Mandala Performance Festival, photo credit: Gregor Stadnik

NORAYAMA (2024)

performance with spoken word, duration: 30 min
2024.09 Interactions Performance Festival, Piotrków Tryb., Poland
2024.07 Flow exhibition, curated by Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Ewa Ciepielewska (Flow), Emilia Orzechowska (Gallery El), Gallery El, Elbląg, Poland
2024.05 Mandala Performance Festival, curated by Adam Kamiński, Wrocław, Poland

In the performance “Norayama,” Kuba Falk explores the complex relationship between humans and the earth in three dimensions: as a place of origin, the matter from which we are made, and the area from which we can be forcibly dispossessed. This work is deeply rooted in the context of current political events in the Middle East, reaching deep into the roots of a world that is passing away, while also referencing the artist's personal history.

Born in pre-war Prussia, where his grandparents settled after the war, Falk connects his personal experiences to universal issues of displacement and uprooting. In his work, Falk also refers to his own experiences as a nomadic artist and to the period when a car (Mitsubishi Space Wagon) was his mobile home. Through these various threads, the artist creates a multidimensional picture of human uprooting and the search for belonging. The body-story “Norayama” raises issues of political pressure, warfare and its impact on the individual, while showing man's deep connection to the land as a place of belonging and existence.

The performance gains an additional dimension through a story about the connection between man and the cosmos, where the artist compares the networks of neurons in the human brain to the roots of plants in the ground. This complex and multidimensional work prompts reflection on the human condition, our roots and our place in the cosmic whole.

“Norayama” by Kuba Falk is a performance that combines the artist's personal experiences with a broad political and cosmic context to create a deeply reflective piece of living art.