Performance Workshop and Presentation with Artist in Residence Natasha Jozi

Come to MAWA for an exciting, free opportunity: an exploration of performance art with visiting artist Natasha Jozi from Lahore, Pakistan.

This workshop will take a collective and collaborative approach in which participants will approach nature as a spiritual presence, location, medium and participant in performance. Through interactive, meditative and participatory activities, participants will explore the dual relationships between human bodies, and between human bodies and nature. Activities will be based around the sounds of the nature, the feel of the natural materials, the free movement of the body in an open space, etc. The goal is to engage both materially and spiritually with the elements which we are otherwise alienated from, despite their constant presence in our daily life.

Some of the exercises will entail moving, walking and running. Please feel free to adjust or skip any activity, according to your abilities. You are welcome to participate as much or as little as you are able.

This workshop will be followed by a performance in public space on Sunday June 23, time TBA. Documentation will take place in the form of videos and photographs.

While in Winnipeg, Jozi will be exploring the relationship between the human body and nature, characterized by a shifting balance between belonging and alienation. As part of her research, she will conduct performance-based workshops in the city, inviting local communities of students and artists to participate (details TBA). She will then develop and perform public performances and build a body of performative mark-makings, paintings and objects that reflect on the relationship she develops with the city. This project seeks to re-examine our place in a constantly shifting, commodified, urban, increasingly compartmentalized lifestyle. While these aspects of our lives may seem to negate the body’s relationship with nature, they in fact create new ones that we often leave unexplored.