Scene Shifters (performance)

Scene Shifters, a video and performance by artist Saskia Janssen for Festival aan de Werf, Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS

Scene Shifters, a video and performance by artist Saskia Janssen for Festival aan de Werf, Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS

Scene Shifters, performance, Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, 2001

+ video 19 min.

Performance for Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, 2001  Shot on location at the Van Asch van Wijckskade 20, Utrecht,14/5/2001 “Scene Shifters” is the visual record of a gathering of 10 people (‘walk-ons’) who have never met and are directed into unfamiliar physical positions in an unfamiliar space. The walk-ons are placed on a revolving floor, in a concious reference to the floor show in which  people are literally put on display as if they were in a shop window. On the one hand, their endless revolutions in space may be read as a simple metaphor for contemporary displacement: (the endless cycle of movements that immigrants etc. are having to go through today.) On the other, it could also be considered as a formal study for photographic composition: a continuously changing group portrait in which a series of hundreds of photographs records the ever-shifting relationships between the performers.
Camera : George Korsmit Walk-ons : Gigi Blay, Stephanie Fernandez, Fatma Gen, Iza Korsmit, Lola van Linge, Henny Overbeek, Daphne Postma, Wieke Stravers, Ran van der Wal, Tijn Valentijn.

Scene Shifters, a video and performance by artist Saskia Janssen for Festival aan de Werf, courtesy Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS

Scene Shifters, a video and performance by artist Saskia Janssen for Festival aan de Werf, Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS

Scene Shifters, a video and performance by artist Saskia Janssen for Festival aan de Werf, Courtesy Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS