Public Movement
10:40
“How does sovereignty perform power, how does it perform order? We try to position ourselves inside of a specific conflict or dilemma, exploring how art can produce arenas for staging this dilemma as a part of public life.” -Artist Dana Yahalomi, Public Movement
We are pleased to invite you to view a new video profile with artist Dana Yahalomi about Public Movement. Co-founded by Dana Yahalomi, Public Movement is a performative research body that investigates and stages political actions in public spaces, studying and enacting public choreographies, forms of social order, and overt and covert rituals.
In the video profile, Dana highlights significant works from Public Movement’s sixteen-year history, such as National Collection (2015), an exhibition realized as a durational performance at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. During the six-week run of the exhibition, members of Public Movement enacted ceremonies, short speeches, rituals, and processions in the galleries, and other spaces in the museum that are usually closed to the public, as a means to critically examine the history and complex relationship between the state and its cultural institutions.
Dana also discusses Emergency Routine (2019), a public exercise that was held in front of The Parliament House in Stockholm. Participants were invited to experience and practice choreographies of care and compassion, while immersed in scenarios of danger and evacuation, facilitated by members of Public Movement. This project emerged from research about historical event that took place in 1961, where the residents of Stockholm evacuated their homes as part of a government-issued emergency preparation drill in response to cold war threats. Reflecting on the site-specific and experiential projects by Public Movement, Dana sheds light on the ways that art can be used to create new political realities, social bonds, and other kinds of civic engagement.
Artis has had the pleasure of supporting important presentations by Public Movement in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Melbourne, Australia, Reading, United Kingdom, and Aarhus, Denmark, among others. In addition to the video profile, we recommend this interview with Dana Yahalomi, conducted by Artis in 2020, where Dana discusses the changing uses of public space in response to the pandemic.
In the Studio with Public Movement is part of a series of artist video profiles featuring artists based in Israel, who are recipients of the Artis Grant for Exceptional Work in Uncertain Times. The video was created by Artis, edited and directed by Ian Sternthal, and produced by Sternthal Books. All rights reserved by Artis, 2022.
