Clément Layes / Public in Private - Things that surround us

Things that surround us is a performance between three performers and many objects. It was made few years later, in 2012, and was specifically addressing the cycles of things, the circulation of object in our society, from their creation to their use and consumption, until destruction and trash. It was made along a strong sense of the absurdity that goes along these cycles, but as well the hope that a certain form of consciousness can arise from the realization of the vanity of these cycles. From large factories to cities and to oceans, continents made of plastic, things in a way turn around and pass in us, defining us as much as we use them. It felt that only the meditative aspect of art could counterbalance this otherwise absurd economic activities going on all over the world. I was curious to make visible the ways “things that surrounds us” not only are used by us, but as well make us move, how they choreography us. I therefore constructed a performance in which the choreography came from the objects, which break apart and end in a large circle of dust.