THE PSYCHOPOLITICAL SOUVENIR SHOP

Live performance for the Biennale Arte Venice 2019
08.05.2019, h. 07.00 pm
at Spazio Ridotto, Calle del Ridotto 1388, San Marco, Venice

Elisabeth von Samsonow (performer), Ida-Marie Corell (sound) and Ebadur Rahman (camera)

The performance deals with the affective-commercial dimensions of everyday-life things and artifacts (such as tiny goddesses’ statues, copies of the Venus of Willendorf).
Laying out decks of these objects and reading their meaningfulness like through an ikebana liturgy, the performer proceeds interacting with the public to which these objects are explained, offered or sold. The action alternates moments of presentation, explanation, interrogation and destruction. The things are designed to tie together history, memory, affection, as a play of gain and loss. The performer (Elisabeth von Samsonow) is densely decorated with different stuff, giving her the appearance of a slow-motion souvenir shop – or an archaeological archive. Things and words merge and mismatch, pointing out fate and freedom in the process of (de)archiving.