Emily Mast

4030 N. Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA 90065 mastonfig@gmail.com

TEASER
VIDEO

Seed Eaters (Noir), 2018, installation & performance, 60 minutes
in collaboration with Rachel Kauder Nalebuff
With: Hicham Raji, Luis Ospina, Nils Loret, Wendy Choi & Sabine Reungoat
Sound: Linda Edsjö
Garments: Nicolette Henry
Performed in English & French
Co-production: The Grazer Kunstverein, steirischer herbst 2017, La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel, France

The Seed Eaters (Noir) is a stage performance involving 12 sculptural sets and 24 mini-scenes activated by 3 performers. The theme of this “deconstructed play” whose players endlessly reverse roles is “The End”: illness, the life cycle of a swimsuit, the end of a celebratory evening. Here language, objects, instructions, and participants’ personalities all have equal value as they deconstruct established hierarchies in order to better connect.

Inspired by the awkward and sometimes dangerous space that separates strangers, The Seed Eaters (Noir) plants connections between people to engender collusion, teamwork and blind hope in a social and political moment when it feels like the world might be falling apart.

The actors are non-professionals and are accompanied in their procession by a musician and followed by the audience; together they activate vignettes previously scripted by the artist and her collaborators. At the end of the series they swap roles and change languages. Each performance is unique and the three presented at La Ferme du Buisson involve three different groups of performers. The sets and the performance space are then opened up as an exhibition, allowing spectators to approach the sculptures and play out the scenarios themselves.