Teresa Albor and Dagmara Bilon both took part in “Misplaced Women?” Workshop by Tanja Ostojić, 13-14 December 2016, hosted by LADA at their studio/office in Hackney. Teresa brought objects left behind by people in the process of migrating from Syria and Afghanistan to Europe from a collection she has been working with via a project called “The Things We Leave Behind.” During the workshop Teresa experimented with calling out the names of people who have made this journey. Dagmara focussed on her own migration history and work she had made in the past using a suitcase as a prop as well as other objects from her earlier performances. They got to know each other in this inspiring workshop and started a collaboration soon after.
Peckham: Dagmara invited Teresa to join her making work for the “Solidarity not charity” event, hosted by The Purple Ladies, held 17 March 2017 at MARKET, to benefit refugees. This time Dagmara had replaced the suitcase with a large “migrant” bag made from woven plastic and added women’s heels adorned with the British Union Jack. Teresa had made a sound piece of names to play in the background. Although the two were meant to perform separately, they chose to perform in the same space. Teresa handed people objects or set them next to a candle in the space while Dagmara navigated the space from within the bag wearing the heels.
Teresa Albor: “Solidarity not charity”, at The Purple Ladies, Peckham, 2017. Photography: Lais Pontes
Pimlico: Teresa was asked to make work for a public market —Tachbrook Market in Westminster — through the Rufus Stone project, during refugee week (17 June 2017). She invited Dagmara to perform with her. Because this was a public space, the two took care to engage the public, via a handout or through conversation. Teresa placed objects on a pedestal, the soundtrack of names was played and Dagmara attempted to make her way across a thoroughfare to the stall.
Richmond: Teresa invited Dagmara to perform at an exhibition of “The things we leave behind” at the One Paved Square Gallery in Richmond 24 Jan – 3 Feb, 2018. The performance was 24 January, 2018. Teresa used a torch instead of candles and used boundary tape to mark off sections of the space. Dagmara incorporated getting undressed, into the bag, movement and emerging from the bag into the performance. Once again the soundtrack of names was played.
Bethnal Green: Dagmara invited Teresa to take part in a full day workshop as part of her involvement with the “I am not a village” project residency at Guest Projects in Bethnal Green. The two experimenting with various ideas, including incorporating elements of Tanja Ostojić ’s “Naked Life” (2004-2016) performance series into their performance. A week later, on 28 April, 2018 they performed a version of “Naked Life” — foregoing all of their previous props and gestures. This time they entered the space, stood on a pedestal, dressed in layers of clothing. They took turns reciting short stories of people who have been forced to move—a woman living in London dealing with domestic abuse; a woman moving from Sudan to a camp in Uganda; and so on. With each story they removed a layer of clothing. Once they were both naked and vulnerable, in solidarity with those whose stories they had recited, they dressed in their own clothes and told their own stories of relative privilege and security.
Text by: Teresa Albor
Editied and published by Tanja Ostojic
Photography: Lais Pontes, Sisi Burn, Rachel Cherry, Camilla Canocchi
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Teresa Albor is London based performance and visual artist interested in how different groups of people negotiate the world. Her work is research-based and often involves broad collaboration. It can involve video/moving image, performance, installation, publication, community-based workshops, and forms of artist-led curation.
Dagmara Bilon is a London based Polish/German freelance Performance Artist, director and teacher, working nationally and internationally. Her multi-disciplinary practice orbits around embodied investigation and making the unconscious conscious. Central for her practice are dialog and collaboration, with self, others, materials and sites. She is passionate about art that inspires change. Over the last decade she has produced a diverse body of work which belongs to the borderlining realms of experimental performance and installation, as well as community based projects.
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Some of the earlier blog posts for London:
The following artists, activists and researchers developed their new works or performed some of the “Misplaced Women?” scores in the frame of the Tanja Ostojic’s “Misplaced Women?” London Workshop. I would like to invite you to please check out Participants Contributions in text, photos and videos, that I edited partly in collaboration with Danyel Ferrari and published on the project blog:
Danyel Ferrari´s Article published in ArtSlant
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Misplaced Women? 
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