3rd THESSALONIKI BIENNALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
at Thessaloniki Performance Festival, Thessaloniki (exhibition-performances 19 - 25/9/11, masterclass 23/9/11)
Owen in Georgia Sagri's performance is a fictional name, inspired by a real person. That person
was a young soldier in the US Army, who served in Iraq as a sniper. Georgia Sagri met him by
chance and then they both went on to produce an autobiographical text together. As a former
soldier, Owen was not allowed to give a public apology, so in his effort to find catharsis, he seeks
redemption for his actions through a process of narrating his personal experiences. This narrative
aims to convey the psychological torment and heavy conscience of the young soldier. The visitor
of the performance realizes immediately when he looks at the text, that it talks about the story of a
soldier, becoming by extension a medium that allows him to be informed and knowledgeable of a
political situation. Sagri, however, balancing between the narration of a personal story and the
embodiment of the protagonist, brings forth the personal aspect of events and at the same time
goes beyond the aloofness of the information. The text is a purely confessional and utterly
personal attempt, and in effect is self repealed by the manner of its narration, bringing the narrator
up against fragments of memory and identity throughout the deliberate and arduous
memorization. The segmented and fragmentary narration of Georgia Sagri unfolds through a
relationship of solidarity between herself and the viewer, who, in a way, is the cause of the
narration and who also attempts to give it direction and lead it to completion. Furthermore, Sagri's
work manages to instigate the viewer to participate in a collective, collaborative action, which
unfolds in successive stages. The viewer's presence and contribution is not only of a practical
nature, but also becomes the connecting link of a verbal exchange and of a more personal and
emotional contact. Her performance, having a political dimension, is not exclusively an attempt to
scrutinize the workings of American democracy or to satirically hail the overwhelming influence of
military interests on America; she also scathes any society that manipulates and subjugates its
members under similar power systems or strict militarism. At the same time, she addresses each
and every one of us, raising the issue of how free we really are to express ourselves, forcing us to
get involved in a process of self examination and critical reflection.
A masterclass was organized during the 2nd Performance Festival by the artist Georgia Sagri.
The masterclass was an invitation to question and think about performance. The main aim of the
seminar was to search for possible shifts in performance's construction via the position of the
spectator (presentation) rather than that of the spectacle (representation).
The class aimed to alter the way of constructing, composing a performance by locating the
performer in the position of the spectator. The presentation and the execution of a
performance piece could then occur only if there are reasons or purposes to negotiate with
another (object/subject).
With a series of discussions, readings and exercises, whether performance can have an impact
on someone else was investigated when, instead of being a spectacle, it becomes the
spectator's own state of understandings and commitments.
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