COLLABORATION PROJECT ILANA BOLTVINIK / MONICA HERNANDEZ

This project was born out of the dialogue that was established between Monica and Ilana during a three month stay in Mexico City, where social and local issues where brought to the surface in a downtown street crossing. The diverse, yet similar background of both artists led to achallenging idea of collaboration. While attending Eindhoven-Caucus, in November 2007, Koffie Break, took shape.During Caucus they made some interviews and vidoes for PUI TV collaborating with artist, Allard Van Hoorn. Koffie Break is an ongoing project result of a deep reflection on the different lectures that took place during the 3 weeks of Caucus.

project statement

There is a multiplicity of cities within each city. Each urban culture, each individuality creates an imagined city where we live. A great deal of what we construct in our daily life has to do with a future projection of our desires, of our wishes, of our fears, of our possibilities. Social reality is put together through its inhabitants, and thus, the city and how it is lived. We can then see the city as ghostly layers that coexist, interact and sometimes even intertwine.

It is interesting for us to read the city through its realities as urban cultural constructions, the way it is lived and proposed. Through this project we are searching for those multiple cities within a city. A city seen not only as a physical space but rather as a place build by our memories and the interaction of its inhabitants; by the people that, day by day, wonder around it. A city formed by ethereal landscapes.

An important part of these ghostly layers in the Netherlands has to do with all the immigration that it has received, the way this population has managed to see, live and understand this territory, another significant intensity is the perspective projected by the dutch. We are particularly interested in the Turkish community because there are several generations that are involved in many different levels of this process. It is a group that has the advantage of time adjustment –the first mayor migration being in the 50´s and 60´s- and the disadvantage of a very different cultural and religious background. In this sense there are visibility issues that surround the self image and also the imposed image that is created by Dutch society.

We hope to see these layers or city-scapes as a possible starting point for a choreographical dialogue. This approach has to do with the notion of otherness and identity established by Levinas, the idea that we can identify and understand ourselves through difference, more than through similarities.

technical statement

One choreography, two cameras, two movements, two moments.
Seeking video to be a dance, a dance that recalls the virtue of every day life, of the contraposition of diverse elements that constitute the variety and layers of the social tissue. Starting from identical camera movements, the complexity of socialness can be seen through this poetical movement that only aspires to register the differences.

Part of the process during this experiment has been the readjustment of strategies and movements that one faces when approaching a complete otherness. One of the challenges is to find the choreagraphy that can function and cope with unequal spaces; dissimilar people, unlike dynamics, different decoration and social functions.

Studio Ruz