The 15th and final edition of the festival features invited artists:

• Birgit Widmer. She lives and works in Gais/Appenzell AR. She has been invited to take part in the 15th PERFORMANCE REIHE NEU-OERLIKON 2024.https://www.birgitwidmer.ch

Rarely a performer herself, Birgit Widmer’s installations are always inherently performative. It is an appeal to the viewers themselves – to move or behave in a certain way. Her simple materials of thread, linen, wood, straw and sometimes paper, in themselves mobile and easily transportable, suggest nomadism or, in almost simpler terms, the willingness to move on or to quickly set up tents somewhere else. Domesticity, i.e. motifs such as the house, the tent, the bed, the mirror, the frame, appear again and again in Widmer’s oeuvre. Where earlier works focussed on dissolution and transformation, the reduced, feminist gaze and the inescapably serial become increasingly important. Seemingly safe shelters are built that simultaneously appeal to personal responsibility. Conversations start and end in places that we can’t see at the moment, but that we absolutely want to experience. Dancing clouds, walking trees, ghost ladders and spider training bring us closer to the performative in their practice through semantic humour. (Text by Martina Morger) 

• Franzisca Siegrist.  She lives and works in Oslo/NO. Franzisca Siegrist has been invited to take part in the 15th PERFORMANCE REIHE NEU-OERLIKON 2024. https://www.franzisca-siegrist.com/

Franzisca Siegrist is a visual artist born in Switzerland in 1984. She was raised in Spain (Canary Islands), lives in Oslo, Norway, while working internationally. She has a Master’s (equivalent) in Fine Arts from the University of La Laguna (2008) and a Master’s in Artistic Production from the Polytechnic University in Valencia (2010). She studied performance art under the Spanish artist Bartolomé Ferrando.

She works primarily with performance art and has specialized in this art form for the past 15 years. She also works with installations, objects, photography, and video, often as part of a live performance or through a performative approach. The questions she poses through her work are related to issues around identity, belonging, migration, social norms, her background, and everyday life. Through these lenses, she invites the audience to reflect on how these issues impact specific facets of our society. She is interested in contemporary philosophical thought and questions related to how we humans live. At the same time, she is concerned with pure artistic and aesthetic forms of expression, such as abstraction, particularly in the aesthetics created by encountering different objects and the body. As a result, her works often evoke visuals that are both poetic and quite absurd. Since 2016, she has been working on long-term projects that are structured as a series. The performances of these series share a common title, starting point, and conceptual foundation. Despite these commonalities, she never repeats her performances; instead, each performance is essentially a new work.

Siegrist has received several working and production grants, including working grants from Art Council Norway, Norwegian Visual Artists or The Relief Fund for Visual Artists. She has shown her work in Europe, in Asia, USA and recently in Mexico.

• Harlis Schweizer Hadjidj  https://harlis.ch / Clément Varin https://www.instagram.com/klemaon/

Harlis Schweizer Hadjidj has been invited to take part in the 15th PERFORMANCE REIHE NEU-OERLIKON 2024 and she will be working with in a collaboration with Clément Varin.

“I explore the world in all its facets by drawing, painting, observing and smelling. My sketches are often created while travelling in inconspicuous places. I am interested in the perception of light, colour, scent and the resulting fantasies, the interaction with people, time and its transience.”  Harlis Schweizer Hadjidj

Clément Varin. Olfartist – École Supérieure du Parfum et de la Cosmétique, Paris. He lives in Paris. https://www.instagram.com/klemaon/

• Kerstin Wittenberg. She has been invited to take part in the 15th PERFORMANCE REIHE NEU-OERLIKON 2024.  https://kerstin-wittenberg.kleio.com/

“Personal memories and my exploration of new perspectives on knowledge and knowledge transfer are the starting points of my artistic work. In connection with current themes and questions that concern and touch me, I seek my artistic expression in colour, material and, in addition, in performance. The sensual working process plays an important role. Drawing and painting, working with material, writing and reading aloud, sharing and communicating are actions that characterise my artistic practice.” Kerstin Wittenberg.

• Луcија Berlin. Lives and works in Zurich.She has been invited to take part in the 15th PERFORMANCE REIHE NEU-OERLIKON 2024.  https://www.instagram.com/lucijaberlin/

“I am Lucija Berlin (Serbian Cyrillic Луcија).

I am a artist of Wallachian-Serbian origin (nomadic minority folk with their own language and culture east of Serbia) working since early age with various media from performance, NFT, (digital) drawing and painting over Instagram, Tik-Tok, Onlyfans to photography and video. I graduated from Fine Arts School at F+F Zurich with honor for my diploma 3 series performance “Tatjana Hartmann and Luischa Berlin fucking good art (2022)” in 2022.

My name is inspired by the writer Lucia Berlin (1936 – 2004) and her work “A Manual for Cleaning Women, Selected Stories, (2005)”. I identify with her because she mostly worked low-paying jobs and wrote on the side.

I am a FAK ME Q person. I am Female, (A)sexual, Child, Man, Queer as well Neurodiverse, Disabled, Complex Postraumatised and Crip. The concept of (self-)determination and (self-)empowerment plays a central role. My work deals with topics such as the underrepresentation of people from the Balkans, migrants, refugees and BIPOCs, the coexistence and equality of LGBTQIA+, women and men and sex workers, as well the conditions and power relations of self-marketing and self-optimization addressing the precariousness of an artist’s life in the “art system”, dealing with discrimination in terms of age, origin, sexual orientation and political attitudes. The thematic arc can be expanded into a socially critical examination of the non-Western and Western mainstream social media and media worlds with their predetermined and therefore partially manipulated selection of images and photos, demonstrating, interveneing, counter-informing and correcting the sender-receiver model as a hierarchical element of misinformation. In addition to the topics of identity, art system criticism and media, I explore a utopian, non-existent world against the backdrop of climate change. Finally I show uncomfortable truths, including dealing with war, dead, violence, trauma und neurodeversity describing and processing this painful and hopeless situations.

The key words in my artistic work are precariat, self-healing and blind spots. I use my art for self-healing to experience and to solve myself. I uncover bad behavior patterns, suppressed feelings and so-called blind spots.

Pornography and sexuality, private and public, are my means of (self-)determination and (self-)empowerment. “Le petit mort” (The Little Death) is redemption, is life between life and death. I change our room, turn it into a porntopia.” Луcија Berlin

• Raffaella Regina. Lives and works between Zurich and Bilbao/ESP. She has been invited to take part in the 15th PERFORMANCE REIHE NEU-OERLIKON 2024.

„My artistic work focuses on action in public space, an area I consider fundamental to social interaction and cultural transformation. My main interest focuses on action and the re-signification of these spaces, using art as a tool to generate dialogue, reflection and change. Throughout my career I have worked in urban environments, collaborating with heterogeneous groups and collectives that bring a diversity of perspectives and experiences. These collaborations have allowed me to explore the richness and complexity of the urban social fabric, creating interventions that not only beautify the space, but also invite viewers to reconsider their relationship to their surroundings and to each other. 

Each project is an opportunity to challenge conventional perceptions and offer new narratives that re-signify public space. My actions seek to create moments of encounter and participation where the public are not only spectators but also co-creators of the artistic experience. My work is characterised by its inclusive and collaborative nature.

The resignification of public spaces through artistic action is for me a way of reclaiming these places as vital scenarios for expression and coexistence. My aim is to foster critical consciousness and a sense of collective belonging, promoting art as a vehicle for social and cultural change.“ Raffaella Regina

• Elsbeth Carolin Iten. She lives and works in Lucern. She participated in the 14th edition of the festival in 2023. She has a Master’s degree in Art, a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies. https://elsbeth-carolin-iten.kleio.com/.

The artist and photographer Elsbeth Carolin Iten is interested in the human condition and its relationship with the environment, its longings and affiliations. Based on the attitude that humans and the environment are simultaneously fragile and strong, vulnerable and interwoven, she seeks to establish poetic connections in her works through the use of a meditative approach.

• Gisela Hochuli. She lives and works in Bern. She was part of the 4th edition of the festival in 2013. https://giselahochuli.com/

Since 2001, Gisela Hochuli has presented her solo performances at national and international performance festivals in Asia, South and North America, North Africa and Europe. She also collaborates with various (inter)national artists. She was awarded the PERFORMANCE PRIZE SWITZERLAND 2014. She is an active member of PANCH – PERFORMANCE ART NETWORK CH.

Together with Pavana Reid from Bergen (NO), Gisela Hochuli organises the monthly online performance series TOGETHER ELSEWHERE as a PANCH collaboration. She is an editor of publications on performance art and also active as an organiser of performance events.

• Asad Hussain. He lives and works in Zurich.

Asad Hussain has been a part of many collective performances. He participated in the 7th edition of the festival with Lilian Frei in 2016.

• Das Häkelobjekt. Regula Michell/Meret Wandeler participated in the festival’s 3rd edition in 2012 with Das Häkelobjekt. https://www.haekelobjekt.ch/.

“Since 2004, we’ve worked on an ongoing long-term performance project. Once a month two of us or guests crochet an object out of pink acrylic wool.

This year we celebrate our 20th anniversary. Almost 900 people have been involved in this social sculpture. The crocheted object is a constantly changing memory of time and work. With each new action, the participants react to what has been created before. By working together, a communicative space is being opened up.” Regula Michell / Meret Wandeler.

• Marc Mouci, born 1964 in Zurich, grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. He Lives and works in Zurich. Marc Mouci took part in the 1st edition of the festival in 2010 and in the 6th edition in 2015. https://mouci.net/.

“My performances are often about intimate, private moments that are brought into the public sphere. I think about questions and tasks. Depending on the space and location, I decide whether to ask these questions to myself or to the audience. I can then be the moderator or an active or passive participant. I see the performance as a challenge for me and for the audience. We do it together. To a certain extent I can control it. But often surprising things happen and I have to react.

What happens when intimate things happen in public? What stories develop? What stories are going on in the minds of the audience? What group dynamics emerge? What moments do we share? Performing is also a personal experience for me.” Marc Mouci.

• Pascale Grau. Lives and works in Basel. Pascale Grau participated in the 4th edition of the festival in 2013. https://pascalegrau.ch/.

Performances as practices of remembering, collective images and bodily constitution form the main topics of Pascale Grau’s work. Recently, she has focussed on the auditory, the superimposition of live speech. For once, Grau condenses audience comments into ephemeral documents that immediately fade away when written on the floor with water.

• Daniel Häller. He lives and works in Lucern. Daniel Häller participated in the 4th edition of the festival in 2013. https://www.danielhaeller.ch.

„The aim of a performance is to create an image that is so intense that it lasts beyond the fleeting moment of the event”. Daniel Häller.

• Lara Emma Russi. Ida Dober. http://www.lararussi.ch/ https://idadober.ch/

They live and work in Zurich. They participated in the 12th edition of the festival in 2021.

The playing field of Ida Dober and Lara Russi embraces and extends the possibilities of rhythmic, temporal and physical spaces, with a particular focus on their margins and overlaps. They focus on the shared desire for language and the seductive power of associative rhizomes.

They regularly investigate certain areas for their specific atmospheric moods and their tides. They swim with the currents of thought, observing how they ebb and flow, how questions arise and how urgencies manifest themselves, which in turn become the starting point for performative explorations.

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