"Let us use the camera as a tool for reflection, rather than limiting it to a device that records appearances. Let us use it to shape a moving image that emerges from within and through us, blending with what is out there. Let us use it to show the world as it appears to us. Visions vanish if not captured." 

- VestAndPage

The exhibition “The Poetic Image” presents the final works from the participants of ECC Performance Art’s 2023 Summer Workshop on “Performance-based Filmmaking” with VestAndPage. The workshop was dedicated to performance-based filmmaking’s conceptual, aesthetic, and practical aspects, a field that exists at a dynamic intersection of two art forms: body-based performance art and filmmaking. Over the course of 5 weeks, participants discussed conditions and methods of performance-based film work production and presentation such as the differentiation between objective and subjective points of view and perspectives while performing for the video camera and how to allow the viewers to receive what the performers experience. 

Through the analyses of key works of performance-based filmmaking, participants reflected on the   differences between video documentation of performance art and performance-for-camera, the nature of the poetic image and its performativity, the use of space, time, objects, and the human body concerning the technical medium, the physical side of film production, site-specific performance work, guerrilla tactics vs bureaucracy, and sustainability.

Practical assignments were given with the aim to enhance the participants’ creative endeavor, action and genuine expression, and to tap into their inner universe in order to explore their reality autonomously. Joint discussions prompted a consideration of their motivations, urgencies, concepts, inspirations, visions, challenges, and expectations. From all of these experiences, participants ultimately created their final works, which are on view in the gallery. 

Enter below or click here to head back into the VR exhibition.