The Mutes, Lina Lapelytè's exhibition-performance at Lafayette Anticipations

A unique musical experience based on singing... This is what Lafayette Anticipations is offering with a brand new exhibition-performance created by Lithuanian artist Lina Lapelytè, The Mutes, from June 23 to July 24, 2022. The exhibition invites the curious to discover an original musical performance, interpreted by a very special choir... And with good reason: the choir is made up exclusively of people with no formal musical training.

An artist, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, who"is interested in power structures, contemporary cultures and ways of being", addressing questions of ecology, gender, vulnerability, invisibility and otherness. By overturning the codes of musical tradition, Lina Lapelytè 's works"invite us to reconsider certain social constructs and thus rethink the place of the individual in the community".

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Going against the classical canons, the artist takes the voice as the starting point for her experiment, and brings together a group of non-professional performers with no musical ear whatsoever. Through this performance, Lina Lapelytè questions"the notions of harmony and accuracy and, more broadly, the conventions and social norms that lead to difficulties in accepting others". The decorum is a landscape of nettles, whose presence reinforces"the symbolic significance of the work, which seeks to break down categorizations".

A choir that moves throughout the exhibition, accompanied by a soundtrack imagined by the artist and musicians Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies and John Butcher. The lyrics are taken from Sean Ashton's book Living in A Land, an ambivalent self-portrait in which the narrator describes what he has never done and what he will never do. A lovely way to celebrate polyphony... Shall we put it in our diaries, folks?