or what is (variations) by Nicole Bachmann (Session 1)

About

Bachmann’s performance investigates the nature of verbal and physical communication: how it is progressively emptied out of meaning through politics and mass media; how we are defined through the social and architectural structures in which we exist; and how to become catalysts for outside change. Working with dancers Patricia Langa, Legion Seven and Jia-Yu Corti, she calls upon a community of bodies and voices to think and feel differently, to stretch and widen these structures and rethink the connections that we already have.

The performance will happen twice: on Saturday 16th 3-5pm and on Sunday 17th 3-5pm. The performance is durational, feel free to come and go at any time.

Tomaso Binga’s first solo exhibition in the UK is currently on view at Mimosa House until 20 December 2019. ‘Tomaso Binga’ is the artistic pseudonym of Bianca Pucciarelli Menna (b. 1931, Salerno, Italy), which was adopted by the artist in the early 1970s. Working with poetry, writing, performance, collage and painting, Binga dissects and challenges the gendered nature of language – exposing patriarchy encrypted within its very structure. The paradoxical act of appropriating a masculine name allowed the artist to parody male prerogatives in society, emphasising women’s lack of agency and voice within the arts and politics.

Nicole Bachmann is an artist based in London. Her work investigates the nature of verbal communication and how it is progressively emptied out of meaning through politics and mass media and how we search for meanings that lie elsewhere. How can we free ourselves from set definitions enforced by spoken language’s power structures? And how can we create meaning and alternative spaces away from these structures? Through collaborations with actors and dancers she creates an embodied vocabulary, negotiating the materiality of speech, gestures and movements, to investigate the power of the voice and its relationship to other bodies and to find agency in this relationality.

Her recent shows and performances include Swiss Art Awards, CH, Art Night London, A circle whispering dot, BolteLang, Zurich, CH and Mimosa House, London, UK (solo presentation), Commission Performance, Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, CH (Nov), Performance, Kunsthalle St.Gallen, CH (all 2019), Personare, Tenderpixel, London (2018),Werkstipendium Stadt Zürich (winner), Zurich (2018), Block Universe, London (2017), Manifesta 11 (2016), Take Two and Take Three, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK (2016), L*, Darling Foundation, Montreal, CA (2016), DOings & kNOTs, Tallinn Art Hall, Estonia (2015), Rhythm of Thought, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2015), Objective Considerations, MOTINTERNATIONAL project London, UK (2014), Look Live, ICA London UK (2015), Classroom, New York Art Book Fair MoMA PS1 (2014), The flow between the thing and the word, Modern Art Oxford, UK (2014), Turner Contemporary, Margate UK (2013), Rowing, London UK (2013) and a residency at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (2015) and LUX London (2016). She’s also the co-founder of Performance as Publishing, a collaborative project with Ruth Beale.

This event is part of Mimosa House’s current exhibition, Tomaso Binga: A Silenced Victory, and is supported by Arts Council England, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia & Swiss Cultural Fund UK