Inhabiting CSM

Test 1_Kyriaki Nasioula

“Site-specificity was the main investigation field, during inhabiting CSM. The triplet body-space-object was addressed through unstructured movement improvisation. I felt my body bare while confronting the big scale and the brutal, rugged materiality of the space. Initially, I used observation for some seconds in order to choose the specific space with which I could possibly create a dialogue. The micro-geometry of the chosen space needed to accommodate the application of the object in it, incorporate it and create a whole breathing space. My body was the mediator between the site and the spatial object. It was also the activator, the human factor, the living entity that transformed the existing space and consistently fueled the inhabitation process with new material, stemming from impulsive actions. Finally, I felt like I was pushed over the edge in a creative way, discovering a quite interesting path, full of surprises.”

Test 2_Argyris Angeli

“Gender theory and hermaphroditism are for my practice the manifestations of the fluidity between the essence and external image of things, the space in-between intersecting polarities. This past year I have been pondering on the gender of a place and how queerness is translated in spatial terms. When I was invited to inhabit Central Saint Martins I though of myself as a stranger, a foreigner arriving to a new place, carrying my own baggage of the past and present: memories, objets favoris, aka my stuff. I did not perceive the place as space, but as an entity, an identity, a personality. So my process of getting more intimate with it soon turned from that of a human and their environment into that of a one to one intercourse. I perceived our bodies as gender fluid and within that dynamic I was trying to morph, form my body. I felt like I didn’t want to just inhabit CSM, I wanted to inseminate it, populate it, propagate my own descendants; queer little, premature, hybrids, murmurs who timidly crawled out of corners to explore their new habitat. It was a primal instinct; procreation and colonization.”

Test 3_Amy Harris

“In my own practice, I have been investigating various psychogeographical approaches to transforming our perception of environment and our consequential representations of it. A big focus of this work is to change the monopoly that vision has over our experience. As a dance artist with experience of Authentic Movement, I decided to inhabit CSM with sightless movement. I was interested to do this for two reasons: the first, to discover the architecture and its students, sounds and textures through sensory curiosity. The second, to test how the students would react to me, whether they would agree to be my witness and enjoy composing my body in space through their vision. From this experience, I learnt a third interesting impact of this act: being blindfolded excused me from social rules of where I should go in the building, and got me into otherwise awkward situations. I enjoyed that I could move spontaneously and free of the knowledge that I might be bordering, or indeed overstepping, social norms. This experience has inspired me to take this work to more public spaces.”

Test 4_Eleni Garefalaki

“Being light: Mindfulness in motion. Being vertical while moving forward. Allowing time to create internal space, in order to receive the environment (people, actions, the building, the light, the sounds..), perceive and process every external stimulus so that I remain light, continuously expanding. Being present with integrity of my whole self Something interesting to note: although it was cold and I was wearing light clothes and was barefoot, an internal heat wave kept me going as long as the performance lasted: coming all the way from the Earth through the soles of my feet and rising until the top of the head: the stimulus of cold wanting to contract my muscles Versus the expansion of self that I was directed towards produced this warmth...”

Test 5_Eliza Soroga & Takatsuna Mukai

“Decaying glamour: Let’s do this. I said to myself when I received the invitation from Symeon to inhabit CSM. As a site artist it’s a pleasure to experiment with all the levels and perspectives of CSM building. I felt I wanted some music for this, so I invited my artistic collaborator Takatsuna Mukai to experiment with electric violin sounds. I also had an open invitation from the costume designer Yiliya Krylova to perform one of her dresses so one thing led to the other. I foremost had a vision of a woman on a stunning dress slowly emotionally ‘decaying’ from the top of the building falling gradually down to the ground floor. Like scrubbing a face full of fancy make up so it gets messed up. Like to face oneself for it’s ugly unwanted parts-both body and mind. And contrast with the glamourous and shiny. A woman ready to go and find her prince, her life saviour –like Cinderella- but never gone for unknown reason. She stayed and danced until the end...”

Test 6_Georgia Tegou

CREATOR

Symeon Banos

CREDITS

Performance: Argyris Angeli, Amy Harris, Eleni Garefalaki, Takatsuna Mukai, Kyriaki Nasioula, Eliza Soroga, Georgia Tegou
Documentation: Argyris Angeli, Yasmeen Ayyash, Symeon Banos, Carolina Sampaio da Costa, Shanshan Liu, Shreya Poddar Tanna, Ekta Raheja, Geetanjali Sayal, Angela Xie
Costume design (Test 5): Yuliya v Krylova

CONSULTANTS

Argyris Angeli, Kyriaki Nasioula