HARABEL Contemporary opened the exhibition “SUSPENDED MOVEMENT” by the Two Gullivers (Flutura Preka & Besnik Haxhillari), at Harabel Exhibition Space.

This event was organized within Manifesta 14 Prishtina and came as a result of a two month long workshop with the students, called “Performography: Summer School of Performance”.  This Project is co-founded by the European Union.

The participation of the Two Gullivers to this program is co-founded by the Council of Arts and Letters Quebec and the University Trois-Rivieres Quebec.

The word performography is directly related to performance and its definition. When we say performance, our mind perceives an action, motion, or a movement in a certain moment and space. Without contradicting these characteristics, the exhibition will point out another aspect of this temporary art, which is that of a continuity that ensures the longevity of the performance. In addition to the camera, artists have explored capturing performative actions through the act of drawing and the act of painting. The many traces around a performative work turn into a painting where the action constitutes the subject of the work, while bringing an aesthetic that belongs somehow only to the performance. The “realization” of the painting is justified by the creation of the performative work at different times, meaning that the performance belongs to the past and the painting of its subject with details comes later. Without a performative act that has been carried out before, we cannot have a picture. Throughout this process, artists have been able to create their paintings like Monet from his magical garden in Giverny (France). As in the case of Monet who before painting created a garden, in the same way their performance archive is nothing but this garden that inspires them every day.

After a long research the Two Gullivers have come up with a new term, which is Performography. Performography is the graphic trace of performance and is as much about its creation as it is about its exploration and exposure. This neologism suggested by these two artists refers to performance and is used to describe the art of composing artistic performances. This term results from a long experience of the conception and realization of performative works, from which we can count several traces such as: drawings, photos, videos, recordings and objects designed and produced for the works. By giving a specific name to these traces of the process and to the archive of the creation of the performance, the aim of the artists is to draw attention once again to the importance of the methods used: the image of the performance as a means for its archiving.