Touch. Presence. Rebirth a participatory performance by Iza Jastrzębska

About

Touch. Presence. Rebirth 

A participatory performance by Izabela Jastrzębska, curated by Marta Grabowska 

Date & Time: 17 July 2021 3-3:30 PM BST 

Place: outside Furtherfield Gallery, The McKenzie Pavilion, Finsbury Park, London N4 2NQ

artBLAB Picnic: 2-5 PM BST 

Event subject to weather conditions ☀️☀️☀️☀️

‘My first conscious memory of touch. Let me go back to the beginning, based on my own experience: I open the door to my family home and my mother greets me. I hug her and momentarily feel that all the uncertainties, worries and pains evaporate from my body. I am free! This freedom is perfect, cosmic. Only the purest feeling of love for the world remains - to my mother and to mother nature. Every time I hug someone, I make a subconscious, internal analysis of closeness. I examine whether a given touch could "heal" me of failures and worries. This feeling is always different from this motherly embrace, but the feeling of connectedness always transmits positive energy, and this energy brings positive events. If we do not experience it, or we experience it very rarely, we lose the sense of not only connection, but also of existence, belonging, presence and closeness.’

During the last two years, the magical power of touch has been taken from us, the meaning of existence has been questioned. 

Touch is the first and last sensation we experience. After birth, touch is what calms us down, what strengthens us, fixes us in reality. It constitutes the only sense that does not become dull during our lifetime and is just as intense on the deathbed. However, It is not enough to dip your hand in a bowl of beans to feel the pleasure that comes with the sense of touch. Beans won't reciprocate the emotional load associated with touching, so it's a transaction of momentary and singular pleasure. The power of touch is based on a two-sided interaction and undoubtedly most beneficial when performed by sentient beings. Touch, of course, never occurs in vacuum. To be touched, one has to touch. Make a gesture, most often with a hand, or less frequently with a whole body or part of it. We know that we exist because we have touched, therefore we are able to locate ourselves in this space that is our planet and time that is our life. They are and I am - the power of presence. In this regard, touch is simultaneously corporeal and temporal. Touching another human being, moreover, is strongly marked with emotions and memory. The person who touches immediately reaches deep into their psyche and tries to find similarities and differences and review stories that they experienced during previous encounters. This in turn manifests power to heal and purify the mind, and we will try to focus on this during the performance.

As part of this performance, I would like to invite you to participate in the exchange of emotions and memories through cultivation of touch. Participants will be asked to follow a few steps.

1.Wear a protective mask over your nose and mouth as well as a blindfold (please bring your own blindfolds. This could be a scarf, a scrap of fabric, anything that covers your eyes).

2. Connect in pairs, intuitively. Hug each other at the beginning of this project. Stay in this pose as long as you both need to, hold hands, touch your backs together, connect in any way that is comfortable to you while you still cultivate the connection with the other person. 

3. Find a pose that feels relaxed and comfortable to both parties,

4.If a couple decides that they want to invite more people to complete the exchange, feel free to do so.

5. Make a temporary, intuitive sculpture / figure / position using your body. So that both / all parties accept it. Remain in this position as long as both / all parties see fit.

6. Thank yourselves and each other.

The performance will be documented in the form of video and photographs of human sculptures. Participants are encouraged to leave feedback of their feelings, emotions and memories that this exercise evoked.

We also invite you to participate in the artBLAB picnic, spend time together, eat and drink together and breathe together!!

Iza Jastrzębska, is a Polish artist based in the UK. Iza works mainly with the medium of photography and video but is in love with the smell of paper and she also creates art books. Iza’s interest lies between the concepts of post humanism, psychology, surrealism and utopian ideas. Incidentally, she translates all her thoughts and artworks onto the ideas of death, disappearance, time, memories, dreams and imperfections of human nature. She is a founder of Brook Street Gallery, based in her private flat in Luton. 

Marta Grabowska is a Polish-British slow art curator interested in grassroots arts organising and intersectional feminism. www.martagrabowska.info

artBLAB runs art events, talks and poetry readings in London and online. www.artblab.london