Playground Theatre

Invitation, Playground Theatre (linkerarm, rechteroor), Sara Pessoa solo exhibition, 

Galerie de Zwarte Panter, Antwerp, 2007 

(“Playground theatre” is a partial quote from essay about Sara Pessoa’s work 'Scheme planning & enactment left until after-the-fact alongside pre-event advance erasure saved-up for later on'

 http://nonopessoa.com/texts.html) 

Introduction, ‘Playground Theatre (linkerarm, rechteroor)’, Sara Pessoa solo exhibition, Galerie de Zwarte Panter, Antwerp, 2007.

Text, ‘Scheme planning and enactment left until after-the-fact alongside pre-event advance erasure saved-up until later on’,
http://nonopessoa.com/ 
artist’s website, Nono Pessoa, Antwerp, 2007

Scheme planning and enactment left until after-the-fact alongside pre-event advance erasure saved-up for later on

Many long slow waits (subject to delays, postponement and cancellation) for rare swift brief suddenness (availability permitting) occur, from even before 1st ever false-start begun, then beyond last finalisation stage has since ended –and throughout every incidental process, experience, action and movement over duration somewhere in between.

Incomplete, yet recognisable fragments appear and vanish, shrunken and bulging, in inconclusively ongoing states of loss and sinking, emergence and recovery, dematerialization and haunting. Drastic falling apart and collapse mainly due to not much more than very little indeed. Growth back up again and rebuilding-programme commences.

Traces and remains, entered, kept on and staying behind attract additional input; former presences and activity confirmed, which return or get replaced sometime; some, still the same and unchanged, while the rest end up becoming completely different.

Playground theatre allows self scripted and directed entertainments, sport, games and puzzles to be staged.

Dry, fading, dull, stale and tired desert (inducing dehydration and burning far off) and adjoining used-up industrial-wasteland meet, chemically overreact and volcanically erupt. Deep empty crater floods; soon, well fills, rising high; swallowed, drowning, sunken. Clear and fresh ditches and puddles spraying fountain jets send down waterfall cascades.

Nearby, marshes and farmland contract open grave and mineshaft epidemic. Molehill iceberg burial-mounds arise. Marvels and wonders, despite being born already crumbling and rusty, but waterproofed, non-absorbent and insoluble enough that they reject liquids altogether. Skulls, bones and skeletons build their nest amongst firewood haystacks; dust, ashes and debris grow wild; pot-pourri crops are harvested; product matures, attaining wholesale standard quality.

Often, such neighbouring realms overlap; around surrounding edges, cross-threaded and misregistering mortis-joints and multi-stitches link them up; places serve as carpet underneath and drapery above the next one along; sometimes, vice clamps and bolt rivets hold everything together and in position. Whenever cracks appear, parts went missing, patches wore away and nothing was put in is where features belonging to either terrain show through outer surfaces.

Agreed borders boast aquarium-tank aviary-cages; conservatories, crammed almost solid with floral rainforests, which squirm and writhe; exotic birds, tropical fish, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, pondlife and other creatures explore trees and rock-pool coral-reefs; crystal and lapidary chandelier jewellery-display constellation circuits glow, shine, sparkle and flash, bright and sombre. Illumination these lanterns provide mostly generated by actual contents and occupants, not any external energy or light-sources –themselves highly dependent on this power-supply.

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