While We Wait is the first in a series of films made in the framework of the project Showing Up. This project researches performativity, departing from the theory of J.L. Austin, who defines performativity as ‘the capacity of speech to act or consummate an action’, and examines other related theories that explore questions of contextuality and engagement. The research emphasizes the role of performativity in the active, social construction of reality, and it’s structured as a continuous interplay between theory and (art) practice. The project uses different forms of public presentation, taking place on three different sites: on the streets, in the institutions and on makeshift stages, with all three locations being used as both physical spaces and conceptual frameworks.

In this film, researchers from the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory and Belgrade-based writers and students from the Faculty of Architecture, each selected a location they believe represents a neuralgic point in the city. At these locations, they performed actions and shared their perspectives on performativity, drawing from their areas of expertise. They showed how language, body, and public space interact in the enactment of norms or the creation of alternative discourses, using their own presence in the city and their view on engagement as a starting point. In this film, the city carries traces of social processes, approached through its architecture onto which individual and collective desires are being projected.