What is the time of research and experimentation for you?
It is the time I need to acquire new knowledge and to make progress in the development of a style that does not seek to crystalize but to place itself in a permanent mode of listening and debating. It is the time in which to be able to look with greater precision at the world around us from a position of privileged dis-comfort.
It is the time in which every hypothesis is assessed – discarded or launched.
It is the time for an investigation that moves horizontally and that learns from theory as much as from practice: reading, walking, playing have the same value because the tension that lies beneath this time gathers clues from everything and from everywhere to suggest vital intuitions for the artistic process; it is a meditative-active-passive state, an expanded concentration.
It is also a time that can meet despair, loss.
It is a time that is a vessel, a pen for loss, for falling
It is a time that is unquestionably a luxury but devoid is disengagement, rather, it is everything that precedes a choice.
In what ways is your practice influenced by the space of an artistic residency?
Space is crucial, it is what we breathe through our lungs, and our skin. Every space has a statute of its own, an energy of its own, you either welcome it or reject it. Welcoming the space that hosts me is, for me, a way of having the space welcome me; to create alliances of intent; to exchange information; to forge coalitions between mutually intrusive bodies. Entering a space is a creative cohabitation with rules that in part have been written and in part can still be written.
How do care and artistic research interact?
Artistic research is taking care a priori, it cannot be separated from the concept of curating. Curating is attention for/towards something, someone, object, subject, visible or invisible entity, an animate or inanimate body, a thought, word, density, extension, colour, temperature, abstraction, extraction, interaction.
The quality of curating can be expressed in the blink of an eye just as it can in the indeterminate nature of infinite time.
Caring for one’s body is the same, my psycho-physical system teaches me that as it constantly synergises to make me stay well and which allows me in turn to address my care to others than myself.
Curating is a fragile balance that is based on horizontal responsibility, it calls us to reciprocity, it connects at least two poles, it indicates access to possibilities and make it possible to make things happen.
Curating does not have a stable nature, it too requires research, determination and a new attitude compared to the changes that the Whole crosses through and crosses through us.
Curating produces Care.
Muna Mussie (1978) Eritrean artist based in Bologna, investigates the performing arts and the scenic languages to give shape to the tension that arises between different expressive poles, through gesture, vision and word. She began her artistic career in 1998, as actress/performer with Teatrino Clandestino and Teatro Valdoca. From 2001 to 2005 she was an active part in the research collective Open, the project that marked her desire to investigate her own ways of being on stage. Since 2006, she has conceived, staged, and interpreted her own works. Her recent productions, including the installation and performance Milite Ignoto (Unknown Soldier) (2015), the performances Oasi (Oasis) (2018), Curva (Curve) (2019), Curva Cieca (Blind Curve) (2021), and PF DJ (2021), investigate ghostly apparitions and minor history. She designed the FFMM clothing collection with Flavio Favelli (2007-2009). Among her international theatre projects is Monkey See, Monkey Do (Chapter I-II, 2011-2012). Her object interventions include Punteggiatura (2018), sewing a project based on the practice of sewing, and Bologna St. 173 (2021), her solo show at Archive sites Milano, also presented at Savvy Contemporary Berlin, on the concepts of home, citadel, fortress and freedom. Her recent project Oblio (2021) introduces her research on public art. Her work has been presented at Art Fall/PAC Ferrara, Xing Raum and Live Arts Week Bologna, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation Turin, Marino Marini Museum Florence, Workspace Brussels, MAMbo Bologna, Màntica Cesena, Santarcangelo Festival, Viafarini Milan, Ipercorpo Festival, Museion Bolzano, Festival Pergine Spettacolo, Sale Docks Venice, ERT Bologna, Manifesta 13 Marseilles, Happening! festival NAM Not A Museum Manifattura Tabacchi Florence, Zona K Milan, Short Theatre Rome, Savvy Contemporary Berlin, Democracy Biennial Turin, Oplà/Artefiera Bologna.
Muna Mussie is part of apap – Feminist Futures for the period 2021-2024
www.munamussie.com
In collaboration with Short Theatre Festival