Convergence International Arts Festival Providence, RI 1988-2003

JULIETT 484

Fourteen Artists from Poland and the U.S. in a joint  venture of performance art, installation, video and other media

Coordinated by Mobius of Boston as part of Poland's 11th Annual International
Performance Art Festival Castle of Imagination and the Convergence International
Arts Festival of Providence, Rhode Island

"JULIETT 484" is the name of a decommissioned and disarmed former Soviet nuclear submarine permanently docked in Providence, Rhode Island, as a museum of the Cold War. It has also served as the inspiration and organizing principle - and now a key site - for a collaboration in performance art by fourteen Polish and
American artists.

The Americans had been invited to participate in the 10th annual "Castle of the Imagination" International Performance Art Festival in 2002, and at that time suggested a joint American-Polish project for 2003. The Castle of Imagination is the only annual performance art festival in Poland and one of the few such festivals in the world. It has hosted almost 300 artists representing some 35 countries, from Northern Ireland to Israel , from Finland to South Korea. Mobius, Boston's Artist-Run Organization for Experimental Work in All Media, sponsored and coordinated the proposed initiative and is coordinating the exchange project in partnership with the Polish festival and the Convergence International Arts Festival in Providence, whose director, Bob Rizzo, suggested the submarine as a venue rich in symbolism. The Juliett 484 evokes images of the Cold War and totalitarianism, as well as the tragic fate of the submarine Kursk, and implies aspects of naming and numerology, not to mention the naval and maritime histories of the Baltic and the North Atlantic during the submarine's active period. With this exchange project, the artists have attempted to create works that illuminate, repossess, and transform the political and social import of the Soviet submarine and the Polish and American shipyards and harbors.
 

The Polish and American participants in the "Juliett 484" project performed in the 11th Annual Castle of Imagination festival between August 28 and September 2, in venues that included the legendary Gdansk Shipyards, where the collapse of the Communist bloc can be said to have started. The group's joint U.S. tour opens on the Juliett 484 in Providence on September 20.

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