Organismo vivo/Levande Organism is a performance that has been conceived to take place at Naturhistoriska riksmuseet with the support of Stockholm Stad and the Spanish Embassy.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our everyday life has been altered. Museums and cultural institutions have been closed. What happens in these places when there are no visitors? Are the museums alive? What use do these cultural spaces have in times of pandemic? How can they contribute to creating a reflection of the times we are living in?
“What is life?” is a linguistic trap. To answer according to the rules of grammar, we must supply a noun, a thing. But life on Earth is more like a verb. It is a material process, surfing over matter like a strange slow wave. It is a controlled artistic chaos, a set of chemical reactions so staggeringly complex that more than 4 billion years ago it began a sojourn that now, in human form, composes love letters and uses silicon computers to calculate the temperature of matter at the birth of the universe. Life is a celebration of existence. –Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan
The Spanish biologist and artist Marta Pinilla aims to create an aesthetic reflection of the current situation through a performance that will insert no-labelled in a context where nature remains calm and silent. In this still nature, Marta Pinilla, in collaboration with the Spanish dancer Mireia Piñol, will break the stillness of the place by inserting themselves dressed as ‘living bodies. These bodies will move around the museum discovering the different specimens on display as if they were on a scientific expedition. From home, the online spectators will become watchmen of these individuals, observing from a distance how the beings go through the different galleries of the museum and interact with the exhibited specimens.
Lives screening programme:
14.00 Introduction
14.05 Performance begins
14.45 Presentation of the artists
15.00 End
FACEBOOK EVENT
LIFE SCREENING – RECORD
Organismo vivo/Levande Organism is curated by the Spanish artist Juanma González for the artists’ collective Flat Octopus.
Marta Pinilla is an artist and biologist who lives and works in Madrid. She combines her work as a high school science teacher with her artistic career. In recent years she has been working with LaJuan Gallery in Madrid developing various performances such as the one she did last weekend at the Ponce Robles gallery or at the Open Week Barcelona (2018). Organismo vivo/Levande Organism will be her first performance in Sweden.
Mireia Piñol is a Stockholm-based dancer, choreographer and pedagogue from Barcelona. She has many years of experience in the field of performing arts. Mireia started as an artistic roller skater, being European champion in 2004. Today she combines artistic work with pedagogical work as a teacher at Balettakademien Stockholm and gymnasium at Cirkus Cirkör.
Juanma González is an artist who lives and works in Stockholm. One of his conceptual interests is the breakdown of ‘normality’ in everyday spaces for which he creates situations where new meanings can be generated. He uses walking as a method to infiltrate and question the future of the day to day. Organismo vivo/Levande Organism will be his second artistic action that he performs as a curator in Flat Octopus, a collective of which he is a co-founder.
About Naturhistoriska riksmuseet
The Swedish Museum of Natural History is Sweden’s largest museum. Its vision is to advance our knowledge of the natural world, inspiring better care of our planet. They want to be a centre of knowledge and a thriving meeting place for the general public and experts alike. The museum is a world-class research institution and results from nearly 300 years of research trips and collection.
At the museum with its exhibitions you can bring the family and greet newly hatched dinosaurs, listen to howling wolves, try your luck at hopping as far as a hare, or explore the mysteries of minerals in our exhibits. The richest collections in Scandinavia are waiting for you.
The museum also houses Cosmonova – the biggest giant dome screen cinema in Sweden. Expericence the feeling of being in the middle of an adventure.
Organismo vivo/Levande Organism is an art project organised by Flat Octopus with the support of Stockholm Stad, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet and the Embassy of Spain in Stockholm
Flat Octopus 