Polonca Lovšin / More-than Human: Masks/Dance

Polonca Lovšin / More-than Human: Masks/Dance
Two-part workshop accompanying the solo exhibition What Does the Forest Say?
Friday, 21 October 2022, 5 p.m–7 p.m.
artKIT

How do other creatures, such as ants, trees, streams or rocks, communicate with each other? Can we represent this communication?

Ecologists, forest lovers, climate justice activists, skilled creators and critical thinkers of our society – you are invited to a two-part workshop More-than human: Masks/Dance, led by artist Polonca Lovšin and choreographer Klavdija Križ Potisk. The workshop will take place on 21 October 2022 between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. at artKIT (Glavni trg 14) and will end with a group performance at 7 p.m. to open the exhibition What does the forest say?

The workshop is based on the upcoming exhibition by Polonca Lovšin, What does the forest say?, which the artist has been preparing especially for artKIT. The exhibition offers the viewer a new view of the world after the end of humans’ reign, with a special focus on inter-species equality. The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?), a popular pop hit by the Norwegian duo Ylvis, serves as inspiration. This new adaptation focuses on the forest, which is becoming an increasingly important ecosystem in the face of climate change and a classroom for interspecies coexistence for humans. In the project, insects, mushrooms, grass, snakes and trees are in the forest together with humans, where all their roles and voices are intertwined in the voice of the forest. With masks on their faces, people transform themselves into forest creatures and, with their shouting and dancing, spin towards a just inter-species future.

More-than human: Masks/Dance, 21 October 2022, 4 p.m.–7 p.m.
In the first part of the workshop we will make paper masks of different forest creatures. We will make the masks out of cardboard, paint them and use them in a group performance, which will take place at 7 p.m. in the Main Square. As a participant of the workshop, you are welcome, but not obliged, to take part in the group performance with the masks. The second part of the workshop will be dance-oriented. Together with choreographer Klavdija Križ Potisk, and Vid and Bor Potisk, we will learn a simple choreography What Does the Forest Say? and then at 7 p.m. we will do a final performance together.

The workshops are aimed at a wide audience and all age groups, with an emphasis on intergenerational connections: primary and secondary school children, adults and all lovers of the forest and artistic creation!

You can register until 20 October 2022 at irena.boric@kibla.org. Participation is free of charge.

Polonca Lovšin is an architect and artist. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture (1996) and the Academy of Fine Arts (2001), where she also completed her postgraduate studies (2005). In 2015, she obtained her PhD in Visual Arts at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Her work deals with ideas of self-organization and the search for alternative solutions for the functioning of human beings after the end of their rule in the light of climate change. Her projects are based on artistic research, the integration of different disciplines and knowledge and public engagement. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad and has held artist residencies in Europe and the USA. She received the Golden Bird Award in 2010 and the Rihard Jakopič Award in 2018. Lovšin is a member of the KUD Obrat art association (other members are Stefan Doepner, Urška Jurman and Apolonija Šušteršič), which organizes artistic interventions, research projects and public events with a focus on the democratization of public space.

Klavdija Križ Potisk is a graduate of the Alma Mater Europaea Academy of Dance, where she majored in choreography/dance. She is a social network organizer, project manager, choreographer and cultural organizer. Since her early years, she has had the opportunity to work in her environment and engage with young people for whom dance and movement are an active leisure activity. She is an active member of the Vezenina Association, which has under its umbrella many cultural associations in the town of Kočevje, where she lives.

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Supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Maribor and KUD Obrat

The workshops are part of informal educational program, supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Maribor.