Performance

This event was organized by TheArtists celebrating the publication of the Cahiers d'Artistes 2023, designed and published by Jungle Books. It was part of a series of eight individual formats – including screenings, performances, talks and readings – with each artist who realized an artist book with the support of Pro Helvetia in 2023: Patricia Bucher, Martin Chramosta, Maria Guta, Thomas Julier, David Knuckey, Rhona Mühlebach, Gabriel Stöckli and Eva Zornio. The programme took place between October and December 2023 at various locations in Switzerland. For those interested, they offered the opportunity to obtain a copy of the small edition Cahiers.

Who are you performing today?, 210 x 260 mm, 160 pages (Japanese binding) (published by Jungle Books)

After studying biology and earning a Master’s degree in neuroscience, Eva Zornio turned to art. In 2015, she completed a Master’s degree in contemporary artistic practice at the Haute école d’art et de design Genève. Her artistic work includes installations, performances and videos. Influenced by her background in biology, and by her fascination with life sciences, she explores social realities, works with embodied microfictions and evokes affects.

Eva Zornio’s Cahier d’Artiste, entitled “Who are you performing today?”, is based on the answers to a survey, ‘Affective evaluation’, that she collected during the Backslash Festival in Zurich in 2022. The four questions that she posed to the audience and their corresponding answers established the book’s structure. Interspersed with excerpts from the survey is a conversation with Lucie Kolb, specially conducted for the Cahier d’Artiste. Eva Zornio conceived her monograph as an ‘empathetic book’, and this is reflected in its paper, format, weight and colour choices.

“Who are you performing today?” does not only provide answers, as its link to the survey might suggest, but it also poses questions to the readers and invites them to explore the various facets of their identity.

Lucie Kolb (Basel) is a critic and author. She earned her doctorate in 2017 at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, writing her thesis on the strategies of art publications since 1960. Recent publications include ‘Der radikale Katalog’ (Fabrikzeitung, 2021) and ‘Artwork as Institution. Stephen Willats’ (BNL, 2019) as editor, and ‘Study, Not Critique’ (transversal texts, 2018) as author. She conducts research at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design’s Critical Media Lab in Basel, teaches in the BA in Fine Arts programme at Zurich University of the Arts, and is co-editor of the online art criticism magazine Brand-New-Life.