OM - Body & Space Residencies - July/August 2025

 

Sergiu Diță and Anca Stoica – founders of the artistic duo Platforma 13 – spent two weeks at OM Choreographic Center as part of a residency where they explored the process of solarisation as a starting point for a movement practice and reflection on identity.

The two artists investigated how the body, much like an image suddenly exposed to light, is transformed through its contact with space – physical, social, cultural, or emotional. In this context, solarisation becomes a metaphor for becoming, contradiction, and the hidden dimensions of the self, offering a framework for questioning and expanding modes of self-representation.

Platforma 13 is an artistic duo initiated by choreographers Anca Stoica and Sergiu Diță, focused on overturning norms and conventions in performing and live arts. Their research is rooted in collaborative and transdisciplinary practices, forming an independent initiative dedicated to experimentation and the current needs of artistic expression. The idea of a platform suggests openness and dialogue with audiences seeking diversity. Their collaborations, partnerships, and projects aim to increase the visibility of contemporary dance and reach spaces with limited access to culture. Platforma 13’s recent works include Balkan Ballerinas (2024), Play Replay Remix (2023), and Pop Recycling Body Work (2022). The duo has participated in Bucharest Biennale 10, Talpa Iadului Festival, Mittelfest Young & Artown Festival.

Solarisation

„The source of inspiration is a 1955 photograph by Minor White, depicting a typical southern gothic American landscape—grey, as if covered in radioactive dust—where a circular shadow, a star that does not shine or emit warmth, creates what would later be known as the “Black Sun.”

The process used by White is known as solarisation, a technique discovered in the early days of photography. In the 19th century, photosensitive materials were overexposed to sunlight, producing what is called tonal inversion: black becomes white, white becomes black, negatives become positives and vice versa. From 1929 onwards, this method was famously used by Man Ray and Lee Miller. Reality has always been interpreted through images. Although the camera was designed to reflect the world accurately, it was quickly used to explore the in-between spaces of the visible and the invisible.

This research explores the intersection between photographic manipulation and self-representation. Using solarisation as a metaphor, it examines the instability and continuous flux of identity. The work investigates themes such as transformation and erasure, blurring the boundaries between self and image.

Movement integrates this idea of inversion and transformation by translating photographic principles into physical expression—through plays of light and shadow, presence and absence, gesture and stillness. The organic intertwines with the synthetic, the material with the immaterial. The solarisation process has a texture akin to acid, capable of altering movement. What would a movement with the texture of acid look like? Solarisation doesn’t simply burn through colors—it halts them, alters their flow, inverts them.

Ultimately, this research positions solarisation not merely as a visual technique, but as a philosophical inquiry into identity and the ways in which the body creates space. By embracing inversion, contradiction, and becoming, we aim to challenge how we perceive and define ourselves, expanding the space of self-representation beyond conventional narratives and fixed definitions. Identity is never stable – it is always in flux.”

Sergiu Diță & Anca Stoica