The Absence of Miracles Exhausts Us

The Slovak exhibition The Absence of Miracles Exhausts Us balances on the edge of installation and performance and is inspired by the Bátovce-based Pôtoň Theatre’s project Miracles (2017). It has allowed a unique interconnection of four ensembles (Pôtoň Theatre, Debris Company, the Honey and Dust group and Sláva Daubnerová) and allowed for their joint performance at night in the countryside near a Central Slovakian village, drawing on the tradition of intense conceptual action art of the 1960s. The essence of this tradition was an attempt to delineate what personal freedom stood for in society, history, urban space, open country.

A journey through the country at night that makes visions, dreams, unknown emotions and thoughts possible when the boundaries between reality and fantasy disappear for a while. The exhibition hall offers a moment of peace, meditation and silence – it is important to open ourselves to the unexpected – to coincidences, meetings, dialogue, collisions.

The basic exhibition motif is a tent and its associations – from provisional human dwellings used by nomads, the homeless, immigrants, all the way to leisure activities. The tent is also a manifestation of disagreement, annexations of a public space for individual protest and resistance.

Uninteresting scream – Honey and Dust
Free art association of authors, artists and performers in visual art, theatre and music who created joint works that balance on the edge of performance, theatre production, concert and installation. Their work has been presented in theatres, galleries and concert stages.

Untitled – Sláva Daubnerová
Sláva Daubnerová’s project Untitled, based on the work of American photographer Francesca Woodman won the 2013 DOSKY award for Best Performance of the Season and she was nominated in the Best Actress and Best Direction of the Season categories. It toured abroad extensively.

WOW – Debris Company Bratislava
A visually strong production using the essence of the creation of life and its regularities. Two characters – a man and a woman – embody the two poles of one world, where the rules applied are made and adjusted by the people themselves.

Country/Region Slovakia

Presenting Organization Theatre Institute Bratislava, Ministry of Culture of Slovak Republic

Curator Rastislav Ballek

Curatorial Team Juraj Poliak, Jozef Vlk, Jozef Ciller, Viera Burešová, Peter Chaban

Artists Juraj Poliak; Milo Fabian: video documentary „Miracles 2017/2019“