| destroy_revisited VOL 1 |

nmyrtidi
Aug 19, 2019
3 min read

Updated: Apr 8, 2022

State Historical Museum _Moscow_ RU

performance art in public space

State Historical Museum_Moscow_ Russia

Body, paper, fire

Curators: Sofia Pantouvaki

Susan Tsu, Igor Roussanoff

2019

| destroy revisited | was presented in 2019 at the State Historical Museum of Moscow as a representation of the National Participation of Greece, in the context of the four-month international exhibition "Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: The next generation", which was attended by 246 countries.

The exhibition was funded and supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture and the Greek Embassy in Moscow.

June 19 _ 2019 _ State Historical Museum _ Moscow _indoor museum garden _ time 19:20

In this work I use three materials:

my body, paper and fire which function as an ever-changing organism. The body is called upon to adjust its way of thinking in an environment that is not familiar to it.

The performance took place between the main boulevard Zatsepskiy Val St and the Museum's inner garden and is fifteen minutes long.

June 19 _ 2019 _ Avenue: Zatsepskiy Val St _ Moscow _ time 19:12

The project | destroy revisited | focuses on the practice of learning, using as a database, an earlier project the | destroy |. The | destroy | presented for the first time in 2008, at Carrer de Colon and in the Plaza D 'Alfons el Magnanimo, in the city of Valencia, Spain, as part of the BFA, at the University School of Fine Arts [Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Facultad de Bellas Artes] in the performance as behavior lesson.

In | destroy revisited | I focus on the search for a new identity of my body, of public urban space, in a different geographical and population composition.

The body consciously challenges its previously known movements and transitions from one condition to another and seeks a new schematic form but also different tools of perception and reaction.

The project is based on the time axis. It goes back eleven years and re-processes its files, its way of thinking and its learning mechanism. A different body, with different abilities and limitations, different perception and thinking. The project activates its brain to scan its file, search for new data and record it.

June 19 _ 2019 _ Avenue: Zatsepskiy Val St _ Moscow _ time 19:15

This performance raised questions about whether it was legal, delinquent or not in a regulatory context and environment.

In the Russian legal framework, the use of public space for artistic performances and actions is not allowed and is prosecuted. Institutionally, the museum refused in writing the use of public space.

_ 19 June_ 2019 _ time _ 18: 45

Wondering what ultimately excludes my body and existence from public space at a given time and space, the request is quickly reviewed by the curators and verbal permission is given to perform in public space, bypassing and canceling the legal and institutional frame.

Passers-by and the public witnessed a partly illegal act.

June 19 _ 2019 _ State Historical Museum _ Moscow _indoor museum garden _ time 19:15

The use of fire signifies the process of learning and shaking it. Ash is created at a specific time and functions as a new material and tool where its main feature is its ephemeral nature.

June 19 _ 2019 _ State Historical Museum _ Moscow _indoor museum garden _ time 19:12