THINKING-IN-ASSEMBLY / A DEATH MOTHER INSTITUTION – Snejanka Mihaylova

The Institution of Performance started in June and can only end with a promise of continuous practice — Rehearsal for an Institution of Performance — during the month of October, every Thursday and Saturday, at 7pm. Alternative structures beyond the logic of competition and market feel even more urgent.
The whole world is so tired.

After over five months of workshops and researches, all summoning a sort of a possibility of rest (within the practice), a reconfiguration of voice, language and thought as ‘touch’, as affecting the somatic and that can bring relief from many social and internal conditionings, ultimately political acts of disobedience and of exercising hope, the last month of the Institution hosts the performances that appeared out of the artistic residencies at Theatres plus invited artists adding new layers of articulation and encounter.

Sometimes rest comes from pause or slowing down; other times, from tuning in to choirs and movements around us.

On October 16th, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜𝚊𝚕 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚗 𝙸𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝙿𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 has the privilege to host: ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ-ɪɴ-ᴀꜱꜱᴇᴍʙʟʏ / ᴀ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ɪɴꜱᴛɪᴛᴜᴛɪᴏɴ, conceived and led by artist and writer 𝗦𝗻𝗲𝗷𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗮 𝗠𝗶𝗵𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗮 (BG/NL).
𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐞/𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐁𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭, 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝟕𝐏𝐌.

‘Through listening and acoustics, this session explores forms of institutional absence within narcissistic regimes of institutional self-reference—where creative work is often undermined in favor of survival mechanisms that ensure institutional longevity.
The idea of 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 in performance is central here. Against the highly individualistic narratives of authorship in visual art, performance generates complex relationalities, both in how it is created and how it is experienced. In this sense, the performative becomes a site for redefining the terms of life itself, in its capacity for renewal.

This vital and political energy is precisely the material from which institutions draw their survival, yet which they cannot themselves generate except by positioning as a secondary support structure. ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ-ɪɴ-ᴀꜱꜱᴇᴍʙʟʏ / ᴀ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ɪɴꜱᴛɪᴛᴜᴛɪᴏɴ invites participants to explore how different forms of solidarity can recreate support based on mutual recognition, outside representational frames, and by looking from the future toward our present conditions.

𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵:

ᴛʜɪɴᴋɪɴɢ-ɪɴ-ᴀꜱꜱᴇᴍʙʟʏ / ᴀ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ɪɴꜱᴛɪᴛᴜᴛɪᴏɴ is a semi-formal situation where participants are invited into a process of listening rather than reflecting, where thinking unfolds through breath, voice, and the somatic experience of being a body among other bodies—a plurality resonating in the formation of thought. You are invited not to think out loud, but to listen to the process through which thought takes shape. Together, we co-create a meaningful relational field through presence, resonance, and shared attention.’ (S.M.)

𝗦𝗻𝗲𝗷𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗮 𝗠𝗶𝗵𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗮 is an artist and writer whose work moves between performance, philosophy, and listening practices. Her projects often explore the performative as a space of relational thinking and spirituality, where presence and voice become sites of renewal and collective imagination. Her publications include 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 (Critique and Humanism, 2011), 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 (The Last Books, 2012), and 𝘈𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘛𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 (If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution, 2016). She is the co-founder of the imprint The Last Books, together with Philip Baber.

More about the program:

The Institution of Performance interrogates the lack of such a dedicated institution, it permeates ‘real’ institutions that allow it and advocates for performance as also a way to think and act in reality—deconditioning our limitations, searching for a way to be together as porous temporary communality, outside consensus, moved by inner drives and sometimes common tides, not needing outside labels as collective or group.

The Institution of Performance is a background gesture that turns all participants into protagonists. And last but not least, it is a daily exercise of hope. The Institution acts and rests on its four parameters/acts of disobedience: Love, Landscape, Rest, and the Choir.
It secretly hints to anatomical theatre as a zero point of performativity: the architectural figuration of the perceptive and receptive apparatus, a place of worship for the religion of attention, where the human acknowledges the possibility to take part in their own articulation through dual movement – to and fro — by means of experience and by reflection/vision alike.

Graphics: Viktoria Staykova, Sebastian Danciu

The Institution of Performance is a program curated by artist Adriana Gheorghe, co-produced by Theatres and PETEC, and co-financed by AFCN.
The project does not necessarily represent the official position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the project’s content or any use to which the project outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.