Defibrillator Gallery is pleased to invite you
to participate in the creation of the performative video work:
A Dance (in Chicago)
by BORJANA VENTZISLAVOVA (Bulgaria | Austria)
THU 27 AUG @7PM
At the end of her six-month residency in Chicago, the artist will initiate a one hour silent dance in a marked collective space at DFBRL8R. Everyone is invited to participate and become part of creating the artwork. Any manner of movement and interaction is appreciated. No recorded music is allowed, but sounds coming from you (talking, singing, etc.) are welcome.
The dance will be filmed with multiple cameras and A Dance (in Chicago) will be shown as part of Ventzislavova’s on-going dance series at future exhibitions on places around the world. A Dance (in Chicago) is the first work in the series. Let’s make this happen the Chicago way! Bring your friends and lets dance!!!
Doors will open at 7PM and the performance will be recorded for one hour from 7:30 – 8:30 pm. After the performance we’ll play some music and dance some more.
BORJANA VENTZISLAVOVA is Vienna based artist born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She earned an MA in visual media arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Ventzislavova is a cross–disciplinary artist who works in the fields of film/video, installation, photography, performance and media art. In her works she analyzes stereotypical roles and models of representations and the impact of political and social structures and control mechanisms on our existence. Her work addresses issues of mobility and crossing of socio-geographical and cultural borders and deal with the complex process of communication and translation. Focusing on documentary and narrative structures and constructions, she mixes stages and situations, still and moving image, text and sound into cases and stories that test the line between personal and social and examine the interaction between individuals and collectives in the frame of current events and history. Invoking strategies of re-positioning, manipulation and perception, and discrepancy procedure, Ventzislavova’s work draws attention to the permeable borders between reality and fiction.
BORJANA VENTZISLAVOVA has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows as well as media art and film festivals, including, 21er haus – the new Museum of contemporary art in Vienna, MAK Vienna, MAK LA, Museum of Modern Art Salzburg, Museum of Modern Art Carinthia, Museum of Modern Art – Esterházy Foundation, MUSA, Museum of Contemporary Art Soifa, Sofia City Art Gallery, National Art Gallery Sofia, Landesgalerie Linz, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg. Gallery bäckerstrasse4, k/haus, quartier21, gallerie Ostlicht, Thomas K. Lang Gallery, BCI “Wittgenstein House” – all in Vienna, Austrian Cultural Forum Washigton DC and London, ICA London, ex-garage, Maribor, Academia gallery, Sofia, ICA Sofia, Art Today Plovdiv, Hunt gallery, St. Louis, US, Cologne Conference, IDFA, Diagonale, Graz, EMAF, Osnabrück, transmediale, Berlin, filmwinter, Stuttgart, Rencontres Internationales, Berwick Film and Media Arts Fest., Moscow Int. Filmfest., Int. Short Film Fest. Istanbul, Split Film Fest., etc.
She received the Austrian State Scholarship for Fine Art 2013, numerous grants and awards for projects, Start Scholarship for Fine Art 2009, winner of Top Ten Nonfiction Award at Cologne Conference 2006, Otto Prutscher Fonds Award 2006, Susmannstiftung Award 2005, recognitions at Art in Motion 2002, Los Angeles, Ars Electronica, 2002, Linz, CYNETart 2001, Dresden. She was artist in residence in London (ACF), Rom (BMUKK), Newcastle (ISIS Arts), Berkeley (CEC Artslink), Los Angeles (MAK Schindler). Her works are part of private and public colletions.
Borjana is currently on a six-month residency in Chicago from the Austrian Federal Chancellery Arts.
