Flo Kasearu

In her new urban intervention and performance, Flo Kasearu playfully addresses the question of security and order in the city, spreading creative chaos and pointing toward repressive structures in an ephemeral and poetic way.

In most places across the world, public space was being divided into different security zones long before COVID-19. This was the case in Graz too, with not only the streets but also the parks being declared special zones of order. Here as elsewhere, these are not only patrolled by the police. Private security companies are joined by the Ordnungswache (lit. “order patrol”), a municipally-run neighborhood watch organization separate from the police with its own distinctive uniforms. With the onset of the pandemic and restrictions upon movement, the question of public space and its supposed safety became ever more urgent.

Flo Kasearu’s new work responds to this situation with a performative course through the streets of Graz. Wearing uniforms with exaggerated headgear, twelve—sometimes mounted—performers sow productive disorder in the city they patrol, melding absurdity with reality and queering the image of law enforcement agencies, which are increasingly dominant in Graz’s streets. The route of the performance connects different parts of the city, with short stops for ribbon gymnastics and more.

Bio
Flo Kasearu (1985, Tallinn, Estonia) is an artist whose videos, drawings, paintings, installations, and performances are all based upon social and collaborative processes. Her work ironically plays with the boundary of public versus private and personal versus political, tackling themes such as freedom, economic depression, nationalism, and domestic violence. Since 2013, she has been director of the Flo Kasearu House Museum. Her works have been exhibited in Estonia and across Europe, including at Tallinn Art Hall and KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn (solo shows in 2019, 2020, and 2021); 16th Drugajanje Festival, Maribor (2017); Performa 17, New York (2017); Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga (2020); Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2016 and 2018); Tensta konsthall, Spånga (2018); Музей Нижегородской Интеллигенции (Nizhny Novgorod Intelligentsia Museum), Nizhny Novgorod (2017). She lives in Tallinn.