Norpol: I Trust You

★★★★

ISCENE

The performance I Trust You starts after a stormy collaboration between director Daniel Norback and a Russian art activist. It has been years in the making but has suddenly collapsed. Out of the crisis emerges a remarkable tale of trust.

I Trust You takes you on a journey into a milieu of Russian artists and activists who oppose the war in Ukraine and the regime in Russia. Through SMS correspondences, audio recordings, and letter exchanges with friends of imprisoned artists, the performance explores the courage needed to criticize the Russian government when the repercussions are daunting. What gives the strength to continue, and who can be trusted?

Visual artist Seimi Nørregaard has created an installation that, among other things, contains a reconstruction of an old St. Petersburg living room as well as works from Russian exile artists, which both serve as the performance’s scenography and an exhibition in its own right. While the Russian cellist and noise artist Marina Karpova live-improvises the sound side of the performance.

I Trust You is a documentary performance piece that explores the borderland between aesthetic statements and activism. Here, the crisis of trust – the situation where people no longer trust or count on each other –

is treated as something both deeply personal and urgently political.