Individual Project

Eleni Kamma presents the installation ‘Casting Call: How does a European politician save a refugee from drowning?’ in the ACPA Exhibition Space in Leiden.

‘Casting Call’ (2016-ongoing) is a series of related attempts, events, and manifestations. It playfully explores conditions for politics being possible in the public space today, through collaborative developments in an artistic, performative framework. Kamma calls this process a parrhesiastic theater parade. The parade develops halfway between a cultural allegory of contemporary Europe and an invocation of a community of old parrhesiastic laughers. It is an invented genre of theatricality whereby events, actions, performances are staged by twenty-five distinct characters-types, such as The Fool, The Animal, The Drunk, The Angry, The Collector of Proverbs etc. These characters-types test the possibility of courageously voicing their opinions through scenes of excess and laughter. In doing so, they use commissioned texts and sketches on community-related concepts that create disagreement: Democracy, Prosperity, Solidarity, Europe, Languages, Migration, Pluralism. Kamma borrowed these from BELvue Museum, which uses them to reflect on Belgium and Belgian society.

In ‘Casting Call: How does a European politician save a refugee from drowning?’ the exhibits are considered both as hosts, inviting the visitor to experience them, and as testifiers, providing evidence to how the circulation processes in Kamma’s practice materialize.