BODYMOBIL

 

2021

 
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she balances on one foot and two hands whilst stretching her
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she stands straight and crosses her arms in front of her fac
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she stands on one leg mimicking a marching pose.
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she balances on one leg whilst bending her other knee back.
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she balances on one leg and one arm, whilst she holds her fo
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she bends over her straight legs, placing one hand on the fl
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she balances on one leg and stretches out the other leg and
Photo from the series "Movement Infrastructures" (2021), depicting artist Paola Cassola using her body to mimic the urban infrastructures’ constraints, in a variety of balancing poses. Here she stands up straight with arms stretched over her head.

Movement Infrastructures (2021)

Photographic prints

 

BODYMOBIL.2021

 

Live performance act
Video (color, sound) 8’53” min.
Department of Reflection, Special commission on roads, City of Miami Beach

 
 
 
 

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

 

In this performance act Cassola uses her body, put it in the middle of the investigation, with sound and uncommissioned car tires and improvised movements. The performance is conceived on a site specific installation stage, created by artist Misael Soto. Live music by the band DONZII (Jenna Balfe, Dennis Fuller, Miles Fortune Hancock, Monroe Getz and Danny Heinze) produces sounds that follow the moves. Some verses written by the artist and inspired by her drive from London to Mongolia are read out loud, live. On the background wall images from the on-the-road experience to Mongolia are projected. On the side of the performance act stage, slightly hidden and at a much smaller scale, a selection of images from the series Movement infrastructures, 2021 (a photographic work that pictures different postures Cassola constructed using her body mimicking the urban infrastructures’ constraints) are projected.

 

Find out more about the project here.

 
 
 
Extracts from the photographic documentative work Beyond Boundaries. To the Land of Gengis Khan (2007) about the artist’s journey to Mongolia, in a vintage Fiat 500 car, in 30 days.
Woman wearing red coat holding large film camera, fields in background, cloudy sky. Part of "Beyond Boundaries. To the Land of Genghis Khan" (2007) by artist Paola Cassola.
Old white Fiat 500 on a road with grass around it. Trip from London, UK to Mongolia, by artist Paola Cassola.
Road sign showing "7T" with a river and grass in the background. Trip from London, UK to Mongolia, by artist Paola Cassola.
Two old white Fiat 500 cars on a trafficked road. Trip from London, UK to Mongolia, by artist Paola Cassola.
Old white Fiat 500 on the back of blue truck, driving down dirt road. Photo taken from inside another car, back mirror visible. Trip from London, UK to Mongolia, by artist Paola Cassola.
Old white Fiat 500 car on back of blue truck with five men pulling it down. Wild landscape, dusk light. Trip from London, UK to Mongolia, by artist Paola Cassola.
Artist Paola Cassola sitting at a table, with plate of food on blue tray in front of her. She looks tired, not eating.
 

“The journey has been a life experience that allowed me to be on the road sleeping, eating and living the everyday in the car and among the local communities and tribes (like the nomads in the Mongolian Yurts). It gave me the opportunity to examine contemporary societies, the impact of infrastructures and architectures in the mundane and daily existence from the West (across Italy, England, Belgium, Germany, Check Republic, Poland), where the urban landscape is that of progress and a Fiat 500 car is a recognized symbol of the Italian Dolce Vita, a vehicle stylish yet humble and a reminiscence of a time, the Sixties, of counterculture and revolution, to the East (across Ukraine, some remote areas of Russia like Siberia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia) where sometimes the infrastructures are misleading or missing, the roads are just marks on the ground and there is no electricity. Here, the Fiat 500 becames as valuable as a few bags of potatoes and groups and individuals seem to have been left behind at the crossroads of integration and exclusion; they use the tools at their disposal to navigate their situation. My research focuses on the sensory aspect of the built environment and its relationship to people and behaviors”.

Paola Cassola, notes, July 2007