Unfinished Fridays at Lake Studios presents works-in-progress by resident and guest artists. On 25 October 2024, edition #111 featured performances from Maiada Aboud, Karlotta Frank, and LOLA.
Nestled in leafy Friedrichshagen, Lake Studios is a residency, research, and performance space. Their Unfinished Fridays format invites resident artists and guests to present their works-in-progress for an audience, in order to receive feedback during the creation process.
On 25 October, the first work shown is Replica: Between two shadows, from Maiada Aboud. To the sound of an insistently ticking clock, Aboud reads a text which humorously details the odd freedom of existing as an outsider. Performer Luisa Ravanelli lies on her back, an apple resting on her stomach rising and falling with her breath, with others strewn on the floor around her. As Aboud leaves the stage, Ravanelli stands and begins to collect the apples into the lap of her white dress, which bulges and stretches with the weight. She then catapults them into the space, before running around and collecting them back into her dress. This simple, strange action is repeated again and again, with the fruit slamming into the walls and rolling through the audience until they begin to disintegrate. There is an almost disquieting lack of development and, as a result, the choreography lies in the decay of the space and the material. As the floor becomes covered in pulp and Ravanelli’s dress stained with juice, it speaks to me of burdens carried, marks left, and defiant action.
Karlotta Frank’s solo dedication to what happened begins with a marionette-like quality, as Frank’s limbs shoot outwards and the floor seems to drop beneath her feet. I wonder who is controlling the strings, but Frank’s coy smile to her audience hints that she is in the driving seat. Like a slightly grotesque cabaret, Frank flits between short scenes: her two hands become puppets sharing a garbled dialogue, a lullaby plays as she both cradles and is cradled by a chair, a piercing cry turns to manic laughter. Like a radio being tuned, snatches of sound appear briefly and, out of context, take on new meaning.
Finally, we are shown You Decide, part of an ongoing video work by LOLA. A beautifully written monologue is read over shots of street lights reflected in water, but is there an irony to “I’ve never been this happy” being read in a slight monotone? Characters in an eclectic mixture of costumes then enact what seem like arcane rituals, eating fruit and wrapping themselves in swathes of cloth. Reverse footage is used to uncanny effect, so that clothing appears to have a life of its own, and hair can retie itself. With gravity upturned and sound also played in reverse, the consistency of the space is changed, as though everything were happening underwater, or behind a layer of thick, distorting glass.
The presence of an audience almost always changes something in the nature of a work: in an open studio format like this, you can practically see the shells cracking open, and the work oxidising as it is exposed to the outside. During the moderated feedback session, there is a chance for the artists to reflect on the knotty relationship between what they were saying and what was heard. Unfinished Fridays has fostered an atmosphere which encourages open dialogue, between a generous audience and artists sincerely receptive to a multitude of reactions. It can be empowering for audience and artist alike.
Unfinished Fridays at Lake Studios presents works-in-progress by resident and guest artists every last Friday of the month.
