Golden Shadow

There is a gateway at the edge of the waters – not a physical gateway but rather a bottleneck that opens into a realm of shadows, leading into a dream. This dream has no inside or outside. It allows the return of what has already been experienced, suspending it in textures that flow into one another: reeds, sequins, coral, thread, tentacle, hair, moss, performer, reflection and likeness­. All share the desire to not to become recognized, to impersonate before the camera one thing or another: cnidarian and plant, conscious and unconscious, body and landscape, art and nature.  

At the edge of the waters Katrina Daschner unfolds narrative threads that have no beginning nor end. In the thicket of the present, the living pass and the already deceased appear to be alive. In circular motion the stories enmesh the dreaming and dreamed subject, as performed by Hyo Lee – Daschner's longtime collaborator. Throughout, the score composed by Sabine Marte intones a yet inexistent genre oscillating between eco-thriller and extraterrestrial machine music. Slow and pulsating, the structural highpoint is delayed, entirely suppressed by climatic-like distillations.  

Those who look into the water as they stand at its edge see their own image. But behind this image soon emerge other living beings. This does not result in the cancellation of the dream work. What is made clear is its contingency, confrontation and collectivization. In midst of the reed bed and snow-covered forest a revelation occurs: An encounter with oneself always consists of the encounter with one's own appropriated shadows. (Steph Holl-Trieu)

Übersetzung: Eve Heller