On Saturday 23 July I had the opportunity to perform a small action called “Pondering in the Park” in Basel, Switzerland, invited by Hanga Séra and Elsbeth Caroline Iten. They organised an event titled Performance as Research in the context of the exhibition Bang Bang – translocal histories of performance art in Museum Tinguely. It was related to one of the themes of the extensive program organised in the museum park, social elegans. On Saturday there were performances by Pinar Derin Gencer, Elsbeth Carolin Iten, Hanga Séra and me. And on Sunday there was a roundtable including Malgorzata Sady, Pawel Korbus and Ewa Zarzycka from Poland as well. The focus was on performance art more than on performance as research. More information about the exhibition and the program, which continues until 21.8. can be found here.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to try out a small action in two parts with an old yew tree growing in the park, which I chose because there were no pine trees growing near the museum. I asked the viewers to ponder, what if we included trees into our idea of the social? The first part was about documentation, and I asked the viewers to document my action of balancing with the yew in any way they liked, from their perspective. The second part was about participation and I invited the viewers to try the same action together with me and the tree. There is a page on the RC with a kind of collage of the documentation.
Pondering with Pines - Miettii Mäntyjen kanssa - Funderar med Furor 