A Friendship Laboratory on Challenge and Transformation

2019 Performance
Close view of a translucent sheet or window surface covered with large handwritten lines in red and dark lettering. Fragments of the writing remain visible through reflections and shadow, including phrases about the body and giving a shoulder to each other.
Wide view of a worn industrial interior with rough pale walls, a concrete floor and daylight entering from high windows. Two performers sit close together on the floor near the back wall, their bodies leaning inward beside red fabric and other materials. A block of handwritten red text covers the wall above them, while a cylindrical object lies in the foreground.
Close overhead view of a large irregular stone resting on a rough concrete floor and tightly bound with red linen rope. Several lengths of rope cross around the stone in different directions and trail outward across the ground.
Long view into a worn industrial interior with rough pale walls, exposed columns, a concrete floor and daylight entering through high windows. A large stone lies in the foreground, while farther back a red-linen-rope-bound stone hangs suspended from above in front of a dark doorway.
Wide view across a worn industrial room with rough pale walls, exposed dark columns and daylight entering through tall windows. Long strips of pale plastic tape stretch horizontally and diagonally across the space at different heights, crossing between the architecture and a standing performer near the far wall. Red and dark materials lie on the floor beneath the web of tape.
View across a worn industrial interior through broad strips of pale plastic tape stretched diagonally and horizontally between dark columns. A performer sits upright on a low ledge against the rough wall, hands resting near their lap and gaze directed across the room. Sunlight falls across the wall and floor behind the intersecting tape.
View through a doorway into the worn interior. A performer stands beside a dark column, one arm extended forward at chest height while the other remains closer to the body. Their gaze is directed toward the extended hand; rough walls, a high window and deep shadow frame the figure.
Two performers sit closely together on a narrow ledge against a rough pale wall. One sits slightly behind and leans toward the other, with an arm reaching around or toward their upper body; the performer in front looks downward toward their hands. A large red fabric hangs on the wall behind them, and strong window light casts a rectangular grid of shadows across the wall.
Vertical view through a dark doorway into the industrial interior. A performer stands near a column at the right edge, partly turned toward a cluster of pale and dark materials on the floor. Light from the adjacent space catches the rough walls, doorway and scattered objects while much of the foreground remains in shadow.
A performer in a red top lies low on the concrete floor with their head and upper body close to a large irregular stone bound with red linen rope. Their arms reach around the stone and loose coils of the same red rope spread across the floor beside them. Sunlight enters the worn industrial space from behind.
Photography: 1 - Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, 2 - Vala T. Foltyn, 3-4 - Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, 5-9 - Jakob Tekiela, 10 - Amalia Kasakove

A Friendship Laboratory on Challenge and Transformation is a 30-hour research project based on exploring the possibilities of friendship for sharing collective paths to break boundaries and become freer. What happens if we do not force but push each other to pass through inner enemies while holding each other's hands? Could this create a collective space and time to heal the self with the presence of the other? Could friendship be transformative through connecting ourselves with each other? How do we discover and recover intimacy in a friendship laboratory?

A Friendship Laboratory on Challenge and Transformation is a long-durational performance project stemming from the artist's personal story. Over a journey of around 10 years, Ari and Leman made an effort to create non-hegemonic and non-normative spaces and relations in everything they were involved in. When IPAF invited Leman, following their residency at IPAF's Warehouse9 the previous year, they were working on a new text about friendship. This inspired the idea of taking their bond into a laboratory based on their connection.

A Friendship Laboratory on Challenge and Transformation researches the transformative and healing effects of intimacy and connection. The performance is inspired by a curiosity about taking friendship out of its habitat and examining the friends within an experimental environment. It works on two layers: while the artists put their inner selves under the scope and wander into their emotional depths, they simultaneously invite the audience to observe their connection, their ways of being, and how they affect each other.

Close view of a window and adjacent rough wall covered with large handwritten red and dark text. Daylight and reflections pass through the panes, partially obscuring the writing; fragments of sentences remain visible across both the glass and wall surfaces.
Photography: Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu
Presentations
International Performance Art Festival, curated by Emma Møller and Jørgen Callesen, Warehouse9, Copenhagen, DK, 2019
Credits
A Friendship Laboratory on Challenge and Transformation, by Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu and Ari P. Büyüktaş, performance, 3 days, 10 hours per day, 2019
Supported by Warehouse9 International Performance Art Festival
Acknowledgements: Amalia Kasakove
Performance Friendship / Kinship / Bonds Intimacy Collaboration Long-durational Site-specific Rock / Stone Rope / String
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