In 2006, I immigrated to the United Stated and travelled extensively around the world for the following thirteen years. All of my belongings could fit in one suitcase and a backpack. In everyday life, I learnt to rely on temporary and often disposable objects that were devoid of any sentimental value, history, and cultural and personal meaning. Continuous changes in my location have also brought to the surface an acute understanding of temporality of friendships, relationships, and all attachments, at large.
In this project, I explore the variety of facets of immigrants’ psychology in its relation to memory, time, place, and space. In late-capitalist cultures, and specifically, in multicultural context of Montreal, migration affects large parts of the population. This work searches for common denominators in all immigrants’ experiences. Who do we become through the simultaneous and self-contradictory processes of migration that nourish multiculturalism as well as nationalism all over the planet? Where do we belong to in this continuously changing world? The project unfolds as a series of live art actions aimed at mapping the world of global migrants. My personal history of immigration documented in my diaries, letters, and poems becomes the central point of departure. I share intimate narratives through spoken word, body art and performance of endurance. The performance goes through a series of gestures of building and eventually destroying temporary emotional landscapes driven by nostalgia and understanding of temporality of human life. Photo: Svetla Atanasova
The Project has been presented at La Centrale Gallery Powerhouse as a part of two-person exhibition, Laboratoire Performance, with Tatiana Koroleva and Diyar Mayil, Montreal, Canada, 2020.
ZERO GRAVITY
Gallery La Centrale Powerhouse, Montreal, QC, 2020