EVA KOŤÁTKOVÁ
WRO Art Centre: Video, Performance and Actions in Public Space
10 June 2015
The NiNES Peckham
The Performance Studio presented a screening of works by Eva Koťátková, ranging from documentation of her early actions to more recent works made specifically for video.
The programme began with documentation of early actions including Walk to School from 2008 and Controlled Memory Loss from 2010, leading to Black Theatre (Stage for the Fragmented Body) from 2014.
Koťátková creates sculptures and installations that operate as allegorical proposals for living in a problematic age. Her installations, drawings and photographs explore difficulties that must be negotiated in order to examine the limits of human relationships and behaviour.
Her installations frequently incorporate live elements, with performers contributing to their final realisation. From the outset, Koťátková included herself and others within this process. In the early sculpture series Sit up Straight from 2008, for example, she created apparatus intended to correct schoolchildren slouching in class. Other works drew upon research into the behaviour of vertebrates and the psychology of enclosure and restraint.
Although video was not central to Koťátková’s practice, it provided a natural medium through which these actions could be documented. More recently, her Black Theatre pieces had developed into stand alone works for video, which she described as “live moving collage”.
SCREENING PROGRAMME
Since its inception in 1989, WRO has been dedicated to presenting art created using new media in Poland and to exploring emerging creative territories and critical perspectives around art, technology and society.
The WRO Media Art Biennale was described at the time as a major forum for new media art in Poland and one of the leading international art events in Central Europe.
ARTISTS PRESENTED
The programme included:
Walk to School
2008
Controlled Memory Loss
2010
Black Theatre (Stage for the Fragmented Body)
2014
EVENT DETAILS
10 June 2015
The Nines
Copeland Estate
133 Copeland Road
Peckham, SE15 3SN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With thanks to Hunt Kastner gallery, Prague.
DOCUMENTATION
No photographic documentation of this event is currently available in The Performance Studio archive.