Studio Orta

In the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Lucy + Jorge Orta staged an hour-long performance for twenty performers from twenty different language groups. Audiences visiting the BOZAR were confronted by a table setting with the guests seemingly engaged deep in conversation. The guests, dancers from the Charleroi Danses choreographic school, recited quotations on water scarcity issues in their native language, occasionally changing seats throughout the meal in an attempt to find someone to understand their plight. To the onlookers assembled around the multi-lingual debate, the twenty guests murmuring amongst themselves created a harmony of opinions despite the fact that different point of views could not be understood.

70 x 7 The Murmuring Banquet was commissioned to celebrate the UN Art for the Environment initiative Hosted by the United Nations Environment Program and the Natural World Museum, a programme designed to utilise the universal language of art as a catalyst to unite people in action and thought, and to empower individuals, communities, and leaders to focus on environmental issues.