M*OTHERLAND: A Stack of Rules and a Big Collective Feeling
Photos by Jesper Dolgov. New Performance Turku Biennale, Turku, FI. 2023
In this work I research layers of time, formation of a citizen’s body and geopolitics by wearing an oversized headless bear costume and following a set of self-imposed rules at a local playground in Turku, Finland.
As a post Soviet child of the 90s Russia I spent my days climbing abandoned construction sites as improvised playgrounds. The playgrounds of the post Soviet industrial town were metal and wood, rough, splintery and hard, dangerous and thrilling. As an adult I have visited and explored many more playgrounds fitting their body into swings, slides and merry-go-rounds, sensing how the body felt when entering and staying with the structures. Currently, I enter a Finnish playground with a question. I ask, how does a playground affect and shape the body who uses it and make it into a citizen of a specific nation? Is there a relationship between a playground and a patriotic body? In this work, I commune with two Turku neighboring playgrounds Seikkailupuisto and Liikennepuisto. The playing body stays alert, inserts itself into structures cavities, follows the rules, breaks the rules, gets bored, takes a pause, takes a posture. The performance work is a dreamy and fictional aftermath of researching the public playing sites and patriotism for almost a year prior to it.
‘’The estrangement thickens, it is more than human. In a nearby traffic learning park, Dash/Bear, is driving a miniature police car weirdly smugly, with the attitude and speed of Miami Vice. Käärijä’s song Cha-Cha-Cha is playing from the loudspeaker. To me as a non-Finn, but still someone fairly well trained, the vileness reads odd. One is seduced to interpret the cause of these actions as either minor immaturity (children’s toys, playful environment) or Russian stereotypes (the bear costume and the Soviet upbringing advertised in the program). We are being trapped in the imagination of the national rule, civility, citizenship; all phenomena of regulation and yet ungraspable, sneaky, challenging to disidentify with.’’
- Karoliina Kucia about M*OTHERLAND... in Kritiikin Uutiset 18.7.2024