Programme produced on the occasion of Playbill Act V: Anna Daučíková & Helena Jiskrová at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam June 9, 2023.

Completely adept at taking on institutions that wield normative forms of power, Anna Daučíková is unashamedly informed by the value of her lived experience, a personal history that takes a guiding role within her practice, particularly the period of time during which she lived under surveillance in the former Soviet Union.

In an early photographic series titled Acadamey of the Arts (1988), Daučíková rightly takes up her position atop a plinth built into the side of the Academy of Arts building in Moscow, a subversive move given that it was a position traditionally reserved for the male greats. Daučíková went on to become a professor herself, and was for a long time one of the few women teaching at the academy in Prague. This biographical trajectory evolved into a series of films titled Portrait of a Woman with Institution, which plot out the relationships of various women to the institutions they inhabited. For Act V, one film from this series was screened, dedicated to Czech architect Helena Jiskrová. Alongside the screening, four pieces of furniture redesigned by Jiskrová from salvaged street materials set the scene for the viewing.

Programme produced on the occasion of Playbill Act IV: Mieko Shiomi at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam March 9, 2023.

Mieko Shiomi is most-known for her substantial contribution to the Fluxus movement, where her investigations into the nature and limits of sound, music and auditory experience began as a student in Tokyo in the late 1950s, during which time she co-founded the seminal postwar Japanese experimental music collective Group Ongaku.

Central to Shiomi’s body of work is the creation of Fluxus editions—printed matter often taking the form of instruction cards and action invitations—and events, for which she gained most recognition in 1960s and 70s after relocating temporarily to New York in 1964 on the invitation of George Maciunas. During this time she began scoring ‘action poems,’ most notably Spatial Poem (1965), whereby she removed musical notation from the score entirely, instead favouring verbal instructions that were to be interpreted by the performer.

Designed by Maud Vervenne.

Edition produced on the occasion of Playbill Act IV: Mieko Shiomi at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam March 9, 2023.

Mieko Shiomi is most-known for her substantial contribution to the Fluxus movement, where her investigations into the nature and limits of sound, music and auditory experience began as a student in Tokyo in the late 1950s, during which time she co-founded the seminal postwar Japanese experimental music collective Group Ongaku.

Central to Shiomi’s body of work is the creation of Fluxus editions—printed matter often taking the form of instruction cards and action invitations—and events, for which she gained most recognition in 1960s and 70s after relocating temporarily to New York in 1964 on the invitation of George Maciunas. During this time she began scoring ‘action poems,’ most notably Spatial Poem (1965), whereby she removed musical notation from the score entirely, instead favouring verbal instructions that were to be interpreted by the performer.

Designed by Maud Vervenne.

Citational Choices takes La Trobe University’s Etta Hirsh Ceramics Collection as its point of departure. The exhibition combines ceramics with archival material, moving image, sculpture and exhibition design. Together, these elements unravel the biographical stories present within the collection itself—those of Etta Hirsh, of a local art scene, of La Trobe Art Institute, and now, in the case of this exhibition, everyone newly involved. Through contemporary works which engage with personal and material archives, the exhibition pays particular attention to the stories – the anecdotal and the informal ones—that don’t often make it onto the record. Artists include Anna Daučíková, Luke Fowler, Gail Hastings, Rita Keegan and the Rita Keegan Archive Project. Exhibition design in collaboration with Maud Vervenne. Curated by Isabelle Sully.

Booklet of English translations produced on the occasion of Playbill Act II: Moniek Toebosch at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam June 24, 2022.

Directly engaging with the theatrical setting of Torpedo Theater, the forty-five short texts composing theater-maker, artist, educator and broadcaster Moniek Toebosch’s 1994 work Kop op Kop [Head to Head] were performed as a one-person play by television and radio presenter Adeline van Lier. First exhibited as part of the Stedelijk Museum’s 1994 exhibition Couplet 3, the work—for which Toebosch wrote monologues and poems to accompany a selection of portraits held in the Stedelijk Museum’s collection—is one of many pieces produced by Toesbosch that interweave text with performance and/or its implications.

Designed by Maud Vervenne.

Programme produced on the occasion of Playbill Act II: Moniek Toebosch at Torpedo Theatre, Amsterdam June 24, 2022.

Directly engaging with the theatrical setting of Torpedo Theater, the forty-five short texts composing theater-maker, artist, educator and broadcaster Moniek Toebosch’s 1994 work Kop op Kop [Head to Head] were performed as a one-person play by television and radio presenter Adeline van Lier. First exhibited as part of the Stedelijk Museum’s 1994 exhibition Couplet 3, the work—for which Toebosch wrote monologues and poems to accompany a selection of portraits held in the Stedelijk Museum’s collection—is one of many pieces produced by Toesbosch that interweave text with performance and/or its implications.

Designed by Maud Vervenne.