In this video, self-help strategies, good advice, and genuine tenderness attempt to stir a revolution in the heart of a middle-class freelance worker. Tragedy and farce intertwine as the point in history is unclear and the workload overwhelming. The text of the piece includes excerpts from How to Be Perfect By Ron Padgett, Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up by Kaitlyn Boulding and Oh Soul by Rumi.
2018, Video, 5’10”, excerpt
Presented at Ecology of Attention 1# FOMO and Ecology of Attention #2: Ignition Cycle
Ania Nowak’s expanded choreographic practice approaches vulnerability and desire as ways towards reimagining what bodies and language can do. She develops formats such as live and video performance, performative exhibition and text. Nowak’s overall inquiry is into the political dimension of body material and its immaterial aspects -affects, feelings and intuition- to think of new, embodied practices of care and companionship. She is especially interested in the latter when taking into account the unstable, transnational character of our lives and work in the Western world today; experiences of sexuality, sickness and grief, as well as, ethics of pleasure in times of climate and political urgency. Nowak’s works have been presented at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Sophiensaele and Berlinische Galerie in Berlin; Nowy Teatr, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw; Art Stations Foundation Poznań, BWA Wrocław, CAC Vilnius, Institut Kunst Basel, ICK Amsterdam and M HKA Antwerp a.o. In 2021 she is Artist-in-Residence at Ankara Queer Art in Turkey and Q21 MuseumsQuartier in Vienna. Nowak lives and works in Berlin.