Big Bang Backwards
2018
2018, Lecture performance and video installation
Concept / performance: Nadia Tsulukidze
Camera: Smine Bluth
Duration: 50 minutes
Artistic research project: wild recuperations / material from below
Presented at
The Archive of the GDR Opposition/ Robert-Havemann-Geselschaft e.V.
A collaboration between District Berlin and the Archive of the GDR Opposition/Robert-Havemann-Geselschaft e.V.
My starting point for this work was creation of a fictional video diary based on documentary materials. With this approach I wanted to subvert a conventional format of the documentary where the author has the power to construct the story line with the main character as an object of a narrative. Instead I was interested to experiment with the format of the fictional diary that would allow me to place the main character as a subject of his own narrative.
I believe that this perspective is challenging existing concept of writing the history as an objective truth and proposes subjective interpretations and view points.
A diary, as a format if not meant for the public eye, whom does it address? I see the diary as a form of letter-writing to oneself. The self is a narrator and the reader. It is a situation of the mirror where the self performs and constructs itself in relation to the other, who is an integral part of the self.
I have chosen to work with the archival material of Freya Klier - an actress, theatre director, author and documentary filmmaker. To structure my research process I started to create my own artistic diary, collecting images, questions and quotes. I was fascinated to follow the thinking and research process behind some of Freya Klier’s work and started to develop a conversation with her in my mind. During this process she became my inner ‘other’ towards whom I began to construct my own self. I rejected my initial plans to meet and interview her and I haven’t seen any image of her. Instead she became an invented ghost, who has guided my narrative towards the lecture performance. As a material I am using images from my artistic diary, excerpts of Freya Klier’s archival material and never sent letters to Freya Klier.