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On 19 may 2007 DDV was invited with the Factor 44 crew to do a performance on the Perf07 festival at Kulttuuritalo Annis in Pori, Finland.
Before he had prepared a box with some 15kgs of earth from the Hole - which he took as luggage on the plane - and buried it on arrival in Finland in the near vicinity of the performance space.
On day two of the festival some 50 people showed up for the performances that would start at Annis, and continue in the evening at the Museum of Contemporary Art on the occasion of a 'Museum Night'.
DDV wandered around the parking lot in his drab green Chinese raincoat with a shovel in his hand. On several locations he tried to start digging, but the surface was too hard. Finally he found a suitable spot in a corner under a tree and frantically started diggin'. To everybody's surprise after some 15 minutes, he unearthed a mysterious wooden box. He took it out of the hole and a procession of onlookers followed him inside the building to see what treasures the box would hold.
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Inside DDV placed the unearthed box on a table, next to a television monitor that showed live footage of the action itself. He tried to pry open the box, but it was tightly shut with nails and glue. So he jumped on the table and started hacking the box with the shovel. Soon bits of wood flew around the room as the top part of the box got hacked away. When there was a hole sufficient enough to get to the contents of the box, he turned it around and poured the earth contained in the box in a heap on the table.
Then he walked towards a toy rabbit that was taped to the wall and ripped it from the wall holding it with his teeth.
Growling and snarling he shook his head around and proceeded to rip open the belly of the rabbit with his teeth.
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After the rabbit was torn open he continued to disembowel it, ripping out the stuffed insides with his teeth and spitting them out across the audience.
Every bit of stuffing was preyed out with teeth and fingers until the rabbit was nothing more but an empty flabbering piece of cloth dangling loose from his hands.
Then he opened up the hole in the rabbit's belly, took a mouthful of earth from the heap on the table and proceeded to refill the rabbit with the earth from the Hole. Coughing, spitting, choking, moaning he continued to move earth from the heap into the rabbit with his mouth until it was completely filled up again.
While brown mud was still drooling from his mouth, he took the stuffed rabbit in his arms and said "I think it is time we go to the Museum of Contemporary Art now".
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The Pori Museum of Contemporary Art was occasionally opened till late in the evening due to this kind of 'Museum Night', with some bands playing, an occasional performance, and the usual dedicated audience flocking towards the event.
Still dressed in his spit and mud covered raincoat, the dirty rabbit on his arm, DDV walked around in the museum, explaining the disemboweled animal what performance art and this "Diggin' for Gordon" project was all about. Thereby he unnoticable poured the sand out of the rabbit to form small heaps here and there in the museum rooms until it was an empty and worn out piece of cloth again.
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The performance finally ended when late at night or early in the morning the rabbit was tied to a tree in a park, its legs stretched out exposing the disemboweled belly to casual passers by who would joyfully talk a walk there on a bright sunday morning in the sun.
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(vidcaps by Heini, pics by Toni & DDV)
Download Perf07 poster in A2 pdf format
Check Factor 44 picture report
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