ALYA SIDOROVICH (assisted by TATYANA SLINKA)
"PREPARING MUESLI"
20 minutes, 10/09/2001atStrochitsy village

by Denis Romanovski
In this performance, muesli (the popular, dried mix of vitamin-enriched, energy-containing products) turns out to be a mixture of coffee beans, vitamin pills, and scraps of material cut from the artist's clothes. All the ingredients are scattered onto pieces of paper spread out on the ground (photocopies from mathematics textbooks and the Kama-Sutra), mixed up, then handed out to the audience in small paper cones. The left-overs are mixed with earth and sealed into 1.5 litre jars, which are later hidden in the woods, submerged in a river, or handed out to spectators. Preparing jars of conserves is a well-known occupation in every Belarusian home and family. This is the irony of conserving food for the winter, coupled with the creation of unusual time capsules.