Body Slam: RAW is a third chapter of Kuuspu and and Saaremäel´s collaboration, that culminates with a performance in Kanuti Gildi SAAL that premiers in April.
"Body Slam" is the collective title of the collaborative projects of Keithy Kuuspu and Liisa Saaremäel, which focuses on placing clay and the female body in dialogue, dealing with the materiality and fragility of both. Two works have already premiered in this series. First, "Body Slam / Ihu ramm" in ARS Art Campus (January, 2022), combining exhibition format and performance art, centered on 10 ceramic robes that gradually broke during each performance and transformed the exhibition space. And secondly, the development of the previous "Body Slam: Summer edition" at the Maardu Dekennaal (June, 2022), in which during the traveling performance they investigated how the fragility of ceramic robes and bodies is amplified in the uncontrollable and chance-creating context of urban space. These works explored how visual art and performance can symbiotically activate and feed each other. Bodies and clay - both fragile and durable by nature - were placed in a dialogue where interaction recreates oneself, materiality carries a question and the completed work becomes a work of art. Opportunities were created for collisions, accidents and the constant construction and deconstruction of material. Unexpectedness carried a fragility.
Raw <rawer, rawest> raw berries (not ready to eat), raw meat (not cooked), a raw draft (not processed), raw power (wild, pure)
Our focus is shifting from ceramics (from kiln-processed clay) to raw clay. Rawness is also the main keyword in how we approach all parts of the work - movement, text, space, aesthetics as well as the audience's experience. We are looking for new means of expression to express the materiality of rawness, creating an additional opposite field to the fragility that our previous projects talked about.
Unfinished raw bodies. We grew up watching MTV with our hands in the mud. Based on this paradox, we boldly weave infantile, perverse as well as feminine elements into our work, discussing our own cultural and organic growth through it. At the same time, being present in the moment, chance, change, space and based on our own principle "works create art".
During our projects so far, we have discovered that the raw state of clay - compared to heat-treated and finished ceramics - paradoxically carries more durability and strength. For impact, falling, time. Applying this concept metaphorically to our own lives and those around us - isn't it true that things that are unfinished, imperfect and undefined tend to endure better? Can we protect ourselves from impact and shattering by simply keeping it in a rough state? Never grow up? Never deciding on your niche, never standing certain on anything because everything changes all the time? Can we remain as a wet piece of material? In the time of brave heroes, we ask what material we are made of. It's soft, graceless, and pile-like, moistened by the crystal clear tears that run down our muddy cheeks.
