Photo by Özden Şahin
Jeffrey Baykal-Rollins and the Silsila Collective will present “Flux” on Sunday, August 4th at 5:00 PM. "Flux" is a site-specifıc group performance created for the Istanbul Modern Art Museum’s waterfront area. Consisting of 20 performers inhabiting the space outside the museum through silent stillness, repetitive walking, and the gestures of traditional daily life in Istanbul, “Flux” embodies a reflection about our collective future.
Photo by Zeynep Özel
The one-hour performance will
integrate itself into the museum’s architectural kinetic installation on view,
creating an ephemeral hybrid space, an architecture-within-the-architecture,
part surreal garden and part secular cloister. Audiences may sit and experience
a performative meditation that engages aspects of contemporary life in
Istanbul, with its lingering past and its pending future. Baykal-Rollins is
interested in artistic collaboration and has also invited artist Ernesto Pujol
to assist him in choreographing the piece. Pujol is a New-York based performer,
internationally known for his public durational performances. He works in the
tradition of German choreographer Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater.
Flux is the third project of the
new Silsila Collective’s contemporary programming. Baykal-Rollins founded the
collective two years ago, to train and perform with art students, art
professionals, and urban citizens of all ages drawn to this experimental new
medium and its potential social agency through collective portraiture. Prior to
this performance, part of the group performed in Venice on May 23, at the
Piazza San Marco, responding to that spectacular site. Images are available
through: http://silsilacollective.blogspot.com
Baykal-Rollins, who has been
living and working in Istanbul for the past decade, engages in what is
currently known "art as social practice,” combining performance with
image-making, alternative education, institutional critique, and cultural
studies in a reflection about contemporary existence. The artist hopes to
continue working in partnership with local, regional and international
institutions, growing his Collective as Istanbul becomes a stage for global
art.
Silsila’s “Flux” performance will
be held in conjunction with the exhibition “Sky Spotting Stop,” a project
partnered with the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art in
New York, and MoMA PS1. "Sky
Spotting Stop" is a temporary site-specific installation that shades the
courtyard of Istanbul Modern while floating gently on the hidden waters of the
Bosphorus, organically expanding its host space into the city (http://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/exhibitions/sky-spotting-stop_1114.html).
