“The Blind Sight” was originally Keumbyul’s Vordiplom project for her contemporary puppetry study in Berlin, Germany. When she worked on the concept, Germany was going through its toughest phase of the Covid 19 pandemic. During this time, in both public and private life, communication was restricted to taking place remotely.

These restrictions in everyday life unearthed questions about how we experience others. When we talk to other people through a video chat what we are actually looking at is a collection of pixels. How can we perceive this data as a real object or a real person over the screen? Do others exist with us on the same level of reality? The fact that we exist in a same room and at the same time is so important for theater. What can a theater piece really do in the era of the pandemic and the digital world? “The Blind Sight” was created based on these questions. The audience experiences this object theater performance without one of their senses, sight.

What does one-to-one art bring to you as an artist?

Performing art usually involves a small group of performers and a larger group of audience members. In the classical structure, the audience, sitting in darkness, exists to the performer as a nameless mass rather than an identifiable individual. An expression directed toward an abstract mass has to be limited. When art is looked at as a form of communication, how can a performer not want to know whether their expressions reaches the audience, whether it will lead to a reaction, and if so, what those reactions will be? We believe that the form of one-to-one art allows for a more intimate form of communication between the artists and the audience.

Who is the one you wish to experience your work?
We would love to share our work with everyone who is open to experimentation in the arts, but especially with those who have experienced loss. Also, the piece was originally planned for the visually impaired. However, due to Covid-19 situation, it was not possible to perform the piece to the people outside of the school. Therefore, we would be very happy if we have the chance to meet this audience.

Greetings from you, the artist, to the visitors of the festival

We are Keumbyul Lim and Tevya Bombieri-Morales from Theater MoDak. We create object theater and performances in Berlin, experimenting with the boundaries of various genres. We are very grateful and excited to have a chance to meet the audience in Oulu and to have a direct and intimate communication with them.