Bianca Hisse & Laura Cemin
Studio17, Stavanger, NO and Galerie 35m2, Prague, CZ
The exhibition What led us here explores the very fabric of public spaces, its invisible mechanisms, flows and currents, which direct our bodies and their movement in space.
Referencing street signs, advertisement aesthetics and political gestures in the contemporary context, the performance uses LED scrolling signs as a medium to address issues of public circulation, immigration and the policing of spaces. Inspired by official tourism slogans of European countries, catchy ads from kebab shops in Oslo, and the aesthetics of informal street markets, the works juxtaposes the welcoming words of advertisement and business-driven vocabulary with restrictive statements of exclusion and prohibition.
The exploration of these relations leads to a narrative of movement and migration, a story of power, inclusion and exclusion. The exhibition is a poetic reflection on our living places, how we live in them and what brought us there, while bringing oddness, absurdity and humor as a way of questioning the world around us and our place in it.
Bianca Hisse and Laura Cemin both operate at the intersection of visual art, performance, dance and choreography. They are interested in the relation between language and movement, and through them they explore the production of meanings, social patterns in different social settings, as well as human relations to their environment and to each other. Bianca Hisse is based in Oslo, Norway and Laura Cemin is based in Helsinki, Finland.
Text by Viktória Beličáková
Sound design: Mihkel Maripuu
Film: Blank Blank Studios & Jo Hislop
Photos: Petri Henriksson and Eivind Egeland
