STRATA is a captivating project that blends film and performance art to explore the fascinating history of caves as sites of knowledge-making and art creation. Through international collaborations and interdisciplinary processes, artists and researchers investigate the connection between the human body and the geological depth of subsurface environments. The project focuses on the prehistoric caves of the Swabian Jura, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where Ice Age humans sought shelter and created the oldest known examples of human figurative sculptures. This fifth performance-based film project by VestAndPage delves into Deep Time and layers of memory in human history and the geological, while reflecting on contemporary societies and ecological environments. The participating renowned artists embody diversity and raise awareness of our geological, political, and social past and future.
Since 2006, German artist Verena Stenke and Venetian-born artist and writer Andrea Pagnes have been working together as VestAndPage internationally in performance art, performance-based film, writing, publishing and temporary artistic community projects. For over a decade, VestAndPage have been exploring performance art and filmmaking as phenomena through their collaborative creative practice, artistic research and curatorial projects. They have produced performance-based art and films among others under Antarctic glaciers, at the Himalayan foothills, in the vastness of Tierra del Fuego, in military enclaves, or inside prehistoric caves systems. In a psychogeography of symbiotic realms they move between embodiment and research, the unseen and the unforeseen, the oppressed and unspoken, the forgotten and the repressed. Their works have been presented at various sites and in theatres, museums, galleries and cinemas worldwide. They are the founders and directors of the Venice International Performance Art Week, and their research and poetic writings have been extensively published and translated for international readers. They share their methodology and mentoring on collaborative performance and filmmaking in co-creation master classes and have been guest lecturers at art academies worldwide.
Website: https://www.stratafilm.de/