There is no there

2015 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
10:28 minutes

There is no there by Gabriella and Silvana Mangano is a black and white looped video with sound, in conjunction with a live performance. The work is inspired by the Blue Blouse, a political propaganda theater movement which spread across the Soviet Union in the mid-1920s. More specifically, the work takes the form of ‘Living Newspapers’, which were performances based on topical news events. During that period, news was conveyed to the people in the form of accessible theatrical performances, using the actors’ bodies as a medium. Each performance, while designed to entertain, also carried a political message expressing the opinions and reinforcing the power of the Soviet regime to the working class. For this work, the artists collaborated with amateur female dancers—fellow artists, friends, and colleagues—of different generations and backgrounds to carefully follow choreographed movements, such as pointing fingers or fists raised in the air, extracted from images in current media. These ubiquitous poses and gestures of the female body imply coerced silence, group violence, suppression, and surveillance, to relay critical issues covered by contemporary news media. The performance and video each feature a line of women in unison? (those in the performance differ from those in the video). Accompanied by a live cellist playing a somber composition, the actors wear simple hair and muted clothing; with expressionless faces, they repeat the same motions. The artists play on the body as a political and social medium, deliberately engaging a cast of female performers placed in uniform clothes and a non-descript setting. Extending their concept of performance to a form of community engagement, the artists focus on the body as a collective and how gestures can become a universal language. The performers do not speak but they are not silent; their movements are sure and concise, their bodies empowered. Strengthened by the mirroring installation of live and recorded movements, There is no there presents bodies in an act of dignified protest.

Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano are an artistic duo and identical twins known for their collaborative and performative video practice. Working with their own bodies, improvised choreography, and simple materials, their practice explores the relationship between the body and material objects, physical space, and history in a global context. Before they began making video works together the duo studied drawing, which informs their focus on gesture, repetition, process, and sculptural form.