During their summer 2020 residency in a village near Brest, the Bergamot group staged an action that later became the basis for the video “Flight.” Four people took turns carrying a fifth as if he or she were flying, while the other participants filmed in on their phone. The performance recreates a physical situation that occurred repeatedly during the protests in Belarus — riot police carrying protesters to police vans. Detentions are often carried out by masked officers in black, with no identification, who often record the events on their phone or camera. 2020. Action, video [3:55] This somatic practice also creates a fragile bodily situation, a kind of choreography of support and solidarity where your colleagues’ hands don’t let you fall: the way injured people are evacuated from war zones or street clashes. This powerful image shows the tension between bodies and effects, experience and support, strength and trust. Bergamot reinforces this image by moving it from the urban to the natural context, analyzing gestures and the directions of our bodies, underscoring the politization of our joint movements. The curatorial team of the exhibition “Every Day. Art. Solidarity. Resistance”
