Sport as an art form. A residency with Tom Russotti
A month-long residency and three non-competitive game workshops at the 2nd edition of "Football in Traian": a helium-ball game and a dance contest judged by the audience.
Helium-filled balls refuse to fall — and with them, the rules of the game rise too.
Part ofSocial Fabric 2023
Tom Russotti is a visual artist from New York who works with sport as an art form. Through the Institute for Aesthletics — a pun on aesthetics and athletics — he proposes non-competitive sports that make room for continuous collaborative interaction; he has worked with SFMOMA and Tate Modern, among others.
He came for a month-long residency, and the pitch in Piața Traian became his studio. During the 2nd edition of "Football in Traian" he proposed three non-competitive game workshops: one with helium-filled balls that, instead of being pulled to the ground, try to float away off the pitch, and a dance contest with the audience as jury.
His interventions gave the tournament a carnival note — a temporary abandonment of everyday individuality and the experience of a sense of social unity.