performance
space 10ka, GMK, Šubićeva 29
start: Friday, November 14, 2025, 7:00 PM
free admission
foreword
The performance Kill is Only a Dinner and Dinner is Not the Entire World marks the final stage of artist Ines Borovac’s residency within the Open Studio 2025 program and represents the first public presentation of an experimental nature.
The performance unfolds as a living composition of body, voice, and movement — a collective act between the artist, performers Cosme Fodor, Šimun Stankov, Nino Bokan, and Domagoj Obadić, together with the INA Choir, who will activate selected segments of the Requiem for this performance.
During the Open Studio, Borovac explored and developed a work of performative character inspired by Anne Boyer’s text When the Lambs Rise Up Against the Bird of Prey. Positioned at the end of the food chain, the lamb lives in a constant state of general endangerment. The lambs are thus forced to learn to read the movements of air and the flight patterns of the bird of prey. To survive, they were compelled to become not a single lamb but a unified multitude, resembling one creature. They therefore learn to sense the shape of the collective being: the fears, pleasures, and indifferences of one another. Meanwhile, as Boyer writes, “the bird of prey understands killing as the whole world, but killing is only dinner, and dinner is not the whole world.” The predator’s hunger surpasses the animistic world and now rules the social one. The predator’s meal has become a model for the world: systems of exploitation designed by the bloodthirsty entrap the fragile and obedient within circles of endless appetite. Against this machine of consumption, the vulnerable and marginalized learn to evade capture by using their sharpest tools—the senses. Together with the other performers, the artist embodies a herd of prey, establishing an immediate power dynamic between the performers’ bodies and those of the visitors. The work thus aims to evoke the direct relations between prey and predator, highlighting states of general threat, fear, and anxiety — revealing how these conditions shape bodies, sounds, movement, and identity. Within the silent herd, time becomes distorted; fear becomes a choreographer; bodies transform; senses sharpen; and individuality becomes a prelude to extinction.
The presence of the audience becomes an integral part of this dynamic — a space where relations are not merely observed from the outside but occur among bodies. Viewers thus become participants in the creation and disruption of the balance of power — their attention, distance, or proximity becoming choreographic material. Through shared sensory tension, the work investigates the relations between vulnerability and control, collectivity and disappearance. Throughout the performance, bodies and voices move from the sphere of the individual into the collective, forming a “flock” that breathes and senses as a single organism. The INA Choir here acts not only as a musical but also as a social organ — a chorus that, through the performance of Requiem excerpts, symbolically intertwines the boundaries between the rituals of death and those of survival.
About the Artist
Ines Borovac is a multidisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam. Her artistic practice weaves together digital and analog systems of control to explore future gestures and to give voice to the socially endangered. Her research methodologies treat the body—or its image—as a site for investigating and generating new forms of resistance. Through her work, Borovac examines the interrelations between corporeality and socio-political complexities. Her pieces come to life through installations and performances or are activated by the presence of other bodies. Originally from Croatia, she draws inspiration from Balkan folk forms and traditions, subverting patriarchal power relations and playing with the perception of the “young girl.” Since 2022, Borovac has collaborated with Ginevra Petrozzi as the co-founder of the art and design duo Xsenofemme. Her work has been presented at Ars Electronica, MU Hybrid House, Kunstinstituut Melly, the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Garage Rotterdam, and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, among others.
Impressum
Title: Open Studio 2025 / Kill is Only a Dinner and Dinner is Not the Entire World
Artist in Residence: Ines Borovac
Performers: Cosme Fodor, Šimun Stankov, Nino Bokan, Domagoj Obadić, Choir
GMK managers: Tea Matanović, Antonela Solenički
Production: Generator of Multidisciplinary Co-Productions (GMK)
Program is Supported by: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb
GMK is Supported by: Kultura Nova Foundation, INA d.d.
Acknowledgments by the author: Special thanks to Bojan Pogrmilović and the INA choir for their time and cooperation, exceptional gratitude to all the performers without whom the movements and choreography would not exist, especially Šimun Stankov for his movement advice. Thanks to Harry Castle for his endless emotional support and sound design for the initial performance, to my family and friends who have full faith in me in moments of great challenges. Many thanks to Nela and Tei from GMK for hosting and helping.
