2017
Occupation / Action / Performance
Between 11 and 21, January, 2017, LAURA_ AkiÓ->(occupied the “Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, performing two presentations of her performance, LAURA_ AkiÓ-> foodi truke->popcorn. During these days, LAURA_ AkiÓ->, walked the streets of Porto Alegre collecting discarded objects by the population to build her “foodi trucke”, which serves as the medium and scenery of her performance.
It was from this collection, a kind of archeology of the squalid, that the artist questions how much the waste produced by a city, are imbued with cultural and historical aspects of its inhabitants.
By the personal relations established on her walking by the city, and with the garbage re-signification, the artist establishes a co-production with the city population.
Laura Carvalho figure, starts to establish relations of exchange and friendship with the figures that compose the streets of a big city center: garbage collectors, street dwellers, gatekeepers, garbage collectors, street vendors, street artists and so on.
Thanks to the paths travelled by LAURA_ AkiÓ->, the artist come across the “gaucho” João Suriz. This encounter takes place on one of the downtown streets of Porto Alegre, while Suriz was cutting a customer’s hair. Suriz considers himself a street artist, since besides cutting hair, he plays the violin and does Tarot readings which take place around the city.
Believing in the power of encounters, and in the power of “real_ a©tion” the artist invites Suriz to participate in her performance. Just as the disposable objects collected by the artist to compose her “foodi trucke”, the relations provided by her displacement are also integrated in her performance.
This displacement of the figure, between “Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana” and the city streets, was filmed by the artist. A system invented by her that resembles the records obtained by a Gopro camera. This filming system is attached in her hat. The artist recorded not only the discarded objects searching, but also the reaction and the relation of the pedestrians when they came across her figure. This action, ends up assuming a performative character, which from the records, shows us reactions characterized by scared, happy, doubtful and amazed glances of people passing by LAURA_ AkiÓ->.
Questioning the boundaries between art and life, LAURA_ AkiÓ-> points outs for the vertigo of those who position themselves in their limits- the thin line between sanity and insanity, process and creation, public and private… A line to be crossed, surpassing the conventions and standards sew up in our social fabric.
Breaking the boundaries between its life and work, its thoughts and acts. LAURA_ AkiÓ-> it is a metaphor, an alchemical process which pretends to reach a common aiming, crossing the boundaries that keep us far from a RE(a)L_A(c)TION, with the other.
