Reframing Conventions
Live performance, original time-lapse video, video work, original chair, original suit, photo series
Duration performance: 08:00:00 hours
2013
2020

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Initially driven by an interest in architecture, intervening space and the mundane, the research involved observing, analyzing, and intervening in various office environments. Ros discovered that prolonged sitting, a common office practice, was associated with a 40% increased chance of premature death.

Over 1.5 years, Lisette Ros immersed herself in this research, experiencing firsthand the impact of sitting for eight hours straight. The performance aimed to raise awareness about the bodily effects of this convention, emphasizing the importance of understanding our physical conditioning.

In 2020, mostly being in lockdown, the artist had the epiphany of relaunching this piece. The pandemic gave the research into the act of sitting a new layer of meaning, reshaping our understanding of collective spaces and changing the way we physically approach them. This stems from the same aim, with a slightly different focus: to highlight how spaces and settings worldwide got alienated from their function, and how we physically adapt to this schism.

In the year 2020 Ros did five guerrilla performances of Reframing Conventions within this new context at five different, specifically chosen locations in her hometown, Amsterdam, open to the public. 

The new timing, shifted contexts and different mentality resulted in that more people now really started to understand the piece, and that they were able to identify with the concept and feel it in their own bodies. This period of guerrilla performances evolved into a new concept, that became a new work on its own, titled Reframing Conventions for INTERBELLUM #1 (2020).*

‘De Stelling van Amsterdam’ as a location offers an interesting decor as it was officially build as a part of Amsterdam its defense mechanism for war, but has never served its original purpose. The weirdly idyllic landscape serves as an interesting setting for the work, its natural inhabitants unbothered by her presence.

* The word ‘Interbellum’ commonly refers to the period Between the Wars. It defines a period in-between. When alienation finds its way throughout all layers of existence, and at the same time the opportunity rises to redefine conventions. As the pandemic resulted in a political and economic crisis, INTERBELLUM is framing and continuously questioning the function of art and behavior in this specific period. A representation of a different approach on this period in-between.    

© Lisette Ros