2023 CNSMD Lyon FR
collaboration w pianist Imogen Edwards
live performance
The sixth in his ‘Ten Characters’ series, Kabakov’s album represents a dreamy embodiment of artistic escapism & the hidden power it supplied those living under the Soviet regime. In this particular story, Kabakov's characters find themselves magically freed from the constraints of gravity, floating out of their houses & up into the clouds. Some even manage to escape to skies further afield by clinging onto the wings of passing airplanes. One character, however, remains gravitationally stuck & can only wave at those flying by. As his friends dissolve into the atmosphere, so Kabakov’s canvas progressively succumbs to a final blank page that silences both the image & the dream encoded within.
In performance, Imogen & I worked together as a mutually reliant ensemble, each dependent on the other to co-ordinate entries & variations of material.
"Always, for as long as I can remember and even when I don’t remember... there has been a desire to run, to get away from that place where you are now; to run without looking back, so as never to return; to run so far away that they can’t bring you back from there; to run so fast that you can’t be caught; to run so suddenly and unexpectedly that no one could anticipate it and interfere; to jump out at the most unexpected moment when no one is expecting it; to jump through the window which is always closed, through the door which is most likely locked…" Ilya Kabakov
[piano, notation, fixed media]
photos: @_ewen__