COPRODUCTION

A room with a life of its own. What if the furniture that inhabits our living room was tired of its fixed roles and tasks and decides to break free, move around, jump, transform, disassemble itself or join forces with other appliances? What if your bed, chair and bookshelf decided that they want to exist independent from their habitual context, on their own terms, free to become what they want, free to leave their fixed position and venture into the world.

In Living Room Clémentine M. Songe (aka Clément Layes) explores the dynamics of the living room, that place where we surround ourself with things that feel familiar, intimate, recognizable, safe. Transforming this room into a ‘living room’, a room that makes its own choices. In collaboration with the architect Morana Mažuran from the architectural office Ortner & Ortner Baukunst, the light designer Ruth Waldeyer and visual artist Jonas Maria Droste, Clémentine M. Songe bare the many interrelations that appear between our lives and this place, showing how much we take our habitual environment for granted, relying on it in order to feel ‘at home’ in the world. 

Different abstract objects, reminiscent of a living arrangement, move according to their own operative logic, while the performer has to adapt to the rhythm and to the space again and again: The floor is sliding, turning, lifting. The room comes to life. It is, after all, a living room. 

CLÉMENT LAYES on CLÉMENTINE M. SONGE: Clémentine M. Songe is a persona I’ve been developing for a few years now, mostly in research. I decided recently to make works only as Clémentine M. Songe. Recent events make me feel that it’s impossible to simply move on: Corona, the death of friends and my beloved mother, the drop in the support structure of Public in Private and the desire to open new horizons, contributed to this thought, and made my desire to act on this alteration even stronger. For me, Living Room marks this moment of change, it is a transitional piece on many levels. 

ARTISTIC DIRECTION, PERFORMANCE Clémentine M. Songe (aka Clément Layes) ARTISTIC COLLABORATION Jasna L. Vinovrški STAGE DESIGN, ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPT Morana Mazuran STAGEDESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, CONCEPT Jonas Maria Droste, Ruth Waldeyer, Clément Layes LIGHT Ruth Waldeyer MUSIC Steve Heather COSTUME Malena Modeer PRESS Aïsha Mia Lethen INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION Inge Koks PRODUCTION Public in Private

A production by Public in Private in coproduction with SOPHIENSÆLE and Platform 0090. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Supported by Ortner & Ortner Baukunst and Flutgraben e.V.. Media partner: taz. die tageszeitung