＜WALK THIS WAY＞
happening/public event/collaborative, semi-directed performance piece.
For this project, participants of the workshop Act/Abstract, that took place in November at the Art Space Koganei, will perform together in a collaborative happening, meandering through the local cityscape in the framework of a very subtle and delicate public action, which would take from concepts of demonstration and march.
The general idea behind the Walk This Way event, which is supposed to last anytime between 30 to 90min, is based on applying and utilizing experience, as well as physical effects from the workshop in a form of art research-based field work, where – after just enough of time that would have passed – the cognitive outcome of Act/Abstract will be recontextualised in a more direct set-up and natural habitat.
Using abstract props designed and produced during the Act/Abstract, which were supposed to (ideally) refer to notions of protest and resisrance and which actually became more of vessels (or tools)dedicated and characteristic to building of alternative, intellectual and per-se ambiguous narratives, we will perform altogether a poetic test-walk in a real life environment of Musashi Koganei.
◉Summery（by Piotr Bujak）
Walk This Way was a loosely staged//coordinated perdormative-walk event, directed and designed by Piotr Buajk as an offspring to a workshop Act/Abstract held in November at Art Spot Koganei/Artful Action. As a goal of said workshop to design abstract signs of protest/resistance eventually resulted in having build an impressive collection of abstract props if various form and character, seemingly more related to ideas of Procession or Festival and Dadaist approach to art-making process, Walk This Way aimed to actually filed-test the critical and discursive potential of these artifacts (as well as participants readiness for civic engagement) in a form of public performance piece.
The pivotal concept behind this event/project was based on the act of expanding one’s public presence in order to express concerns, or show support towards a given (social) issue and testing the efficacy together with symbolic meaning// of such kind of methodology in a more abstract context.
The event comprised a limited number of participants, becoming very causal yet intimate and poetic, self-educating process, where people passing by on the street tended to turn their heads away in a peculiar gesture of somewhat of a tender denial to grant a permission for such activities to become even noticed.
What is also very interesting, Walk This Way happened during the period of time, when all around Tokyo there appeared quite plenty of demonstrations supporting Palestinians witnessing and suffering basically a genocide from the hands of Israeli Army invading Gaza.
KEY NOTIONS:
・alternating the (idea of) presence
・civic engagement
・tender resistance
・active and poetic criticism
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◉ゲストプロフィール
ピョトル・ブヤク｜Piotr Bujak
1982年生まれ。東京とクラクフ在住。映像、インスタレーション、立体、テキストなど多様な技法を用いて制作を行う。アクティビストでもある。ヤン・マテイコ美術アカデミー（クラクフ、ポーランド）とサンフランシスコ・アート・インスティチュート卒業。対抗的パンク文化、ミニマリズム、コンセプチュアリズム、ネオ・アヴァンギャルド、批評的言説に関心をもつ。「低予算、素早く雑に、DIYで、打って走る（Low Budget, Quick and Dirty, Do It Yourself and Hit and Run）」を戦略としつつ、新自由主義の病理、暴力、同一性、文化や政治領域と関連する作品を制作している。
https://culture.pl/en/artist/piotr-bujak
