I was commissioned to create a performance for Skills of Economy Sessions, a multi-disciplinary societal art event curated by Jussi Koitela. Here’s what he writes about the project:
The events are a continuation of the Skills of Economy curatorial project addressing artists’ reactions to economic rhetorics and their understanding of their economic situations. Sessions focuses on ways of building new economic and social agencies through political, curatorial and theoretical discourses, a video programme as well as artistic and performative interventions at three different theatre spaces/contexts in Helsinki during Autumn 2015 and Winter 2016.
The third session is titled “Beginning From the End” and takes place this saturday, February 20th, in Kiasma Theatre, beginning at 10 am. From the event description:
The third session Beginning From the End is organised in collaboration at Kiasma Theatre. It is performed through speculation on the concepts of resource, death and the hybrid. The current and future lack of resources raises questions of the position of the human race and civilisation on earth. Maybe extinction and the end of civilisation as we understand it from a human-centered world is the most socially and economically progressive image of the future. Can speculation on future life understood as hybrids of culture, nature and technology open up new economic and social agencies? Can we see death as a common nominator for a future, progressive political discourse? The event raises questions on communities and economics organised around a lack of resources and speculations of post-human conditions for forms of art, culture and politics.
My work is called “Six Ways to Die”, a reference to ”resilience guru” Vinay Gupta’s similarily titled model. Like I did with Discussion Cards, the form of the work is borrowed from a board game and the contents include language, story-telling and mixing of serious and humoristic tones.
In the game the participant casts a die, each side marked with one of the possible six ways to die: too cold, too hot, thirst, hunger, illness and injury. Then she imagines and tells a story of her own death. After every participant has told their story, a jury will choose the ”best way to die”.
In the solitaire version of the game, the player will repeatedly return to one of the most loved philosophical questions in life. The main goal is not to win, but to develope a deeper awareness of life’s possibilities.
A small batch of ”death dice” will be produced later this spring. I will let you know when and where they are available.
See you in Kiasma Theatre this saturday!
