Gizem Aksu – Dance/ Performance/ Installations 2019/2020

Genre: Dance, Performance, Installations 

Partnerprogram: Be Mobile Create Togehter 

Project in HELLERAU: I was supposed to create “Archive of Feelings: Dresden” by collecting feelings from daily encounters, collective meetings, communal sharing, social observations and personal experience. But, COVID19 has directly influenced my process. “Self-isolation” has brought many feelings in personal, public, virtual spaces. This is not my first time to isolate myself. In 2016, when Istanbul had been experiencing bomb explosions, I was not able to be present, move freely in public spaces and I isolated myself for a while. The context was political violence; therefore, it was considered as local and self-imposed practice to exist. In 2020 the context is health, the conjecture is global and I am legally obliged to survive, save lives. In this project, I am artistically researching on death, dying, life, existence and how action, perception and conception of body may present various ways to think on political, philosophical and moral implications on these. 
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What inspires you? Death may be ineffable, impossible to experience for being-in-the-world but a very constitutive aspect of human existence. How can I organize my being to speak on which is ineffable, reflect on which is impossible to experience; deconstruct this constitutive aspect of existence? What might the consequences and implications of death be in daily life, how can death affect the structure of the everyday life? The yin-yang symbol in the front side of the Festspielhaus is one of my daily inspirations. 

Your first three thoughts about HELLERAU? Spiritual Visionary I am virtually hugging the main building sometimes to remind it that the artists would come soon again. 

How would you describe your way of working? I would say that my methodology is composition; research formats are varying from photography to choreography, text to video. Spontaneity, surprising-the self-i(n)solation, consciousness construction, 99 could be some keywords for my daily scores. Body is the ultimate concept where I arrive and leave as always.

HELLERAU meets Tarabya: Moving Inwards – Performing Arts Without a Stage? The online Round-Table Talk “HELLERAU meets Tarabya: Moving Inwards – Performing Arts Without a Stage?“ took place on April 24th, 2020. An international collaboration between two Artist Residencies HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden and Kulturakademie Tarabya, Istanbul. 

www.gzmaksu.com 
Gizem Aksu on Vimeo 
Instagram @callforspecter 
www.bemobilecreatetogether.eu 
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