Achievement of falling is the second act (after Conditions of Participation) in a new series of video installations and dance performances by the visual artist and performance artist Snövit Hedstierna. The series pays attention to notions of “the sporting gaze” and historic traditions of sport related; sites and objects, in order to deal with the constructs, rules and socials roles that Western civilization imprints on its members. And the effect the concomitant use of force, hidden or open, has had for the emotional makeup of those subjected to it.
The first act Conditions of Participation, was created in Athens during the opening of Documenta14 and set in a skateboard park full of tennis balls. While listening to a loop of the manifest of this year’s D14, read aloud by the curator Adam Szymczyk himself, the participants performed a long, exhausting and futile game without any obvious path to winning or scoring a goal.
The second act Achievement of falling was created in the setting of a football field in Montreal, where the artist investigates the emotional consequences of dominant constructs of masculinity and looks at alternative spectrums of being, existing and achieving within the site-specific context. The narrative spans over situations where gender roles have led to emotional restraint, grief and painful inauthenticity for those who for various reasons, don’t fit into a socially acceptable identity. By using the personal narratives of people born into a male body, the artist choreographed bodily interpretations, enigmatic gestures and intimate interactions of tenderness, sensuality, fragility, and affection.
The title refers to the suffering that inflexible gender roles have caused individuals, families, and society over generations, and the urgent need to question these constructs to achieve a radical fallout from these roles. In order not to sink; even further.
Important note: This is a multi-channel video installation that has been shortened for a special screening at We.Are Institute.
Medium: Multi-channel video installation and perfomance. Duration: 50 min.
Year: 2017
Artist: Snövit Hedstierna
Snövit Hedstierna (Swedish/Mestizo) lives and works between her studios in Stockholm, Berlin, and Montreal.
