TRANSFORMATION

Artists:
Marco Bruzzone
Darius Mikšys





Bruzzone and Mikšys reflected on the plurality on transformative mechanisms that manifest themselves around us: plants and animals that become nourishment for the human body, (chemical) mutations in plants and organic livings, and the transition from the single to the collective, social body were just some of the mutative shifts that were investigated by the duo.

Bruzzone and Mikšys dedicated the first weekend of their phase to the preparation and arrangement of the two events that would have taken place the following week, „A Pound of Underground“ and the Matango Procession.
Having set up a screen printing station, the artists invited the participants to bring clothes, bags and other fabrics to be printed with the logo of the upcoming Matango Procession: a mushroom, symbol of entanglement and adaptability, that transforms into a closed fist, symbol of resistance.

A Pound Of Underground took place on Thursday, April 29th: inspired by a book that portrayed the world from a fish’s perspective, read by Bruzzone during a staying in Norway, the event unfolded as a theater play by and for potatoes.
The root vegetable has played an important role, if not marked, some major turns of human history: from being exported following the landing of Europeans in the Americas, to helping populations during famines, or condemning them to starve during their shortage.
In A pound Of Underground, two potato puppets playing the moderators of a talk show present and quibble with their three guests over the ontological status of potatoes and possibilities of community and aggregation.
The audience, as well as passers-by, were invited to assist to the play through the windows of aquarium, from an auditorium set up for the occasion on the sidewalk of Skalitzer Strasse.

On Friday 30th, the artists set up Matango, a silent demonstration for a more sustainable way of living that unwound from Kottbusser Tor to Hasenheide Park.
As an artistic action with the artistic action, Darius Mikšys staged „Mind the Food“, a performance where the demonstrators were invited to carry one food item on top of their head as a symbolic tribute to plants and animals that lost their lives to become food for humans.
The demonstration ended in Hasenheide Park, where „Matango“ was screened. Japanese movie by Hishiro Honda from 1963, Matango addresses the topic of mutation in nature produced by humans and its backlash on people.
Effects of human behaviour, risk calculation and the unstoppable force of nature, as well as the awakening of the collective consciousness in communal events, were at the core of the procession.