*By Hanna Borgen, 2017
Performance arts is a domain of study for me. I came across Bookperformance event when I was reading about the White Night Festival for which I would go from Malmö to Riga. It took my attention since the subtitle of the event was written in several languages: “Body and Sound of I and Eye”. My visit was both to see my boyfriend and to watch some performances together with him. This performance took my 7 hours that finally I couldn’t see my boyfriend much.
The event started at 8pm and ended at 3am. It was a continuous construction and reconstruction or deconsctruction of the site. As if a construction worker was creating a house with natural materials. For example, stones, feathers, earth. And a poem on sounds and silence was being recited in several languages some of which I didn’t know. The artist had placed one book at one corner, it was her MyFace Book. And occasionally we saw a projection in which we saw the artist moving or trying to move as if she wanted to fly despite a strong wind.
People were passing by, they were leaving and then coming back after some minutes or hours. I stayed the whole time. It was due to the fact that I am still writing my thesis on performance arts at the University of Malmö. I thought I was just at an event which was demanding a performance from the audience as well. So I could include this Bookperformance to my thesis as generously as it welcomed my presence into it. 7 hours watching an artist constructing a house was my performance. I didn’t even go out to get water or something to eat. The site looked like a book at some stage. Then she deconstructed it and turned it into a single page. Every now and then some people joined her to move some stones, to carry the water or just to open the book and read it. Even some children were at the stage at some moment. All this looked very surreal when it was the midnight and there were still people around and in the performance. The artist was still reading, writing, constructing a structure and then another one. I remembered a profesor referring to a philosopher who said “Language is our house”. I was sure that the artist was making this visual. I thought: If language is our house, Bookperformance must be the construction site of it. All of this ended when the artist finally “messed up” all that she constructed with an elegance of a poet. She was moving in circles, we were hearing the wind noise coming from the projection, the sounds of the stones, her footsteps and languages were all getting one. Towards the end, there were certianly more than 100 people in the theatre room at that hour of the night. When all was a chaos that looked like a scene from the universe in spirals, the artist placed herself in the middle of it as if she was a baby in the womb. It was an emotional moment. I was happy to have stayed all the way. Mentally, emotionally I was transformed with each stimulus of this Bookperformance.
When I went to her website the next day, I read that she welcomed the witnessing texts, videos or photographs from the audience. The event was captivating me intensely that I didn’t think of taking photos. A professional photpgrapher was in charge of it. I am happy to write these words to contribute to this heart felt work of Çiğdem y Mirol. While writing this text I understood why it is called “Body and Sound of I and Eye: Bookperformance”. It is owing to its energy that moves the human body, the space, the words. After sending this to Çiğdem, I will order her MyFace Book that I scanned through during the performance. Thanks Çiğdem for introducing your Bookperformance to the world.
*Hanna Borgen