Are you coming? As both a question and an invitation, Protozone 6: Are you coming? is a direct address to its audience.

As Shedhalle continues to open its doors to the local Zurich and international community into the third year of the pandemic, we think it is important to break through jargon and to go to the root of what performance suggests – an invitation to gather, to be hosted and witness, together.

Are you coming? continues the processes developed in the summer of 2021 during Protozone 3: You’re So Busy, as well as premieres presentations of new work by longtime collaborators and friends. Each artist will present works as they are in process, opening them to the public with open rehearsals, workshops, film screenings and performances.

Are you coming? will further the dialogue inherent to the format of the Protozone, a process based exhibition scenario, that presents accessible works and sustainable practices through different intensities, named high and low intensity phases.

Each invited artist will take over Shedhalle on rotation during the weekends. Works in the program include the Swiss premiere of Dora Garcías new film If I could wish for something (2021), Ligia Lewis’ installation of deader than dead (2020), originally commissioned as a live performance in 2020 and reconfigured during lockdown as a video for online audiences, Nikima Jagudajev’s new production Basically, a durational dance performance developed over the course of the pandemic with international and Zurich-based collaborators, and many more.

With works and processes by:

Dora GarcíaMarch 4-5-6-12-13-19-20; April 16-17-30; May 1

Angela GohMarch 19 to May 15

Krõõt JuurakMarch 19-20-26-27

Ligia LewisApril 2-3

SERAFINE1369April 9-10

Nikima JagudajevApril 22-23 high intensity

Autumn KnightMay 6-7-8-14-15

Pontus Petterssonartist-in-residence

Protozone7 at Shedhalle Zürich is dedicated to the realm of non-work, creating zones for invisible processes that take place when we rest, laugh, love and non-work. Such zones have become an endangered species. Their ecologies thrive on abundance and generosity. They don’t want anything from you in return. These zones are there as themselves, full yet never complete, meshworks of possibilities that allow for stillness, pause, rest. Time is a scarcity yet mysteriously enough, there is more than enough of it here.

The artistic practices assembled here deal with the often painful yet still romanticized blurring of life and work. Over the last two years, questions around the infrastructures of life and work have been resurfacing more frequently. While modes of production such as the ‘homeoffice’ are being widely introduced, notions like ‘playbour’ promise a merging of labour, play and leisure into one single activity. Not only is this promise only meant for a few, it also often leads to extensive personal exhaustion.

The walls of Shedhalle are reminiscent of its past as a production site for mechanical silk weaving from the late 19th century, when manual labour within textile fabrication moved from workers individual homes to industrial complexes. Protozone7 takes these moments and shifts in time as a horizon to reconsider old questions such as: How to buffer lives and living from total abstraction and financialization?

The artists invited developed their work within the pandemic. As many of us, they went through moments of crisis, depression, illness, loss, deprivation. They found ways to foster kinships and ecologies that supported these works without giving in to the logics of extraction. This zone hosts their specific and often slow practices, their ongoing engagements and meticulous care towards materials.

with aLifveForms (fed and cared for by JP Raether), Claudia Hill, Kiraṇ Kumār, Nils Amadeus Lange, Liquid Dependencies Theory, Enad Marouf, River Oracle, SABA

curated by Lucie Tuma
curatorial assistance Sophie Germanier, Ani Ekin Özdemir

supported by the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film from Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and supported by IFA – Ausstellungsförderung

QUEER is, among other things, a term for the ambiguous and the unenclosed. In this sense, the term goes beyond sexual orientation or the question of gender. It is the basis of an attitude that insists on an “in-between,” a diversity of perspectives, and constant change.

For Protozone8, QUEER is joined with the term TRUST. Relationships with artists and trust in artistic processes are the foundation that gives support to constant change and non-fixation. This is what makes working in the art space Shedhalle possible in the first place. TRUST is also placed in the visitors, who are invited into this space of fluid transitions. QUEER TRUST is a call to trust the space between.

Protozone8: QUEER TRUST is developed and organized in exchange with the participating artists. Together with the visitors, QUEER TRUST creates space for the presentation of works as well as opportunities for gatherings, new experiences, and learning.

Participants

Dana Michel (artist-in-residence) & Tracy Maurice Lay Them All Down (2020)

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė Leave No Trace (Athens) I-VIII (2022), RYXPER1126AE (2019), Votive Flowers (I–II), Freestanding Votive Flowers (I–VI) (all 2022)

Isabel Lewis The Institute for Embodied Creative Practices (ongoing) – in collaboration with Josephine Baan, Nina Emge, Izidora I LETHE, Ceylan Öztrük, Tyra Wigg and international art schools

Natasha Tontey Garden Amidst The Flame (2022) – commissioned and produced by Auto Italia, London in partnership with La Becque, Tour-de-Peilz, Stroom Den Haag, The Hague and Shedhalle, Zurich

Sunny Pfalzer I know what to do – with Lau Lukkarila and Slim Soledad, music by Marshall Vincent – produced in collaboration with Perrrformat

Tarek Lakhrissi Beast! (2022) – with Makeda Monnet and Victor da Silva – co-commissioned performance with Tinguely Museum (Basel), Move Festival, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Shedhalle (Zürich), Bureau des Heures Invisibles (Aubervilliers) & A horn is a thorn is a horn (2021)

Terre Thaemlitz Interstices (2001) & talk with Laurence Rassel

curated by Philipp Bergmann & Thea Reifler, curatorial assistants Ani Ekin Özdemir & Vanessa Bosch

With kind support of Stadt Zürich Kultur, Kanton Zurich Fachstelle Kultur (for The Institute for Embodied Creative Practices), Tanzhaus Zurich (für Dana Michel), Embassy of Canada (for Dana Michel), Kulturpauschale Kanton Basel Stadt (for Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė), Ernst and Olga Gubler-Hablützel Foundation.

Hi-Intensity

16.09. open 18-24h

Dana Michel (intermittently, time tbd)

further program tba

17.09. open 14-22h

Dana Michel (intermittently, time tbd)

further program tba

18.09. open 14-20h

Natasha Tontey (time tbd)

further program tba

Lo-Intensity

19.09. to 04.12., open every Sat 14-20h & Sun 14-18h

29.10. 20h Beast! Performance byTarek Lakhrissi with Makeda Monnet and Victor da Silva

05./06.11. The Institute for Embodied Creative Practices Isabel Lewis in collaboration with Josephine Baan, Nina Emge, Izidora I LETHE, Ceylan Öztrük, Tyra Wigg and international (art) schools

11.-13.11. Zurich Art November with Sunny Pfalzer

Performance & Text: Tarek Lakhrissi
Original musical creation: Fatma Pneumonia
Singer-composer (voice): Makeda Monnet
Costume: Inner Light
External collaborators: Capucine Porphire, Mawena Yehouessi, Léuli Eshrāghi Executive producer: Sarina Basta (BHI)
Production Assistant: Violette Morisseau

Produktion: Tinguely Museum (Basel), Move Festival, Centre Pompidou (Par- is), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Shedhalle (Zürich), Bureau des Heures Invisibles (Aubervilliers)
Mit der Unterstützung von La Maison Populaire (Montreuil) and the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation (Paris)

16.12.2022/ 18–00h Performance at 19h00

17.12.2022/ 14–22h Performance at 19h00