Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done by Vlatka Horvat

The protagonists’ journeys are at once a kind of obstacle course on varied terrain, a set of lo-fi physics experiments and a kind of preposterous puppet animation in which humans work to give objects a semblance of movement and life. Rolling, tumbling and dragging a motley collection of detritus – from buckets, pipes, hoses and tyres to scraps of wood, fabric, rope and wire – Horvat’s performers are engaged in a kind of playful labour; careful and unruly, inventive and repetitive in equal measure. As human figures and inanimate objects move together, their progress is at times aided, and other times hindered, by one another’s presence.

Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done explores the relation between human beings, objects and the natural world, the impossible endeavour at its heart revealed as a journey whose destination is always both unknown and apparently out of reach.

About the artist

Vlatka Horvat is an artist working across a wide range of forms from sculpture, installation, drawing, collage, and photography to performance, video, writing, and publishing. Reconfiguring space and social relations at play in it, her projects often rework the precarious relationship between bodies, objects, materials, the built environment, and landscape. 

She has had exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, PEER (London), Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), Hessel Museum – Bard Center for Curatorial Studies (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), and MoMA PS1 (New York City), and her work has been included in the Croatian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2018 (Venice), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya), and the 11th Istanbul Biennale. 

Her performances have been commissioned by venues including HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), LIFT – London International Festival of Theatre, PACT Zollverein (Essen), Kaaitheater (Brussels), Fondation Cartier (Paris), and many others. 

Born in Croatia, she moved to the United States as a teenager and spent twenty years there. She currently lives in London, UK. 

Horvat will represent Croatia in the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Until the Last of Our Labours Is Done by Vlatka Horvat

• Performers: Karen Christopher, Tim Etchells, Nicki Hobday, Vlatka Horvat, Greg Wohead
• Cinematography and editing: Hugo Glendinning
• Sound design: John Avery
• Production: Alex Fernandes
• Duration: 25 minutes
• © Vlatka Horvat 2021

A commissioned production of KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, Hannover.