The Great Essay

As part of the human kind, is there something we must do? Is self-fulfillment, enough in life? Why self-fulfill, for whose eyes? Why am I looking at someone's painting? These concerns were the basis for Mariana Obersztern to conceive El gran ensayo [The Great Essay], a performance that invites the audience to reflect upon art, the individuals who produce it, the viewers, and those who treasure it.
Those who decided to participate had to leave their role as passive spectators and step into an individual position, in the context of a joint action. Participants received a closed envelope from the artist, with precise indications on the itinerary to follow, the actions to execute, the art pieces to contemplate in the museum and the dialogues to read and deploy in front of them. Obersztern's proposal was for each attendant -even herself- to become an essayist, focusing on the personal experience that results from the assigned script.

Video production: Rodrigo Moreno
Interviewer: Marcos Perearnau
Set designs: Laura Gamberg
Assistant director: Virginia Mihura
Playwright/ Essayist: Mariana Obersztern

Commissioned by BP.15 / Coproduced by National Museum of Fine Arts – Argentine Ministry of Culture