Live Performance Premiere_Alexandra Bridge, Ottawa-Gatineau , 9.10.2019 Invited by Axené07, Artist Run Center , Gatineau Nezaket Ekici Artist in Resedency: 2-11.10.2019 Curator: Jean-Michel Quirion

Nezaket Ekici has been showing her performances worldwide since 2002 and has travelled a long way. On her travels she is inspired to perform by cultures and local people. Even though she has already realized several works in Canada, she gets to know Ottawa and Gatineau (which since 2002 has united the settlements of Hull, Buckingham and Aymler) for the first time - two beautiful cities in the middle of nature, climatically favored by the Gulf Stream. Two places which have an enormous importance for Canada due to their historical development in North America. Ottawa is consciously made the capital because it lies on the language border of the English and French parts of Canada. Trade, in particular, has brought people together and has symbolically been the "bridge" between cultures. What seems rather normal for locals, immediately catches the eye of someone from outside: Although a lively way of life has developed in both cities and thus differences in language and mentality, many inhabitants work in one city and live in the other. Or they have friends or relatives in one city or the other. Nezaket Ekici wants to make visible the connection between the two cities and express the unity of the two places symbolically. In her performance she stands in the middle of the bridge. To her right and to her left she has about 250 meter long ropes. These are held by assistants. Together with the artist, up to 11 performers are distributed across the entire bridge like sculptures, each holding a piece of rope at abdominal height. Ekici takes the two inner ends of the ropes in the middle of the bridge and connects them by making a knot in the rope every 1 meter. Then she pulls the two ropes to herself to make another knot. Thus hundreds of knots are created, representing approximately 400 years of settlement history of Ottawa since 1610. At the same time, each knot should remind the people of what they have achieved here. At the end of her action, the artist sets the knotted rope from the bridge in water, with one end attached to the bridge. The long piece of rope hangs like hair on the bridge. The end of the rope touches the water and swims back and forth with the water, connecting the bridge with the water separating the two cities.

500 m rope, costume, pedestal, 10 Performer

1:30 h

Thanks to: Curator: Jean-Michel Quirion Performer : Nezaket Ekici and Alejandro Marchena, Aymara Alvarado Sanchez, Maxime Beauregard, Annie Cloutier, Vanessa Couture, Coco Simone Finken, Mathieu Marleau, Sylvie Myriam, Judith-Anne Poitras, Nathalie Ralph; Photo: Jean-Michel Quirion