In the Palm of Your Eye

During the closing event of the 5th Ural Industrial biennial, Museum as Stage, choreographer Ula Sickle proposes a live performance in dialogue with the main location of the biennial, the Ural-Mechanical Optic Plant and the particular product they produce - the lens. If we make abstraction from the military and civic purposes to which it can be put to use, the lens is an optical device, an instrument for looking, examining, distorting, magnifying, focusing etc. The eye itself is technically speaking a lens, which is intimately connected to an observing body.

The performance takes the form of a hypnosis session. Through her words and the simple gesture of opening and closing the eyes, Sickle leads the public on a guided tour of real and imagined spaces and locations. This short performance explores the relationship between the body and sight, considering the process of seeing and being seen, from an embodied perspective.