No Matter,  Feb. – June, 2013 / Mandel Center, Jaffa, Israel

       Produced by Itzik Julie

      No Matter #2,  July 2014 / Festival of Ephemeral Art in Sokolovsko, Poland

      No Matter #3,  September 2014 / Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland

Adina considers the first No Matter a work in which she had succeeded, to a greater extent, to make   “active viewers” of her audience – meaning: Her audience were made conscious of their own presence in the performance experience and therefore took a more active part, rather than the usual passive, during the performance; The audience were made to understand that  the performance experience is what they had viewed, as individuals, and is how they had chosen to react, as private entities, rather than what the artist had done.

All three performances, No Matter, No Matter #2 and No Matter #3, were performance pieces that manifested their audience as protagonists; The audience as individuals, in these performances, were made to recall the memories of the performance experience through their own private prism and to understood that the performances they had been part of had no collective point of view but only a private and biased point of view.

The site of No Matter #2 was a rather high and steep hill thick with vegetation, bushes, shrubs, flowers, and tall trees. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the audience was guided to the designated path at the foot of the hill where Adina had scattered, before hand, black and white photographs of mothers and their children.

When the audience had arrived, on the path,  Adina had already climbed  the hill. The viewer could only detected her if one had sets his/her eyes and mind in searching for her. At moments she could be deciphered in and amongst the shrubs by usually as a red mark in the bushes or in  her fleeting movement.

She viewed her audience more clearly than they did her and was aware of their point of view hindered by the distance, her constant change of positions and movement in relocating herself but then she was also addressing her audience  in small gestures that were not an enacting but a genuine expression of gratitude and empathy towards them. Her moving and changes of situating herself, in the various locations, was her incentive of creating visions which she had hoped could become apparent by way of  of her  integrity and empathy transmitted to them.

Adina had instructed herself to be on the hill with the intention of making the viewers notice her but only to the extent that was necessary, for them, to realize that she was present there. She wanted the viewers to  notice her only to the extent that was necessary for them to sense that she was communicating to them. Like a brush stroke, minimal, on a canvas. She desired to  manifested her presence with maximum expression and minimal visibility.

The performance lasted  for 2 hours. It had actually begun raining very hard after nearly an hour and a half but most of the audience remained looking up into the hill and attentive until Adina felt that it was time.

Note:

*The photographs, from anonymous family albums, of Women and their children, were   Adina’s reminder of one’s inevitable “innate” sentiments which this performance, as wel, makes a reference to.

*Following the performance people had said that they that they felt drawn to stay, despite the pouring rain, since they sensed that  Adina was communicating to them, personally, though she was barely or not at all visible.

No Matter #3 took place in a large empty gallery space in which we shared the same space and time,  as in first “No Matter”. My audience had been a physical, plastic, visual component of the work I created; The audience affected my decision making as do the partners in a Jazz session.

The opening requisite, the situation from which No Matter #3 had evolved was the standing audience, very crowded, gathered in an empty spacious room and one synthetic winter blanket, with a design of big colorful flower (commonly identified with the 3^rd world industry)which was present, in the space, as audience entered.

With a familiarity with the physical space, and a sensibility towards the the waiting audience, Adina maneuvered the crowd instrumentally and  delicately that they had become engaged in the unprecedented emerging situations that had never remained but changed, in constant repositioning of groups, like a kaleidoscope of individuals within the space.

She attempted to be personal and precise in relating to the physical space as an instrument of expression and the audience also as persons who will share with her  the sense of irony, of the ridiculous and, at some instances, of the profound.

Her voice  was  expressively attuned to introducing variations to what she felt suited the situations;  It was   projected at differing levels or hight, into an empty area, towards or away from the area occupied by persons, near or very near to individuals. The  voice, produced physically from the performers` body  was a partner to the textual in this performance.

The blanket, with the soft homey and pastoral texture added a dimension to Adina’s social tactics: The space had changed also by the laying this blanket down at different intervals and locations. Some examples –  Spreading the blanket in  the crowd, between persons, as to make a division into sections; Placing the blanket away from the group to make distance apparent.

Note:

*The fact that this was in honor of my friend Warpechowski was a very important fact in deciding the nature of the performance in Zacheta National Gallery.

*The performance was so well attended that the space was too scant to maneuver and to make visible the situations.  Still, Adina was pleased to hear that persons had been moved not only physically.