IN-BETWEEN IDENTITIES
Sandra Stanionyte || Yuki Kobayashi
Live performance In-Between Identities took place at De Helena exhibition space on Friday, July 5, 2019. Duration of the performance 3 hours.
Project ID In-Between Identities was a temporary creative community project examining artistically the issue of the crisis of identity, working in performance art to consider personal and societal conceptions of individuality. The intensive residency class was co-tutored by VestAndPage and Marilyn Arsem.
ERASING BORDERS
Erasing Borders || Emotion in motion 2016. Revolve Performance Art Days. Uppsala konstmuseum, Drottning Christinas väg 1E, 752 37 Uppsala, SE
The live act of two artists raises questions about identity, human rights, nationality, using their bodies as an identification tool, not limited by a country and responding in the present moment
Yet what is the true meaning of being here and now, how do we represent this for the future as humans of the world? Intercultural event connecting Japan and Lithuania expands the question of nationality in a global context.
“Body is our Passport, Body is our Identification, Body is our Identity”
Artists Sandra Stanionytė & Yuki Kobayashi present themselves as free from gender or nationality limits and their work as live and happening in the present moment. There’s a need to redefine body as an object, gender and human relations between two bodies, branding, advertising, commercialization of art, the artists’ need to self-sacrifice, inveterate structures and definitions once again. Challenging the entirety of technological and commercial cybernetic culture, social media, online imagery in order to seek a stronger human connection to the real world. This performance is active and operating in historical, political and cultural fields, searching for new methods of identification in the current world’s situation.
Yuki Kobayashi / 小林勇輝 (1990, JP) earned Painting and Performance Masters degree at Royal College of Art, London, UK. As visual and performance artist he uses his own body to explore the neutrality of gender. He questions racial stereotypes, looks into human relations, the resonance between restriction and fluidity in time and space.
Sandra Stanionytė (1986, LT) earned Sculpture and Performance Masters degree at Royal College of Art, London, UK. She acts in interdisciplinary performance art field. She uses her body to question social and political constructs in various contexts. Both artists belong to performance collective Stillllive, which they established in 2016 with their colleagues.
Erasing Borders || Emotion in motion 2016. Revolve Performance Art Days. Uppsala konstmuseum, Drottning Christinas väg 1E, 752 37 Uppsala, SE
BORDERLINE
F a c t F a c t o r F a c t o r y. KruxAmsterdam, 1019 AK Amsterdam, NL
Action – Border Line. Me and Nigel Rolfe measure the size of a garage door. I take white paint and transfer the measurements on both sides of the door frame creating a rectangular space on the ground. In the corner I leave an empty space, distance of my body not painted. I place my body sideways and paint the white line over my body. I keep balancing until I fall down on one or the other side.
UNTITLED
Untitled / Performance / Duration: 1 hour / Dadaism 100 years anniversary festival, at Spiral, Tokyo, Japan
On August 7th, at Spiral, the performance “Emotion in Motion” was held, marking the 100th anniversary of Dadaism—a moment that resonates deeply with the significance I feel in watching this work.
A woman in a black suit stands with dignity, using her red passport to cover her suit in black paint. She falls repeatedly, blending black paint with red in a symbolic act. A man in a suit, with a plastic tube taped firmly to his mouth, struggles to produce sound, but no voice emerges. Nearby, a woman with a cannon-like object on her head silently parades around the venue. The mechanical noise accompanies her as she slowly approaches each viewer, staring down at them, though her face is obscured by a black void. In contrast, another woman in a beautiful dress and high heels moves through the space, physically interacting with the audience, disrupting their experience with her touch. Each performer confronts the world in a profoundly lonely way.
Although World War II ended over 75 years ago, the echoes of conflict and the current climate of fear and uncertainty, amplified by a constant stream of terror and unknown threats, still resonate. The internet has connected us, but it has also introduced a new level of disruption in our lives, much like a chemical reaction gone awry.
As the performance continues, the man in the suit disrobes, wrapping a black bowling ball in a world map. One end of the tube extending from his mouth branches into two—one end connects with the earth, and the other to the woman covered in red and black paint. The two of them circle around the earth, embodying the shared struggle of humanity, a painful yet undeniable reality. The world map is torn apart, revealing the bowling ball inside. The man wraps it in a new map, fragile and ready to be torn apart again, reconnecting it to the tube. This act exposes the vulnerability of our world, a comical yet tragic commentary on the absurdity of human existence. They are linked by the tube, representing the media that expresses the ‘now’ through their entire bodies.
The question arises: why perform this now? What does it mean to be a person in today’s modern world? These questions are inextricably linked to both the world we live in and the act of performance itself.
This live, in-the-moment performance is a powerful reflection of our time, capturing something that is far from insignificant.
SELF IDENTITY
Performance/video Trispalve/Three Color Flag || Sandra Stanionyte & Yuki Kobayashi, London 2016
TRACE
PLACE
Subject: BODY
Place: WORLD
Condition: HUMAN
Space for freedom and anti-alienation. Artists: Roma Auskalnyte || Yuki Kobayashi || Sandra Stanionyte
Group Exhibition in VDA ‘Titanikas’ gallery, 2017
Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture/ Lietuvos Kultūros Taryba
Three-body print flags by Roma Auskalnyte, Yuki Kobayashi and Sandra Stanionyte
Performance Trace Place, Duration – 2 hours, Vilnius 2017
Photographs by @Laima Stasiulionyte
Posture @Roma Auskalnyte
Day II
WE DON’T KNOW
WHAT BUT IT WILL HAPPEN
[living in the licensed description]
[living in]
living [in]
living in [the] gallery
living in the [ ]
See unseen [in] existing patterns
Week-long performance Limit Less 07/10/2016, Project space Kabinetas, Kaunas, Lithuania
The live act of two artists raises questions about identity, human rights, nationality, using their bodies as an identification tool, not limited by a country and responding in the present moment. Yet what is the true meaning of being here and now, how do we represent this for the future as humans of the world? Intercultural event connecting Japan and Lithuania expands the question of nationality in a global context. Artists Sandra Stanionytė & Yuki Kobayashi present themselves as free from gender or nationality limits and their work as live and happening in the present moment. There’s a need to redefine body as an object, gender and human relations between two bodies, branding, advertising, commercialization of art, the artists’ need to self-sacrifice, inveterate structures and definitions once again. Challenging the entirety of technological and commercial cybernetic culture, social media, online imagery in order to seek stronger human connection to the real world. This performance is active and operating in historical, political and cultural fields, searching for new methods of identification in the current world’s situation.
||Body is our Passport, Body is our Identification, Body is our Identity||
Stamp @ Yuki Kobayashi
LOSE CLOSE
“Lose Close” is the concept of the human body (a basic form of a performative object) is the tool of technic to represent visual art with performance. Possibility of making live images through minimalistic actions and works, questioning the documentation in online images existing in virtual society, the preciousness of live images towards the end of contemporary art. We believe that working live challenges the technological and commercial umbrella that envelops cyberculture, social media, and online images, and gives the majority access to a mass of shocking and violent imagery. How can strong imagery resonate amongst this? In the midst of commercialism, cyberculture, war and the fear of terrorism the true essence of humanity is being absorbed and we demand the presence of the human body to remain visible. Performance art allows the individual artist to be mobile and make international relations and make cultural bridges. Live-action enables a reaction to the current political situation.
TWO SIDES
Photographs by @Yuichiro
in action
Two Poles. World in Time 2016 Uppsala train station. Sweden. Duration – 1hour.
Two Poles. World in Time 2016. Krux Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Duration – 1hour.
Two Poles. World in Time 2016. Dover, UK. The border between England and Eu. The night before Brexit. Duration – 10hours.
Two Poles. World in Time 2017. Chiba, Japan. Duration – 1hour.
Two Poles. World in Time. Comeragh Mountains, Waterford, Ireland 2016. Duration-1 hour.
Two Poles. World in Time. Asylum CarolineGarden’s Chapel, SE15 2SQ London, UK. Duration-2 hours
Two Poles. World in Time. Chiba, Japan, 2017 Duration -1hour
Two Poles. World in Time. Tokyo 2017. Japan. Duration-1 hour.
Off The Line, London 2016