Lunch / Hádegisverður
A new cross-disciplinary art project.
What happens when 8 different artists from various art disciplines in the North meet for the first time and start to conjure up the creation of a new collective art project? Gathered around the table in an exchange of good food, language, culture.
So it started, with the conversation and a repetitive action, Lunch became the performative space and was rehearsed. Rules were created and the various art forms connected in a collective weaving. A physical and human connection through giving, serving and sharing at the table. This is how we meet.
Lunch / Hádegisverđur is a performance devised collaboratively by an international group of 8 artists in the small village of Kaukonen, Finnish Lapland, in Silence Residency. It was premiered in Tjarnarbíó, Reykjavík, on the 25th of October 2019.
Lunch / Hádegisverður is created with an experimental and non-hierarchical method. This art project emphasizes the importance of the encounter. The performance emerges from the interplay of light, sound, movement, and of course - food. It is a response to both the place in which it was created and the place where it will be shared - the site of a new encounter.
The performance is planned to be suitable for touring and adaptable for different spaces.
Artwork
Artists
The artists behind the performance are Erlend Auestad Danielsen (NO), Sophie Fetokaki (CY), Anni-Kristiina Juuso (Sápmi), Mari Keski-Korsu (FIN), Emma Langmoen (NO), Júlía Mogensen (IS) Riikka Vuorenmaa (FIN) and Jacob Zimmer (CAN / WHITEHORSE).
In the spring 2019, artists from different performing arts disciplines, were selected through an open call, to join a project called Northern Creation. The aim was to create a performance together. The participants were chosen by their interest in co-operating in High North area.
There were no specific frames given to the artists from the Network. The idea was, that the piece would be co-created by the chosen group, and the artistic backgrounds, art disciplines and the personal interests of each artist would affect strongly to it.
It is quite a challenge to start a project like this and it took hours and hours of discussion and sharing to find common understanding of what are the interests and ways everyone was keen to work together with. The group faced language barriers and differences in ways of working and thinking. Eventually the artists were opening up a lot of hierarchies between art disciplines, ways of communication and behaving.
When it came to the point of deciding the main theme for the upcoming show, Lunch was proposed. Preparing the daily lunch for the whole group had been the only thing in the schedule that they had agreed on. Despite the fact, that lunch means different things in different countries, it still works well as the main theme of the performance, because it symbolises very well the art of coming together, meeting and sharing.
Background
