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Denis Romanovski
@ The Centre for Suburban Research (Feb 19th - 26th 2007) Denis Romanovski Was born in 1970. He is an artist and organiser who lives and works in Belarus and in Sweden. Denis Romanovski’s residency at the Centre for Suburban Research focused upon the reaffirmation of the strands of the global performance art network that reside in Belfast. Denis’ main concern was to reconnect with people such as myself and Meabh, Alastair MacLennan, Julie Bacon, Brian Connolly, Sinead O’Donnell and Hugh O’Donnell. His other main concern was to meet other people from Belfast involved in these networks that he had never physically met such as Brian Patterson. Denis, unlike Gavin Peacock who was in residency previous to Denis, has been to Belfast several times in the past. While on residency Denis also had two other projects he wished to work on: 'KaraTribune' and 'Phantom', both of which are multimedia works. Denis originally proposed to use Karatribune as a tool during the residency to examine some aspect of life at the Centre for Suburban Research. Below is Denis' explaination of Karatribune: About Karatribune KaraTribune (or empty tribune), a modest invention giving mighty powers without any responsibilities to everyone, power of spoken word, power of fame, glory, historical apprecitation, etc. KaraTribune is a modest invention where one can revise any history, any persona, any word. What next we will search for in the suburbs of imagination? other Power Tools, Glory Tools? Elecrtrical screws, powered hummers, end user cutters? Perhaps. Power Glory Kit (PGKit) - is what we will try to discover in the Centre for Suburban research, using karaTribune as magnifying glass. Denis Arrives at the Centre for Suburban Research - Monday 19th February 2007 Denis was due to arrive in Belfast on the 19th March 2007 at 10.30pm. Unfortunately, his flight was delayed in London and he didn’t get into Belfast until around 1am. I went down to the Europa bus station to meet him. I got a taxi down. Me and the taxi driver had a great chat, he told me about how he had just been to America to visit an old school friend of his who grew up in a very poor background but had married an American Multimillion Dollar heiress. He told me he had enjoyed his visit to see his mate but pitied him because he thought his wife totally bullied him. Because the taxi driver and I had got on so well, he decided he would wait for me to get Denis off the bus and take us back up the road. I was glad about this because he wasn’t going to charge me a waiting fee and it would save me phoning another taxi to get us back up the road. Denis’ bus arrived late. It drove into the bus station, which was closed. After a few minutes Denis came out the gates. I was glad to see him. I hadn’t seen him since Meabh and I had been in New York in 2006. We greeted each other with a hug and a quick chat and got into the taxi. We chatted briefly to the driver, then to each other. I got out on botanic avenue to get some money to pay for the cab. When we got home I got Denis a glass of wine. I was shattered but I had a drink with him anyway, the first drink I’d had since New Years Eve. I put Denis’ bag in his room and gave him a tour of the house. This didn’t take long because the house is not too big, not as big as the Taxi drivers mates house anyway. Meabh had gone to bed, as she was very tired from our long day. Luke was in bed hours ago, but was very excited about meeting Denis in the morning. Denis gave me a few presents he had got for us. It was nice of him; I especially liked the wobbly reindeer toy thing. It was very much mine and Meabh's sense of humour. We sat down in the living room, drank some wine, talked about friends from different parts of the world and the International Association of Performance Art organisers, better known as IAPAO, which we are both part of. I asked Denis about what he wanted to do while he was here. He told me he wanted to work on the IAPAO web site and meet some of the people at the Sonic Art’s research centre at Queens because he was working on designing an audio web browser for blind people. He also wanted to work on his ‘Phantom’ video art project. With all this in mind, we finished the wine and headed off to our respective bedrooms. |
