In her works, Teja Reba deals with the relationships between physical, emotional and political acts that walk the line between aesthetics and ideology, between references (repetition) and possibilities of the new (difference), between the sublime and the abject, between gender and sexuality, between everyday life and art, between courage and vulnerability.
Performance, Talk
In Made With Love, Reba examines the social and private roles of a woman as an artist, a mother, a partner, a precarious worker. Faced with the economic reality, giving birth and the creation of a new life as a cosmic experience is degraded into unrecognised and self-evident carework that, other than emotional, has no proper social status. The artist juxtaposes the ideology of motherhood as well as woman's happiness and fulfilment with the feeling of uneasiness. The idyllic picture of family cosiness (where the traditional roles are already dissolving) is troubled by anxiety, uncertainty, effort, necessity. On the other hand, the family, with its social role of disciplining also turns out to be the place of the unseizable, the ludist, the chaotic – i.e. a place of creation. For this reason, this well-structured performance transitions into performative vagueness and affective impetuosity.
The life of a family and a mother is problematised mainly from the standpoint of the contemporary precarious working conditions of artistic activity, which erase the difference between work (social) and private life – their equalisation is no longer a matter of political declarativity but a necessity. Production occupies the entire field of life, and in precarious working conditions, production and reproduction get mixed. If the family sphere is included in work, can its products therefore be socially and economically valued? How much is a child worth? What is the economic value of giving birth? And what is the economic value generated by an artwork?
Performance, Talk
In Made With Love, Reba examines the social and private roles of a woman as an artist, a mother, a partner, a precarious worker. Faced with the economic reality, giving birth and the creation of a new life as a cosmic experience is degraded into unrecognised and self-evident carework that, other than emotional, has no proper social status. The artist juxtaposes the ideology of motherhood as well as woman's happiness and fulfilment with the feeling of uneasiness. The idyllic picture of family cosiness (where the traditional roles are already dissolving) is troubled by anxiety, uncertainty, effort, necessity. On the other hand, the family, with its social role of disciplining also turns out to be the place of the unseizable, the ludist, the chaotic – i.e. a place of creation. For this reason, this well-structured performance transitions into performative vagueness and affective impetuosity.
The life of a family and a mother is problematised mainly from the standpoint of the contemporary precarious working conditions of artistic activity, which erase the difference between work (social) and private life – their equalisation is no longer a matter of political declarativity but a necessity. Production occupies the entire field of life, and in precarious working conditions, production and reproduction get mixed. If the family sphere is included in work, can its products therefore be socially and economically valued? How much is a child worth? What is the economic value of giving birth? And what is the economic value generated by an artwork?
Credits
Performers Teja Reba, Loup Abramovici, Ava Nuria Abramovici, Bela Su Abramovici, Eduardo Raon
Author, choreographer Teja Reba
Dramaturge Suzana Koncut
Sound design, original music Eduardo Raon
Visuals and lighting design Meta Grgurevič and Jaša
Lighting design and technical supervision Igor Remeta
Photographer Nada Žgank
Production manager, executive producer Tina Dobnik
Produced by maska
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and Ljubljana Municipality
For more information see info@maska.si
Performers Teja Reba, Loup Abramovici, Ava Nuria Abramovici, Bela Su Abramovici, Eduardo Raon
Author, choreographer Teja Reba
Dramaturge Suzana Koncut
Sound design, original music Eduardo Raon
Visuals and lighting design Meta Grgurevič and Jaša
Lighting design and technical supervision Igor Remeta
Photographer Nada Žgank
Production manager, executive producer Tina Dobnik
Produced by maska
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and Ljubljana Municipality
For more information see info@maska.si
Press:
"Teja Reba […] highlights the female social roles – woman as mother, daughter and artist trying to balance her creative impulse, precarious pay and family life." Mojca Kumerdej, Delo, 1/29/2015
"Altogether, the work Made With Love shouldered a huge artistic and political responsibility. It initiated the debate that – whether we want it to or not – always bears intense political and emotional expectations." Ana Schnabl, Dnevnik, 1/16/2015
