Laura Krsmanovic
The place
Grand Manège
Language
All
Hours and dates
- From 10am to 6pm daily
Between artistic projects and awareness campaigns, Laura Krsmanovic is also a member of the creative collective 254Forest. In September 2020, she created the activist and poetic multidisciplinary project ISOLA exploring the invisible threads that connect us. Have you ever felt like an isolated fragment ? What if our questions actually had a common root ? Separation. Whether from nature, from our relationship to femininity, from our elders, from our dead, etc.
Through these sensitive experiences, her intention is to change the way we look at the living and to arouse emotions that will lead to a more respectful relationship with others, with ourselves and with nature.
ORA : Listening to our Dead
“We take our dead with us everywhere, and if they stayed in the cemetery, we’d know. Life and death are not hermetically separated, and flowing water does not make our lives impervious to mourning.” (Living with our dead, Delphine Horvilleur)
A universal pillar of the human experience is meditating upon the boundary between life and death : whether a process of reincarnation of the soul, or the mystical portal embodied by the dark yet crossable waters of the Styx river, there are countless myths and philosophies reminding us that those “passed” may still be closer than we think.
Yet today we seem disconnected from such worldviews in the West. Just as water transforms into air and back, isn’t it time to rethink the porosity between life and death, and the place of the dead in the world of the living ?
ORA combines pensive electronic compositions interspersed with narrative accounts of how those we have lost continue to inhabit our emotional worlds. A direct line to the great unknown, a telephone booth is situated in the middle of a room awash in spellbinding light, echoing the Wind Phone, installed in Ōtsuchi, Japan after the deadly earthquake in 2011. Like succumbing to a river current, subtle shifts in illumination detach visitors from external reference points, gently plunging them into an atmosphere of calm introspection. Discreetly and privately, visitors are invited to delve into their most intimate emotions inside the booth – some may choose to speak, others may listen in silence, enveloped in the stories and soundscapes. A moment suspended in time and space where the realms of life and death are reconnected using the power of imagination and enactment. ORA invites us to immerse ourselves in the world of the invisible to reshape our perception of death and grief, while holding space for sadness and remembrance.
ISOLA is a multidisciplinary series of works by Laura Krsmanovic that explores the invisible threads that connect us. Preceded by Confinés Dehors, SOMOS, and MAGMA, ORA is the fourth installment in the series. Music is composed by musician Le Motel, mix is done by Christophe Loerke and scenography is designed by the studio Erased.
Creation & artistic direction: Laura Krsmanovic
Music and sound design: Le Motel
Set design: Erased Studio
Lighting programming: Ofer Smilansky
Mix and editing support: Christophe Loerke
Photo: Gretar Gunnlaugsson
Copy and translation: Blurbs
