Two artists come into possession of a big collection of photo slides. Its author was born in Java in a Dutch family with a high status. In his adult life, as husband, father and important employee of a respected company, he decided to create his own collection of memories. During over 50 years he captured trips, visits in museums, family and business meetings and growing up of his children. After his death the pictures were given over to the artists by one of his sons. Slowly they become more and more silent. The captured stories vanish from the memory of those closest to him and the archive becomes more and more prone to various interpretations. The price that has to be paid for the artistic freedom in reading them are the meanings written there by the creator himself.
The starting point for the performance by Turkowski & Nowacka, an artistic duo, who reach for the archive materials not for the first time in their work and use the tools of the documentary theatre, is a record of the journey through the collection of memories, places and times. Gradually the Dutch collection starts mingling with the collections of the artists families, Netherlands with Poland, Indonesia with France, present with colonial times, all the way to the prehistory and one of the oldest images made by a representative of the species homo sapiens.
The shell, on which apparently one of the ‚upright humans’ engraved some geometrical patterns around 500 000 years ago, becomes the starting point for collecting further stories about capturing ones own experience or the world around us on carriers more durable then life of an individual human. Sometimes the very gesture of a human made centuries ago, 50 years ago or quite recently is more interesting then the preserved content of the memory. The performance "collection of" is a story about different attempts to save one’s experience, about reading the signs from the past and creating one’s own stories on this basis. The work on reading the collections never ends after all and the archives and images from the past gain more and more surprising meanings.
Over SPRING
SPRING Performing Arts Festival is een tiendaags internationaal festival met vernieuwende dans, theater, performances en meer in de stad Utrecht. Je vindt SPRING in het theater, op bijzondere locaties en in de openbare ruimte. Op het festival zie je ruim 25 avontuurlijke en urgente voorstellingen van zowel dichtbij als ver, die vragen durven te stellen over de staat van de wereld. Je kunt je laten verrassen door nieuwe artistieke vormen en je laten inspireren door andere manieren van kijken naar de wereld om je heen. Tijdens SPRING ontmoeten makers en een nieuwsgierig publiek elkaar voor uitwisseling, discussie, inspiratie en plezier.
About SPRING
SPRING Performing Arts Festival is a ten-day international festival with innovative dance, theatre, performance and more in the city of Utrecht. You will find SPRING in the theatres, at special locations and in public spaces. At the festival you will see over 25 adventurous and urgent performances from both near and far that dare to ask questions about the state of the world. You can be surprised by new artistic forms and inspired by other ways of looking at the world around you. During SPRING, makers and a curious audience meet for exchange, discussion, inspiration and fun.