For the first time the Idiom, which is Malta’s international program, is curated by an artist who transgresses the limits of theatre and dance, broadens the framework of performance and visual arts. Nástio Mosquito and his Army of the Individual engage in actions across various art forms. Malta Generator is opening a ‘non-martial arts gallery’ on Liberty Square. For 10 days Poznań will become the centre of peaceful performative activity!
ACTIONS ACROSS MANY ART FORMS – THE INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM OF THE ARMY OF THE INDIVIDUAL
Army of the Individual features dance and theatre performances, as well as films and works that transgress genres. Vic Pereiró will present a multi-channel audiovisual installation available throughout the festival at the Pavilion. Artists such as Kelly Schacht, Priscila Rezende and Nástio Mosquito created performances and happenings specifically for Malta Festival.
The Idiom program will be launched with an audiovisual happening, which will be shown live, online and on multiple screens in Poland and abroad. It will be the premiere of a film created from the footage and photos sent in by the public depicting the moment of birth. Nástio Mosquito, the curator of the international program, calls his project ‘a simple gesture’ and ‘the purest manifestation of human dignity’.
‘Before what we call identity appears on the surface, before we start being defined by external circumstances, such as place of birth, there is a prior stage: the act of birth’, explains Mosquito. Vaginocracy will be screened on 22 June at Stara Rzeźnia.
Vic Pereiró will present an audiovisual installation The Dust Bowl. His multi-channel, immersive work undertakes the subject of extinction through self-destruction. Pereiró proposes that humans face the situation through radical change, the next evolutionary adaptive step. The self-transforming of the individual into a new ME, to construct US, which will create a sustainable BEING. A new social model of co-existence. The installation will be exhibited from 22 to 29 June at the Pavilion.
How do we communicate? How do we learn to speak? Between 22 and 29 June Kelly Schacht shall prepare several visible and obscured interventions in the urban space. Her Conversation Pieces will engage Poznanians with special communicating skills, e.g. reading lips or speaking sign language.
My body carries the confirmation of our undeniable differences and calls on the other to react to that body, to show what they think of it’, says Priscila Rezende, who on 25 June in the happening Nau Frágil in front of Altus Hotel shall confront her own body with the subject of colonialism and the condition of being a refugee. What bodies do we accept, and what bodies do we reject? How to seek freedom through the body?
GALLERY OF NON-MARTIAL ARTS ON LIBERTY SQUARE
Liberty Square and its surroundings will be filled with actions and ‘non-martial arts’ of Malta Generator. There will be two permanent features at the very centre: ‘858. An Archive of Resistance’ and the exhibition by Jarosław Kozakiewicz and Krzysztof Wodiczko. The open air community centre will also host a bioinstallation entitled ‘The Nettle’, while the authors of the Peace Tool Box and Tools for Peace projects will engage the public in collaboration and dialogue. The Sprostowanie group will involve everyone in pro-peace activity, while Army of Love will be recruiting to their ranks of love.
While the Egyptian state television was showing empty streets, people were filming the truth. The Mosiereen Collective archived the story of rebellion told from the perspective of hundreds mobile phones of the participants of the revolution. You will have the opportunity to see the simulation 858 Archive of Resistance on each day of the festival. Jarosław Kozakiewicz and Krzysztof Wodiczko will show why wars must be abolished at their exhibition The Józef Rotblat Institute For the Disarmament Of Culture And Abolition Of War. On 27 June Młoda Kultura Pokoju will show for the first time their artistic installation constructed out of photographs and images as well as a conceptual performative concert. on On 21 June creators from three different circles – School of Form, the “Inspekt” Art and Heritage Laboratory, as well as the UAM Biology Department – join forces to make the bioinstallation The Nettle a part of the architecture of Liberty Square. The authors compare peace and liberty to the common nettle. Is it possible to analyse the concept of peace by learning from the world of plants?
The activists from the Sprostowanie group, comprising of Barbara Prądzyńska, Anna Siekierska, Aleksandra Polerowicz, Cristina Ferreira, and Adelina Cimochowicz prepared a series of pro-peace actions specifically for the festival. On 23 June, almost 80 years from the beginning of World War II, we will be sewing and hanging 80 white flags during the Peace in the making and Spreading peace workshops; on 24 June we will have an interactive tour on Liberty Square and the immigrant reality entitled Foreign Body I as well as the lecture Foreign Body II about the meaning of the (inter)national identity. On 25 June we propose the Naturokultura walk, which will shed a light on the relationship of the human being with other creatures from the perspective of co-existence.
On 24 June Army of Love will conduct a Recruitment to its ranks. The army is formed by people who share love with everyone who need it. They pose questions about the social background of preferences in love, they demand love for the excluded, the neglected, the non-obvious. On 30 June high-school students from the W każdym dostrzec człowieka group shall build peace,while demolishing walls . The authors will wonder whether a diverse society may construct a community. The project is a part of the Peace Tool Box.
From 28 to 30 June the poet and graphic novel artist Beata Sosnowska shall draw what she will have heard from the participants of her project Why?Drawing for Telling a Story. Everyone will get the chance to ask questions and answer, thus creating a platform of dialogue and peaceful exchange of views. The Tyna Collective shall propose the collective creation of the Reversed Finger Gesture sculpture made of hardened textiles. The artists adopted the gesture from Balkan women as a tool for collective response to violence in public places. The projects are a part of the Tools for Peace cycle.
THE CITY – AN OPEN GALLERY OF NON-MARTIAL ARTS
The city is Malta’s stage. Anna Siekierska shall create an alternative vision for the Szyc Stadium - a sanatorium for all beings living there. The visual exhibitions – ‘Merch’ and ‘Park 1963-2019’ – shall feature two stories of juxtaposition. From the Miss Poland contest to the manufacturing of tools for peace fighting; from urban fortifications to the leisure time park. The results of the Stophate / Postershow Poznań 2019 international competition will be presented followed by the exhibition of the winning works in two different locations in Poznań. Robot Gentleman will show that a game may be a place of refection over conflict.
On 26 June, at the abandoned E.Szyc Stadium the artists Anna Siekierska opens her Sanatorium for all beings living there, in which the flora will be growing with little human intervention. The old sports venue will be transformed into a work of art. It is a scenario different to the ones proposed by developers, activists and officials. The analysis of the research conducted in collaboration with the participants of the performative walk will serve as an introduction to a discussion about nature in the city.
The first day of the festival will see the opening of the Merch exhibition at the Rodríguez gallery. Jana Shostak and Jakub Jasiukiewicz will show how to manufacture a collection of tools for fighting for peace in the world while taking part in the Miss Poland competition. On 28 June, the stairwell of a block of flats at 6 Pod Lipami housing estate will become the venue of the Park 1963-2019 exhibition. Photographs collected from Poznanians’ family albums juxtaposed with contemporary photographs will show how the Cytadela Park has been changing throughout the years.
Malta Festival Poznań is also a partner of this year’s edition of the international Stophate / Postershow Poznań 2019 competition. On 21 June, the winning posters will be exhibited at Stary Browar and International Poznań Fair. They offer an artistic comment on the growing level of negative emotions in the society. Some of the posters will be used as a part of a social campaign against hate and for tolerance, empathy and solidarity.
The theme of every game is a conflict. Game creators have two vital and responsible decisions to make: what is the genesis of the conflict and how to solve it. From 24 to 28 June, Galeria Czubek Robot Gentleman shall present Conflicts, an exhibition of games. There will be special events taking place on selected days at 19.00 at this venue.