ARTISTS
Linnea Hansander: Tragedy (I Can't Live if Living is Without You)
The construction of narratives, rituals and myths has consistently accompanied human culture in its contact with death. Tragedy 鈥� one of the most important theatrical and literary genres from ancient Greece onwards 鈥� deals with crucial issues such as love, pride, loss, fate and power. Its ability to evoke a paradoxical sense of pleasure or solace in spectators through the on-stage portrayal of misfortune or pain was explained by Aristotle as catharsis 鈥� a purification and restoration of emotions through dramatic art. If comedy and satire were tools for everyday criticality and joy, tragedy held a major role to elicit growth and intellectual clarification.
In Linnea Hansander鈥檚 exhibition at Index, tragedy is reinstated to implement such growth. Confronting and resisting major questions related to time and death, Hansander creates narratives told through multiple voices connecting with emotional senses. In parallel with the traditional construction of drama, the space at Index is divided in three zones. Visitors first encounter a research process conducted by puppets gathered around a table. A dialogue between mechanical voices play out concepts and myths connected with infinite time and prolonged temporalities, floating in the air as the words of a chorus echo the plot.
Next to the research group, a possible scenario of joint performativity is staged. The scene for declamation is near audiences, inviting participation by shortening the distance between narrator and listener. Hansander looks to Karaoke as a method for sharing a possibility for mourning and an alternative sense of loss and from this point of departure, various questions about mourning and loss also appear. The need for ritualistic behaviors has again and again been translated into bits and pieces of feelings. With the help of powerful ballads, broken sentences from popular music have become part of a general vocabulary connecting the personal and the societal, claiming a dramatic representation (including pathetic and hilarious moods that offer revolutionary options, generation after generation).
Recommended for you
The construction of narratives, rituals and myths has consistently accompanied human culture in its contact with death. Tragedy 鈥� one of the most important theatrical and literary genres from ancient Greece onwards 鈥� deals with crucial issues such as love, pride, loss, fate and power. Its ability to evoke a paradoxical sense of pleasure or solace in spectators through the on-stage portrayal of misfortune or pain was explained by Aristotle as catharsis 鈥� a purification and restoration of emotions through dramatic art. If comedy and satire were tools for everyday criticality and joy, tragedy held a major role to elicit growth and intellectual clarification.
In Linnea Hansander鈥檚 exhibition at Index, tragedy is reinstated to implement such growth. Confronting and resisting major questions related to time and death, Hansander creates narratives told through multiple voices connecting with emotional senses. In parallel with the traditional construction of drama, the space at Index is divided in three zones. Visitors first encounter a research process conducted by puppets gathered around a table. A dialogue between mechanical voices play out concepts and myths connected with infinite time and prolonged temporalities, floating in the air as the words of a chorus echo the plot.
Next to the research group, a possible scenario of joint performativity is staged. The scene for declamation is near audiences, inviting participation by shortening the distance between narrator and listener. Hansander looks to Karaoke as a method for sharing a possibility for mourning and an alternative sense of loss and from this point of departure, various questions about mourning and loss also appear. The need for ritualistic behaviors has again and again been translated into bits and pieces of feelings. With the help of powerful ballads, broken sentences from popular music have become part of a general vocabulary connecting the personal and the societal, claiming a dramatic representation (including pathetic and hilarious moods that offer revolutionary options, generation after generation).
Artists on show
What's on nearby
