Mouthing

U–jazdowski / Cinema / Repertoire / Mouthing

special screening

directed by Marta Ziółek, Poland 2021, 18'

You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her.

And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.

Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

In Mouthing, through the film medium, Marta Ziółek exhibits and investigates oral gestures and choreographies of the mouth. The camera records the vital animation of the orifices and physiology of the female body: sucking, laughing, drooling, kissing, breathing and vocalisation, and finds a liberating emotion in violating bodily boundaries.
- Lips and mouth are the entrance to the body, but they are also the vessel of performative statements, the physical side of vocal production, a series of resonant and relational surfaces. Speech sounds, rings from the gut. The mouth is the point of contact between what’s inside and what’s outside, between the self and the other.
Mouthing is part of a long-term research focused on the choreography of the mouth, on the body and the voice. Marta Ziółek worked on the film during her residency at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2019 and 2020, creating a performative lexicon of the mouth and mediating historical works by artists such as Natalia LL, Jolanta Marcola, Bas Jan Ader, Marina Ambramović and Vito Acconci.