Building upon Ruins – Interweaving Metaphors

Joanna Magierecka

Does the complexity of a work of art, composed of diverging narratives, present a possibility to connect to what we do not grasp? In this exposition I present interweaving as a compositional technique and dramaturgical strategy, through aspects of the creative process connected to and elements of three installations – part of a series called Ruins. The installations combine different aspects of storytelling, participatory strategies, media, and forms of expression. I believe that interweaving different and diverging fragments, allowing audience members to create their own performance dramaturgy and experience, can create an understanding of others and their experience. In that lies the possibility for a shared story – a collective story. Interweaving as a method is also present in the dramaturgy of the text itself – building up to an audio-visual representation of those elements and the written text. In this way, I hope the exposition lets the reader and me both investigate interweaving as a technique and experience it.

Ruins collected

If one could imagine a compilation of all the Ruins exhibitions in one large space, how would this affect the experience?

There are four video films displayed. Three of them must be played manually. You have to find them. The fourth is hidden in a drawer of the writing desk, playing automatically on a loop. The sound is filtered through the wood, but is even more difficult to hear in the space. If you open the drawer or play one of the other films you will hear different, divergent stories

of a lost boy

of a lost childhood

of a lost community

of a lost mind

Between the spoken words you will hear sentences

said in different ways, but with similar content:

You are me

We are the ruins of our childhood

Particles of you, of me

The stars shining through them

The sky

Floating, hovering

Through time

Being frail is what being is

Standing somewhere in the middle of Ruins Collected, you will hear, ever so subtly, the voices of Grandmother, me and my father, and the neighbour’s dog barking in the background. This is a recording I made in my parent’s garden, while my grandmother was still alive, telling the grim part of her life story. You will be able to see the long tessellation - woven paper with the projection of her and our homestead. You will see as well a screen connected to a manifestation of the machinery from Fossekleiva. My grandmother will also be present in the writing desk from Ruins Ovartaci. With the same pictures but text instead of my grandmother herself telling the story.

You will hear music of similar qualities, a note recycled over and over again, a new note somewhere else. The sound is in layers, as is the visual material, some of which looks as if it were taken from exactly the same archive, while some of it is clearly of our own time and place. The objects, themselves layered with content, context, and stories, alongside the questions will hopefully trigger you to project your own thoughts into the future – What is the most important aspect of your heritage? Do you have anything needing repair? What makes you free? At the same time, you are drawn closer, to this time, this place, you, here and now, at this moment in history. Around you, on the floor, on the walls, in folded envelopes in the The Book of Ruins, hidden, displayed, folded, unfolded, short and long, there will be messages, from other visitors, from other moments just like the one you are experiencing right now. And hopefully you will sense that this disorientation – looking at this always expanding ruin, this archive of you and me, stretching through time and space, interweaving different and divergent stories, fragments, and pieces – is a connection. A Shared Story. A Collective Story.

Would you like to share?

References

Tip

Tip