The VIII VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK 2023 (VIPAW 2023) presents DigiLabAir | Emergencies of the Contemporary, focusing on sustainable development as a fundamental principle of our societies. The exhibition and live performance program feature internationally recognised and emerging performance artists addressing pressing issues such as marginalisation, poverty, climate emergency, migration, accessibility, social and gender equality, justice and peace.

"A feather is very light, but when there are many, it is complicated to move them just by breathing. 3 is the perfect number—a symbol of vitality. I blow on 3 kg of white feathers and invite you to join me. Our breaths will meet between order and disorder, help and obstacle." - Nicola Fornoni

As always, I am not interested in just telling my story. I tap and share the story told and untold of our humanity, which I live through witnessing these present times—for I’m here, in this space, and not alone. This performance is a journey through personal and collective memories and history. The body and the artist’s body become a canvas, a sculpture, poetry, and a sound, too

The VIII VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK 2023 presents DigiLabAir | Emergencies of the Contemporary, a project Co-founded by the European Union, focusing on sustainable development as a fundamental principle of our societies. EMERGENCIES OF THE CONTEMPORARY features a live performance program with internationally recognised and emerging performance artists addressing pressing issues such as marginalisation, poverty, climate emergency, migration, accessibility, social and gender equality, justice and peace.

It has been 112 years since one single building in Tbilisi has stood as a silent witness to the passage of time, hosting countless generations, families, and lives. Facing all wars, national catastrophes, economical disasters and other troubles throughout all of its life, now it is the time for it to bid farewell to the 19 families who have called it home, as it prepares to be consigned to history forever.

The core themes of this performance for the camera are the problem of moral principles and the relationship of the body to citizenship from the perspective of Stoic philosophy. Stoicism (a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece) focuses on human nature as part of universal nature and cosmic sympathy: the sense that the universe is an indivisible living organism, always in flux.

When you are housebound, you become mainly invisible to the world. Unable to participate in the daily activities that happen outside the door of your home, it is easy to start feeling like you don’t exist. In The Struggle for Visibility, the artist attempts to become part of the outside world.

For centuries, the Mediterranean Sea has occupied a central place in the evolution of human society and Europe. It is both a physical barrier to human mobility and an element that connects land and continents. Odysseus pursued his hero’s journey around the Mediterranean basin. Today, the Mare Nostrum is a precarious, tragic space where immigrants, attracted by the siren’s song of salvation and sanctuary in Europe, embark on a perilous journey that could lead them to exclusion or inclusion.

The disappearing home, flooded by the rising sea levels. The tidal feeling of solastalgia, the homesickness when you are still at home, but you know it’s under threat and will one day be taken by the water. Areas created and protected by human efforts from encroaching waters are not just a home for people but also for a diverse ecosystem.

Becoming Fossil invites viewers to become time travelers through kaleidoscopic sensations of touch and elemental change. Join in and travel backward and forward in time around our small precious planet. Ride the waves of climate emergencies and experience both extinction and resiliency in human and more-than-human touches.</span>

The last walk to a melting glacier and the rituals of walking the moist ground it reveals by leaving. Things to carry with oneself on wounded paths and singing to the ancient frozen imprints disappearing into the memory of algal blooms sprouting in the warm seas. A journey on foot, connecting homes across the nomadic landscapes of borrowed belonging. A body alive, in the haunts of breaking ice. </span>

“Hi, I’ll tell it in English. It was a moment one freezing afternoon, left, wandering… wandering on the beach. There were a lot of people, There were people, dogs, children. I noticed this figure that from behind looked like a director, it seemed that in front of the waves, he had an orchestra, and organised and directed these waves. The sea wasn’t that rough, but maybe that’s how he saw it. And he had no one, he was pretty isolated, self-isolated. Inside this… He didn’t talk. He directed. And I even came close before I made the film, and it was […]

Kyrahm’s note: “In the last years, I met extraordinary warriors. I attended LGBT activists meetings before the Italian government approved the Civil Partnership Bill. I met with people struggling to build a model of society where diversity is a value. For health issues, I connected to the most intimate part of human fragility: the fear of death. I got in touch with other warriors, fighting against physical diseases. I chose not to be afraid. With humbleness, I gathered those people to expose their bodies and souls, voluntarily performing themselves and their real life-stories. A mother without legal rights on her baby […]

A long time ago, there were three kinds of human beings: male, female and androgynous. As they were powerful and threatening to scale the heavens, Zeus devised to cut them into two ‘like a sorb-apple halved for pickling’ and even threatened to cut them into two again, so that they might hop on one leg. Ever since then human beings longed for their other half so much that once found they restore their ancient perfection. – Aristophanes in Plato’s “Symposium”. Those who escaped the wrath of the Gods are not spared from the anxiety of research: Brutus at night, Julia at […]

Metamors is a colorful vortex that transports the observer to a dreamlike dance between the veil of being and the abyss of becoming. Each mask is an echo, a shard of stars and stories woven into the threads of the female soul’s polyhedral mosaic. The artist, the Sibyl of a Thousand Faces, wears masks that speak the names of deities, warriors, witches, and dreamers in this hallucinogenic garden of fluid lights and shifting shadows. But be cautious! The masks are dishonest artificers who play with our perception of reality. They are gateways into digital realms, worlds of pixels and code, places […]

“The action begins with co-performer Inanna taking my blood, in front of a white table with an old Olivetti typewriter. She pours my blood into a glass cup, and there we dip a six-meter-long white satin ribbon, till it’s completely soaked in blood. Then we stretch the ribbon across the performative space and use a golden hair dryer to dry the ribbon a bit. Immediately, the space gets marked by thin blood trails that intersect on the floor, almost creating a map of our movements through the room. Then I open the typewriter and replace the old ink ribbon with the […]

<b>F</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">ed up with big city life, Pandemia, ecocide, and generalized violence, in August of 2022, Gómez-Peña and Balitrónica ran away to the gorgeous desert of Roswell, New Mexico, the oldest desert in North America. The RaiR Foundation generously housed and supported their strange filmmaking process during their stay.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Gómez-Peña and Balitrónica invited artists EmaLee Arroyo, Sarah Stolar, Jess Fitz, and Kate Turner to make a performance art film. There was no script or film score, but rather drafts of performance rituals, a bunch of found props, handwritten poems, and some equipment to play with. The word “alien” was on their mind. What follows are excerpts of the material created during this residency. With your generous contributions, the complete film will be finished by September 2023.</span>