This piece was performed on the last day of the festival, for audience and artists who had been together all week.
written by festival director Wladyslaw Kazmierczak
Marilyn Arsem’s performance was the last but one in the gallery. The artist in a way summed up the whole festival, its short history, and said several important sentences on particular performances and on the art of performance as a form of expression and one’s stance towards the world.
In the dark of the gallery, she hung some objects which had been used in other performances before. A mechanical metal saw, a new passport (a thief stole it and a photo camera from Jed Speare while he was mowing grass) a small glove, and a personal notebook. Thus, these were concrete traces which remained also in our memory. Certainly, what is more important is the ideas expressed by gestures, objects, sounds and images. We do not know what will happen to them, we do not know what influence they will have over our lives. The end point of the performance was the opening of two windows through which blazing light came into the gallery.
[the following are some of the questions asked during ‘Chance or Destiny.’]
Here we are together, in this room tonight, for this festival. Are we together by chance? Are we together by choice?
Or are we together because it is our destiny?
Look around you. Who are your friends? Who are strangers still?
Do you remember what you imagined would happen here?
What did you bring here with you?
What will you take home from here?
What will you leave behind?
What do you imagine you will remember of this time? Will it be the same ten years from now as it will be tomorrow?
And what will you forget?
Are we here together by chance, or by destiny?
