TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

‘Luna Park: what is democracy?’ is part of Kolliopoulou’s ongoing research on performative installations named Performative systems which features: Waste-is-land (2018, Belfast), Sky-field 1 & 2 (2018, 2019, Belfast) and The cell (Athens, 2021). With this expanding body of work which emerged from her artistic research (practice-based PhD in the arts, Ulster University) she is inquiring upon the bond of the body and its environment.

Performative systems are small-scale participatory art events that resonate with Lygia Clark’s series of works ‘Arquiteturas Biologicas’ in what concerns the form and the conceptual/ existential quest. ‘Luna Park: what is democracy?’ borrows the concept and structure of luna-parks to craft and initiate a social choreography captured in its process. Luna-parks are colorful systems that incorporate movement and change. They rotate because of their mechanics making use of gravity. They require coordination, sense of rhythm, trust and a level of abandonment from whoever steps in. Is it possible to preserve our sense of freedom while being connected to others? ‘Luna Park: what is democracy?’ would like to challenge the notion of democracy and create an imaginary site which will be activated and shaped by the participants’ presence now. Luna-parks are playful and generate intense emotions re-connecting us to the radiance of our childhood’s experience. In an analogous way, this participatory project would like to create the circumstances for participants to generate their own luna-park while collaborating, improvising, finding ‘their place’ in the turning wheel, staying together within the changing dynamics of ‘Luna park: a social choreography’.