noula diamantopoulo QUEST

noula diamantopoulo QUEST

noula diamantopoulos this week announces her attendance at this year's Melbourne Art Fair, where she has been invited to perform QUEST – an experimental performance work centred on a dialogue of questions.

Created 2011 by noula, who is also a qualified psychotherapist, facilitator of creativity and artist, QUEST forges art and emotional intelligence to create a participatory, engaging and often intimate experience that exposes our interior landscape.

'QUEST is a beautiful example of how we can connect with each other in a significant manner.  Universal concerns arise repeatedly through QUESTing and often, within six questions, we realise we have the same things on our minds; we are sharing the same thoughts," said noula.

The invitation marks QUEST's very first performance in Melbourne, and comes following its success and warm reception at last year's inaugural Sydney Contemporary 13, where it was included as part of Sydney Contemporary Director's Choice.

'What Quest has highlighted so far is that we are truly creative beings struggling to come to terms with things that cannot be explained through rational processes.

'Quest is irrational and yet makes so much more sense of that which is on our minds than any Q&A approach to life matters. No matter what our cultural or religious background might be, Quest highlights our -sameness-ness'; our -humanness'," she said.

During QUEST, participants are invited to hold a short written conversation of questions with the artist, where no talking is permitted.  Participants begin by writing a question and in response, the artist reflects on the question before replying with another question.

'The challenging Q&Q format of the performance is in direct contradiction to the answer-driven society in which we live today.

'By deliberately focusing on the question rather than the answer, the performance forces participants to stop, pause and reflect – a process which, in many instances, leads individuals to the realisation that the initial question they began with was not the real question that lies at the heart of the matter," she said.

As part of the endurance performance at Sydney Contemporary, noula sat on meditation pillows in QUEST's calming pink surrounds for 28 hours over 3.5 days, foregoing food, drinks and bathroom breaks throughout the Fair's opening hours. In this time, noula completed over 150 QUESTs, sharing over 1,600 questions.

Noula will continue her endurance-like approach to QUEST at Melbourne Art Fair, where she will sit for 40 hours over five days.

In addition to her performance work, noula diamantopoulos is a psychotherapist, life coach, mosaicist, painter, sculptor and teacher. In 1997, she completed a significant lifestyle shift from her life as an international tax manager to become a fulltime artist and facilitator of creativity for corporations and the general public.

'We seek to know ourselves, and through QUEST, we ask challenging questions that get to the core of our insecurities, fears and wonderings." 

View the film here: YouTube

For more information, please visit http://www.nolastudio.com.au/nolaquesting.html

To read noula's insights on art, creativity and consciousness, please visit http://awakenyourcreativespirit.com.au