The Story of Leaving is a story of a tomato, from the hydroponic bag to the table, with some complications on the way.
A t… t… t….on the table. Whole t…., peeled t…, diced t…, chopped t…, ketchup… The story is told “by” tomatoes. The Story of Leaving is trying to make sense of mass vegetable production in Southern Europe it’s systemic relationship with workers from Central/Northern Europe and Northern Africa and the viewer. Performance unfolds through three interrelated portraits of production, collectivities at work and three ways of organizing a resistance: The “sea of plastic” – the green house in Nijar, Almeria, nearby production of film “Exodus”; then finally the performance itself. First one produces food in form of legalized slavery, second one produces the popular entertainment about the freedom fight, the third produces a live event about complexity of art production and consumption, trying to make sense of the above asking the question: How can “we” recognize the state of emergency in a parallel state of now and not now, here, and not here, surviving and considering a change? And what is that “we”?
In the first scene the huge, formless, plastic object is slowly filling in the big part of the space. It grows in intervals of inflation and deflation – breathing and filling the room. (Size: about 5×3 m in full inflation)
Second scene, the storytelling, take place on the long table. Performer, dressed like a comic book tomato character tells the story while animating objects into a mini scenes with tomatoes, mini furniture, miniatures of settings from “Exodus” by Ridley Scott on the table and projection of a film of greenhouses projected into inflating and deflating object. On the side, the smoke machine dressed into a paper object – kind of a parody of smoke machine and “burning” formless pile is leaking the small amounts of smoke from time to time.
Third and last scene evolves gradually from the story into a discussion and “and organizational meeting” of collective act of leaving from the place of performance.
The work draws three portraits of collectivity at work. Those images grow out of a collection of stories of inadequacy, unease, and hypocrisy in labor structure.
How can “we” recognize the state of emergency in a parallel state of now and not now, here, and not here, surviving and considering a change? Is it a time to act already? And what is the process of forming an action as many? And who are these ‘we’? It is a remonstrative question – says Donna Haraway. These “us” as we know it, is long gone… “We” are too much already and not yet… “we” will exercise leaving… entering and leaving.
Story told by Karolina Kucia is happening simultaneously in three places of production:
1. The green house in Nijar, the one of the green houses in Almeria, which produces about 30% of vegetables consumed in Europe. So called Almerian Miracle was after 70’s an economic model for growing greens all over the world. The location of production is crucial, it must balance the right amount of sun, wind, and cheap labor. The story follows the workers forming a union,
2. The film production in Tabernas, where the workers organize through faking an illness (absenteist sabotage) and
3. The performance “The Story of Leaving “itself, where “workers” organize into… an exercise/discussion on a flight from the form of the immediate situation, an try on unexpected exit or “engaged withdrawal.”
The aesthetics of a story strikes at times as odd: serious but silly, precise but slipping, featuring intentional failures, casualness, and directness, gloomy but humorous.
It is a story of a t…, t… on the table. Whole t…., peeled t…, diced t…, chopped t…, ketchup, Bolognese sauce etc.
It is a story of leaving, from the place of production, and place next to it, and the place next to it… and finally from the place of production of the stories of leaving … It is a story of leaving together… “And what is that together? Seems impossible…”
Taking part are:
Music by Zosia Holubowska – Mala Herba
Objects:
– Inflatable Object – by Karolina Kucia, blown by the blower from Merja Puustinen and Andy Best.
– Smoking Object – Karolina Kucia and Zosia Hołubowska;
– tomatoes from S – market + eyes from Sinneli;
– costume of big tomato by Karolina
– Reproductions of the film set “Exodus – Gods and Kings” by Ridley Scott, rotting currently in Sierra Alhamilla
Moving Image: The Greenhouse – video by Tero Nauha, edition: Karolina Kucia, projection by mini-projector.
Text by Karolina Kucia with contributions by Airi Triisberg, Spitou Mendy – spokesman for SOC-SAT Almeria, Keller Easterling’s book “Enduring Innocence”, Paolo Virno’s various writings on exodus, An Paenhuysen talk in Goethe Institut, Helsinki and then also: Age & Scarpelli / Luciano Vincenzoni / Sergio Leone (script for “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”) and either Adam Cooper or Bill Collage or Jeffrey Caine or Steven Zaillan (script for “Exodus, Gods and Kings”).
