Matija & Mauricio Ferlin

Matija & Mauricio Ferlin
Choreography for objects while the performer is absent
2018

Performance: Matija Ferlin

The choreographic material in the work Choreography for objects while the performer is away is developed through a series of mimetic micro-segments, each of which points to a certain action, gesture or process. By bringing together these miniature gestural elements, Matija Ferlin analytically penetrates the performative breakdown of the properties of ephemerality, related to notions of performance, action, work, continuity and production, yet also to the narrative segment of a dance performance. The choreographic reference in this work is not formed exclusively through a relationship between a body and space, but also through a mimetic narrative and its material remnant, a thing or an object to which it points. The authors already used this concept in the project Out of Season, in collaboration with the Canadian choreographer Ame Henderson.

Transferred from the stage to the exhibition room, the choreography is organized around the task of focusing the performative (working) body to the process and continuous, durational metamorphosis, and sustaining the sequence of movements – from banal routines, through actions, to gestures. The purified, meditative choreographic work in this performance delivers a materialization of that which the creative process had already abstracted, and therefore also discarded. The finished choreographic thought is confronted with a concrete object and its material remnant, while at the same time it investigates the potential of the creative surplus – that which should not have been seen; that which has been suppressed, is excessive, or already stated.

That which is seemingly readable and recognizable in a gesture transforms into a discarded object, a chaotic “image” of a performance; into objects that are more than commentary, and that take on for themselves the task of sustaining a performance long after the work has ended.
M. i M. F.

Matija Ferlin is an unclassifiable Croatian artist whose work is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach and atypical experience. Trained in media and the graphic arts, theatre and dance, he lived in Amsterdam and Berlin before returning to Croatia where he was born in 1982. In addition to creating his own work, he also collaborates with other artists from diverse backgrounds, working as a performer, actor or artistic consultant. He has five exhibitions to his credit, in addition to a dozen award-winning performances including solo works where he recounts the changing nature of his personal and professional identity.

Mauricio Ferlin works as a set designer, graphic designer, videographer and visual artist. He designed the award-winning Croatian exhibition Intangible at PQ 2015 – the Prague Quadrennial of Performance, Design and Space. He is a member of the 2016 Utopian Collective, a group of designers that represented Croatia at the 1st London Design Biennial. He has designed the sets for most of Matija Ferlin’s performances and for Mishima’s Modern No Dramas directed by Mateja Koležnik (Uchimura Prize 2015). From 2006, he has worked as an exhibition designer, receiving an award on two occasions for the Best Exhibition Project in Croatia from the Croatian Museum Association.