Polimoda launches documentary series with cultural icons, starting with Marina Abramović

Italian fashion school Polimoda is launching a series of documentary videos featuring icons of contemporary culture, to published on its YouTube, Instagram TV and Facebook profiles. On each episode of “Polimoda Duets”, an influential artist will be interviewed by a select journalist, scholar or expert in a relevant field. Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović debuts the series, talking about the omnipresence of technology and overexposure to social media, and how performance art can take humanity back to simplicity.

"I would really like to create something called the 'Abramović method,' a way to help people see how they can become more confident with themselves, because in our [human] relations, technology has taken our senses away. We don't use telepathy, we don't use existential perception, we don't use intuition; we have become robots. So my work is really to go back to simplicity, to our own selves”, says the artist in the video, already available on Polimoda’s channel.

Marina Abramović is one of the most controversial and influential figures in contemporary art. Her work explores the relationship between the performander and the audience, the limits of the body, and the boundaries of the mind. To complement the series, Polimoda has partnered up with the Palazzo Strozzi foundation to offer workshops for its students about Abramović’s work. In addition, the foundation is holding an exhibition with more than a hundred videos, photographs, paintings, objects, installations and live recreations of Abramović's performances. It runs until January 20, 2019.

"If education is the link between culture and professional realities, then our task as educators is to accompany young minds towards the discovery and understanding of these two universes, which together lay the foundation for the development of personal identity and professional growth", said Polimoda’s director Danilo Venturi in a statement. He added that the school aims to offer both its students and a wider audience the opportunity to meet, listen and learn from leading figures of contemporary culture.

Picture: courtesy of Polimoda