Objectify, 2018, performance, 100 minutes, ISOamsterdam, Amsterdam, performers: Romy Yedidia, Marie Ilse Bourlanges, photos: Jessie Yingying Gong
objectify
The interactive performance Objectify was developed as an artist’s response and protest regarding control and objectification of female presence within the public spheres. The performance acts as an endurance experience, where artist is set statically in space naked, with her arms stretched upwards, while another is casting several of her body parts in plaster. While the artist’s body is being objectified in plaster by the others, she is continuously experiencing discomfort from body endurance, self-inflicted expectations, being exposed and vulnerable in the eyes of the public.
The repetitive actions of casting the artist's body parts are finalised when she loses complete sense of her body, orientation and responsiveness to the environment around her, being completely stripped from any further wish or possibility to sovereignly act. The exhaustion from external influences and constant weight and pressure caused by the material, takes a toll on the mind and body. The performance ends with the artist’s body parts exhibited as plaster objects, remaining as traces of the live act. Objectify is a performance that deals directly with rites of passage states of individuals and their constant combat against control, correction, institutionalisation and surveillance of the intimate and the body itself.