Colourwash was a soundscape of 6 colours and 3 performers in Vapaan Taiteen Tila, May 2025.

Visual artist Marria Sennikova, improviser and accordionist Laura Mehmeti, and concert kokle player Kristīne Tukre turned the entire space into a playground, where tones, colours, gestures, sound would answer each other.

The symbolic meaning of a colour can evolve over time and space. For example, the word [colour]washing has its staged meaning in the contemporary social context – a marketing strategy to combine the extended connotation of a certain colour and the verb wash.

Greenwashing is the practice of companies to make brands appear more sustainable than they are. Pinkwashing is to use LGBTQ-friendly messaging to create a perception of inclusivity and support, even if that entity is not genuinely supportive of LGBTQ rights.

The performance sought to reset the meaning of colourwash on stage as a symbolical revelation. It emphasised wash as the original verb of an everyday action.

White took place on the surface where the action wash would happen. The coarse and undulating walls of the bomb shelter amplified the delicate sound of erasing, where performers were trying to rub away any potential stains.

The audience was only able to follow each performer’s flashlight in darkness – a passive way of seeing that brought a more active way of listening.

Rot Blau was composed by Berlin-based composer and multimedia artist Jessie Marino. It was the most theatrical piece of the entire performance, where Mehmeti and Tukre acted as two entangled colours Red and Blue with well-staged movements.

Rhythm was created by the performers’ percussive actions side by side on a small tabletop, accompanied by the constant switching on and off the desk lamp between scenes – each contained a different combination of red and blue fragments.

The strobe would leave a trace from the previous scene on the retina when a new scene started, which was an unexpected form of wash that created a strong point of view to witness colours in action.

Black made connections visible by attaching physical strings between performers.

The centred printmaking process was intended to create a puppetry-like interaction with the two musicians’ body movements. However, the strings were not tightened enough for Sennikova’s printing movements to control Mehmeti and Tukre’s musical gestures.

The loosened strings somehow provoked an imaginary interconnectedness, where the sound of the instruments and movements of the bodies corresponded.

Pink was exhibited with the household rubber gloves, placing them in an everyday scene – wiping and washing.

While performers were washing the rags after wiping the floor, the squelching sound of rubber gloves was interluded by the sopping rags dripping into buckets. By repeating these choreographed movements, the action gradually became meditative, turning the pink rubber gloves into the gazed object.

This piece was a statement of feminism. By placing audience as the spectator gazing at the household image, it reflected on one expected role of women to be housewives, and the male gaze that would objectify women.

Grey was the outro painted by visual artist Marria Sennikova. Leftover water from the previous action was recycled as the paint, creating a grey void on the long and endless roll of white paper that gradually went off stage.

The ancient Greek etymology of the word symbol was a verb σύμβολον (symbolon), meaning to put together/to compare. It alluded to the action of putting together two halves of a split ceramic plate, while each half was given to a different party. The action was to confirm that a genuine message was sent to the intended person only when the two pieces could match.

The performance challenged the shaped social political consensus of [colour]washing. It separated the visual form of a colour and its implied meaning, and sculpted it with sound to explore the realm in between, questioning the process of shaping meaningfulness.