Grazer Kunstverein
Aimée Zito Lema and Becket MWN
The Actress
Exhibition

Aimée Zito Lema, Becket MWN, The Actress, 2021, film still
Dates
24.9.–17.12.2021
Location
Grazer Kunstverein
Graz
Part of
Parallel Program 2021
Production specifics
Coproduced by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution (Amsterdam), Mercer Union, a center for contemporary art (Toronto), steirischer herbst ’21, and Grazer Kunstverein
The Actress addresses questions of language, enunciation, and subjectivities. In their collaborative work, artists Becket MWN and Aimée Zito Lema explore the relations between speech, memory, and movement by working with actresses through a process of documented rehearsals. In these, an actress works with a theater director and rehearses a script in which language is connected to bodily movement, allowing the actress to internalize the words. The same situation is executed twice, with actresses of different ages who speak different languages, in order to explore the shifts that occur through this. The process is documented with cameras from two different perspectives: one from the outside watching the learning process, and the other representing the internal perspective of the actress. This documentation is implemented as a multi-channel video installation in the exhibition space.
Curated by Kate Strain and Verena Borecky
Retrospective
Retrospective