THE OATH, 2020
Gallery La Centrale Powerhouse, Montreal, QC
From October 27 to 30, 2020, artist Tatiana Koroleva will present a series of four performances addressing the history of women's oppression in the USSR based on the artist's family history. Each day, the artist will perform in the gallery's window showcase and can be seen from the outside. In addition, a fragment of the performance will be broadcasted online, every day for thirty minutes on Facebook, at 2pm.
During these four days, she will present four performances - My Predecessors had a Hard Look (2016), The Bread of my Foremothers (2017), The Oath (2019) and Wandering Women (2019), each exploring ancestral memories in relation to Soviet history. Through the symbolic reconstruction of events in the life of her maternal great-grandmother, grandmother and mother, the artist addresses the subjects of intergenerational trauma, historical oppression and the multiple ways in which the past continues to influence our present. Each of the four performances unfolds as a series of narrative episodes, aiming to give voice to these women who have been silenced in their lives.