What’s your stance [in the world]? In relation to current problems and issues? Toil: taking a stance. Our world is full of stances (actions, manifestos, signatures, etc.) and that is why it is so toilsome. The greatest difficulty is knowing how to move, to change place.

Labo, a Latin verb that means to vacillate, doubt, stumble and which is also the root of the concept of “work” is strictly related to physical and mental toil. It has become, by analogy and metaphor, the starting point to investigate – through video and performance – the ungraspable intensity of toil by concentrating on the relation between body and space, individuals and context, sensorial confusion and significant stances, right to rest and infinite “depletion.”

Artists Dehors/Audela, the duo formed by Elisa Turco Liveri (performer, choreographer) and Salvatore Insana (video-maker, photographer, director), selected symptomatic elements of toil: repetition, tension, fall. Starting from these psycho-physical states. They created a series of “paintings” that balance between movement and rest, between sudden shocks and blocked actions, submitting students from the Liceo scientifico Primo Levi in Rome to a creative process based on heterogenous stimuli (visual arts, performances, observation of daily activities) and LABO compositional milestones. Together, they analysed the linguistic elements underlying the work and various shifts in points of view – sensorial (re)discovery, ethics and aesthetics – in their lives and those of others.

“Labo_Fatica della posizione” will be exhibited at Maxxi during the Media Art Festival 2018 (May 17-19).