Title
The Birthday Ritual  

Date
2013

Medium    
Performance Documentation as digital color video, with sound, 19:52 min. 

To watch the Day 7 of the 7-day performance for video
Click on the image︎︎︎

        

Medium
Gelatin silver print and letterpress panel

Dimensions
Photograph (Day 5 of 7): 45 x 45 inches (114.3 cm x 114.3 cm)


Edition
1 of 10 + 2 AP


 

ABOUT THE PROJECT

In November 2013 after living in the US for already five years I decided that I want to stay here for good! I felt that New York is truly my home and that I am becoming someone new here. So seven days before my 28'th birthday I rented an isolated cottage in the woods in Redfield, New York where I wanted to shed my past life and welcome my new self by purifying my body through strict fasting for 6 days. During that time I performed for the camera a set of physical and spiritual acts which ranged from several hours on the first day till just minutes on the last day, due to my body's weakness. I completed the ritual on the seventh day, my birthday the December 1st. Archival sound footage from the battle of Vukovar (My hometown in Ex-Yugoslavia) in 1991, in which my father fought is mixed-in the sound of the video.


︎Homage to Andrei Tarkovsky
 
Performance and Video Documentation by Branislav Jankić
Foley Design and Sound Mix by Stefan Weich



©Branislav Jankic