“Sillage et Textes” is a collaborative, artistic project between the artist Sandolore Sykes and the dancer Brigitta Horváth. As if our selves are half written books—as if our bodies are paper being scribbled into construction—this project explores looking at ourselves with our bindings unbound and the text of our lives scattered and abstracted.
Exploring the construction of identity as a kind of writing—that the self is a book, bound and inscribed, both Sykes and Horváth, improvise in paper, ink and movement. The project has two central aspects—visual art and dance. The two artists play off each other, creating installations and performances.
Sillage et Textes, like other collaborations between these two artists, is an ongoing exploration rather than a finished project. The first permutation of this project took place during a residency and exhibition at Soelys, in Soyaux, France. It consisted of an evolving installation in a gallery, an interactive gallery space for visitors, a collaborative performance in the gallery and a dance/video performance in the theater at Soelys.
The Pieces:
Every piece in the exhibition uses unbound pages from books as its support and inks as their media. Obscuring text and turning it into design and form, Sykes plays with the book as a moldable, transformable surface.
The exhibition consists of 6 large-scale pieces, 3 bound artist books, several small pieces, 1 video, and two large sculptural installations.
Performance 1: This structured improvisation took place in the gallery where Horváth and Sykes presented an heterolytic interpretation of the project, leading the spectators through the gallery. While Horváth responded to the visual pieces apparent, Sykes recited an unraveled autobiography of her relationship with books. The performance ended with Horváth’s movements as Sykes poured ink onto her skin, underlining the idea of the body as paper.
Performance 2: In this 30-minute dance performance Horváth’s body is transformed by the projection of moving ink in water by Sykes’s video. Horváth begins in full white light and throughout the performance is obscured by the densification of the black ink. The soundscape of Thunderbirds V de Yoneda Lemma accompanied this charged movement into black.
The Future of “Sillage et Textes”
We are currently working on the future programming for this performance series. The exposition and 2 performances are available, both separately or together.
The exposition and first performance require a standard gallery space. The Performance #2 requires a theater or auditorium with a projector and a sound board.