art piece at MIR festival in Athens in 2023. Bear, my Love consisted of a slow-traveling Helsinki to Athens with a bear costume suitcase for two weeks as a traveling residency and a live art performance in front of St. Nicolas church in Athens. During the traveling I crossed nearly 3000 km, passed 12 countries, took nine buses, one boat, two trains and one car. Nearly every day I went to a public space and wrote a love letter to the Bear meditating on questions of love, belonging, lovelessness, loneliness and toxic attachment (to a human, to an idea, or to a country).
Below is the documentation of 10 out 12 love letters that I wrote during the trip. I always asked a stranger to take a photo of myself and the Bear with my old digital camera. Then I made a drawing with my non-dominant hand depicting the Bear, the digital camera image and my immediate surroundings. The only time I wrote a letter in a private space was in Budapest when I was too sick to leave the rented apartment.
Documentation of slow-traveling love letter writing by the artist. November 2023
After performing Bear, my Love at MIRfestival in Athens I worked in TanzHaus dance residency, Zurich, CH. The main aim of those two weeks was to test how the live art piece could be adapted for a black box theater space.
Photos by Filo Krause. TanzHaus, Zurich, CH. December 2023.