FADO is pleased to present Indonesian artist Iwan Wijono’s performance,Ā The Rootless Man, in the context of the 4th 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art. This performance is part of FADO’s Public Places / Private SpacesĀ series.
In The Rootless Man, Iwan Wijono considers the commodification of culture and the destruction of nature, using a remote-controlled toy dump truck filled with earth. Wijono writes about his concerns:
“We live on the earth, we need the earth; we need food and water from the earth. But modern people little by little have distanced themselves from the earth; they want to conquer the earth, benefit and profit form the earth without having to take care of it properly. Most modern people from morning til night do not even touch the earth, everybody wants to be a businessman or millionaire, nobody wants to be a laborer or farmer, nobody wants to get their hands dirty. Forests have been felled in the name of industry, villages increasingly become cities or ghost towns, where villagers move to the cities. When the earth is plagued by disease, there are no longer any forests or clean water, dollars can buy nothing!”
A second performance,Ā Body for Rent / Body for Auction, will take place between November 7 and November 9 as a public intervention at local malls in Toronto. The artist will offer his body as a commodity for public sale. Audience members can negotiate to “rent” Wijono’s body for a purpose and length of their choosing.