Project Presentation
Photocopy / Fotocopia is a performance based on creating lists of words and gestures remembered from immersion in the 15M political movement.
The process of reenactment was constructed upon experiences of participating in various meetings, marches and protests that took place in Barcelona during May-June 2011.
Photocopy / Fotocopia creates a metaphorical and reflective arena outside of the main public demonstrations. Using Theatre of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal) exercises participants attempted to choreograph an interpretation of collective protest and the significance of individual agency.
The performers communicate through a dialogue based upon displaced words and gestures that can generate a re-articulation and reconfiguration of future protests.
The symbolic re-contextualization of demonstrative actions raises issues of how spontaneous public protest can be transformed into a sustainable process of participatory democracy.
Over the past ten years Irina Botea has been engaged in an art practice that uses multiple media — digital video, film, video installation, performance, photography — to inspect the present socio-political dynamics and the possibility of their transformation. Her work combines reenactment strategies with auditions and elements of direct cinema and cinema verité to look into the role trauma, history, language, and music play in the formation of the individual and the community.
“In her videos, Botea very often refers to modes of re-enactment and role-play; but her main target is not to create a fiction that is taken for reality. Her interest lies in the reality of the performance and the authentic individuality of the performers.” (Oliver Kielmayer)
Solo and group shows include: New Museum, New York, MUSAC (Museum of Contemporary Art of Castilia and Leon), Pompidou Centre, Paris, National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Paris; Kunsthalle Winterthur, Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid; MUSAC-Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain, Gwangju Biennale 2010, U -Turn Quadriennial, Copenhagen; 51st Venice Biennale; Prague Bienale; Kunstforum, Vienna; Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Argos Center for Art and Media, Brussels; MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art), Bucharest; Museum of Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowki Castle, Warsaw. Festivals: Artefact Festival, Leuven, Rotterdam Film Festival, Impakt Panorama, Utrecht; Polis Adriatic Europe Festival; Awards: Impakt Film Festival Silver Award, International Residence at Recollets, Cite des Arts, Paris, Constantin Brancusi Fellowship, AAUW International fellowship, PEO, International Peace Fellowship.
