The Distance is Nowhere

The Distance is Nowhere is a new performance by artist Paul Maheke in collaboration with artist Sophie Mallett commissioned by Stella Sideli.

This new work responds to the context of the city of Palermo as an archive of histories and experiences in constant flux. The performance takes place in one of the oldest institutions in town, the Gallery for Modern Art Empedocle Restivo.

Using sound, text, movement and image, The Distance is Nowhere explores such transitional spaces, distinguishing the sea as an infinite, constant presence: existing not somewhere specific, but everywhere, mutating in between places. It makes water a matter of connection and memory—  bodies are composed mostly of water, at a high percentage, but while we think of corporeity as bodily, water follows other logic patterns, arteries, means, to sustain the terrain on which we exist. Manipulating the perception of natural elements such as the wind, symbolic of what animates the surface of water, it articulates the potential of a sea that, like a body or a land, is an archive, comprising and translating histories.

16 June 2018, 7pm