Laima Jaunzema: Extra Mouth [She loves empty fountains]

After the successful 13th edition of the Organ Vida Festival, the organisaers present the programme for the festival’s off-year, in which they continue to explore the ways in which ugliness and the grotesque manifest in contemporary art and visual culture. Once again, the weirdos take centre stage in a slightly bizarre yet touching act of rejecting perfections — both in relation to the body and visual culture.

The Lizard Woman, created by artist Laima Jaunzema, is an enigmatic, lethargic provocateur who has been shifting and evolving through a wide spectrum of alter egos since 2021. In her performative lectures, she transforms the very idea of spectacle, using her body and voice as tools that reveal power struggles, social norms, and the boundaries of reason. Her inner unrest stems from the desire to fulfill multiple dreams at once, coupled with the fear that this might not be possible. Through wittiness and sharp satire, she navigates serious themes, intertwining humor with complex ideas to make them both relatable and compelling. This work is a dedication to Feminine, Alien, and Othered bodies.

Her dragged body and her burning bones. Her dyslectic dream of infinite knowledge. Her dominatrix super power.

For the Zagreb performance, a new alter ego emerges from the poetic dungeon ruled by the Lizard Woman. This time, the Murderer takes control. She adores empty fountains and activates extra mouths. With her arrival, the space itself transforms, and everyone is invited to sing along.

Laima Januzema is a choreographer, her artistic practice is embedded in the research of body politics. Her interest in discovering the medium of body indelibly is influenced by the silence of one’s own intimacy on the contrary of being exposed to the universal space, displacement of retrospecting gaps in communication and perceptions, and delays of politics to react. Laima engages with interdisciplinary choreography as a method of thinking to create places where body perception can be challenged with powerful sensitivity. Laima graduated from SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam, before having studied dance in Berlin and Denmark. She comes from Latvia, and currently is based in Riga.