Record

In Record, a choir of young people from Brussels sings sitting on a ledge, a window, a balcony, a place on the border between the inside of what could be their home and an outdoor space.  

The performance is based on two figures who, for the artist Francesca Grilli, represent the oppositional tensions that many young people face when entering adulthood. On one side, she places a Hikikomori – a young person in Japan, who voluntarily locks themselves in their room as a form of rebellion against the outside world. And on the other, a stuntwoman, whose body continually defies gravity and death. 

For over a year, Grilli was in constant conversation with Hikikomori. Their confessions form the base of the composition that this diverse group of young people from Brussels are singing, while physically holding their almost-out-of-balance position, like superheroes, in the air. In between withdrawal and powerful release, the atmosphere recalls the fear of falling, that is also a very strong desire to fly away. 

In a society that makes failure one of its biggest taboos, this ambivalent tension is present in all those moments in life where we hold on to a thread, in between two things, two decisions. A performance as a celebration of all those thresholds, all those moments of hardship and joy, mixed feelings, and bewilderment.  

• Francesca Grilli (1978) is an Italian multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels. She focuses on performance, installations and video, with a special emphasis on sound. Grilli's projects explore the concept of the resistant body, initially reflecting resistance to life, time and decline. Her recent works portray the body struggling against being consumed, often featuring a disappearance resulting from the work's actions. She uses the voice to connect with the personal and collective unconscious, creating physical and emotional engagement. Her work addresses political, social, and poetic issues through choral singing, overlapping voices, and performer presence.