[+] LEIBNIZ (ERNST FISCHER & HELEN SPACKMAN) (UK)
The Book of Dust
The Book of Dust – a performance installation – contains scenes of creation and catastrophe, poverty and wealth. However, dust is not only presented as the documentary trace element of events, or the raw material of production, but as a measure of time passing. Around a body half-buried under rubble, three women wait, unable to settle down or to leave, each engaged in her own activity, which implicates her in the actual making of this ‘book’. Is the environment or text through which the spectator wanders a dream, a memory, or a dire warning of things to come? In the midst of destruction, life clings on and renews itself; in the absence of old certainties, fresh opportunities arise to define our notions of ‘history’ and ‘belonging’. Maybe all we can do now is make ourselves at home in a nomadic existence, traversing a continuously shifting landscape of our own creation.
Ernst Fischer was born in Germany but has lived in Britain for nearly 30 years. His performance work is heavily influenced by Butoh, which he studied in Japan, London, and Vienna. More recently, however, the focus of the work has shifted to collaborations with exiled writers and asylum seekers on issues relating to race, diversity, and human rights. Fischer wrote his PhD thesis on ‘the queer space of living-room theatre’ at Roehampton University, London, where he
currently works as creative research fellow. He is, together with Helen Spackman, co-founder and artistic director of Leibniz.
Original version funded by Artsadmin.
photo by Manuel Vason