Sideways festival 2019, Helsinki, Photo: Luumu Jokelainen
Performed in various events during 2018-2019. Some of the events were Sideways festival, Mitäsmitäsmitäs?-festival, an event for Marriot Hotel group.
PEN runs from place to place. Then they stop and offer an audience member the other end of a plastic tube. PEN starts a conversation with them. They speak only through the white tube.
Meet PEN, an athlete combining contemporary circus and visual arts. PEN is very interested in people and what they get up to. So much so, that PEN often comes to events and that people organize. The encounters with PEN are painted with black humor, occurring in the world of modern Tubing. Offline. PEN carries a plastic tube, which some might mistake for a hula hoop. PEN is at its best in random, awkward situations. PEN lives in an every-day life, where anything might happen.
The performance relies on human connection and addresses our ever-so-prevalent online communication culture. The objective is to make people meet each other offline – through the spiraling plastic tubes PEN carries around. PEN carefully weaves a web of communication between anyone who is willing to participate, finally leaving strangers talking to each other through the tubes, as PEN whimsically runs away.
MIRADONNA SIRKKA 