07/10/2022
Spotlight on the project of Visual and media anthropology G14 student
The 2 Bed Hotel Room is an Autoethnography by Mariia Schulz in collaboration with performance artist and dancer Yannis Karalis.
It includes elements of a travelling vlog, self-reflection diaries and performance.
It's also an “inception project”, being an autoethnography about creating an autoethnography.
The film follows two protagonists during their tour with a Bulgarian choir, in which they both sing. They know each other only formally, have different cultural backgrounds and genders.
Shortly before the trip they find out that in one of the cities they are put into one hotel room and will have to live together, while everyone else is divided by s*x.
Taking into account that Yannis is a performative artist and dancer, there was an idea of documenting this “life-story” and recording a performance together at the end of it.
The project was strongly based on the “Artful and Embodied Methods” by Brydie-Leigh Bartleet: it was a nonlinear creative process that included improvisation, cycles of creation, reflection, discovery and performance. And then more reflection. It was driven by not knowing and waiting for what will happen.
It brings up topics such as:
The reactions of the society and learnt cultural behaviours on the topics of gender, gender roles and s*xuality.
The s*xualization and expectations from the “taboo topic” of a man and a woman sharing a room.
Getting to know a person and yourself, its complexity, in a vulnerable setting and during a performance.
Be deceived by the setting, interpret the pauses, s*xualize the scenes, imagine, what actually happened, overthink it, guess what was unsaid.
A movement away from cultural conflict, from black and white, male and female to slowly becoming more mixed. Many layers and dimensions of a connection, some things left unsaid, some not clear or non-definable. Just mixed feelings, in the hotel room.
