The Lost Humanity
THE LOST HUMANITY
Introduction
Initiated in 2010 by musician Liv Kristin Holmberg, poet Bertrand Besigye, choreographer Magnhild Fossum, director Itonje Guttormsen and composer Stefan Thorsson, this was originally thought as a durational and ritual cross-disciplinary art project; where this group together with other invited artists where asked to move in and artistically occupy a church in Oslo during the week before Easter. The main goal during this week was to transform the space into an art temple – through daily rituals, discussions, physical training and individual work – resulting and culminating in a performance at the day of the resurrection.
The artists in this experiment all based their participation on an individual biographical necessity and a strong desire to affect and question both the cerebral art world and the language based protestant church through vitality, physicality and spirituality. By creating and developing its own art liturgy; the group wanted to supply contemporary art with sacred seriousness and the modern church with comparative substitutes to its decorative art.
There were also constantly ongoing discussions concerning the relationship between contemporary art and religion. Based on a convincement that the two are connected discourses: They both rely on belief, question rationality and are maintained by crossing frontiers. With this connection as a starting point for the project; the group of artists wanted to examine whether art is a supplementary alternative to religion regarding life and faith. This was all about resurrection – the resurrection of life in art. Art returning to mankind – mankind returning to religion.
(Text: L.K. Holmberg)
(Film: M. Fossum)
Links
Musical fundament (pdf in swedish)