Plastic Art Performance collective
Romania, Spain, United States/Netherlands
https://spacefornature.org/artworks/after-demeter-in-the-name-of-the-river/
When a river dries out, an entire universe comes to an end.
The ecosystem’s intricate connections are disrupted and slowly dismantle once the primal element of life is gone.
When Demeter finds out about Persephone, her daughter’s abduction by Hades, she rages and mourns endlessly. To punish gods and to grief, she decides to leave her duties as the goddess of harvest and fertility, with devastating consequences. The earth begins to dry up, harvests fail, plants lose their fruitfulness, animals die for lack of food. As a result, the lands and people suffer from drought and famine.
What are a river’s last words?
What comes after the drought?
“After Demeter” follows a symbolic mourning journey of a dried out river and the world lost with it.
It is both a geographical and a temporal search:
First – an exploration of an empty riverbed, working with the absence of water.
Second, an inquiry of what comes next in the timeline of our current climate crisis.
Concept proposed by: Plastic Art Performance collective
Performed & created by: Alina Tofan; Lucía Callén;Teresa Martí and Porter Ellerman (music performance); Georgiana Vlahbei (scenography)
