We Rearrange – participatory events

Last weekend I co-hosted “we rearrange” together with my colleague Franziska Boehm (link that opens in a new tap). We shared our practices in a series of so called performative encounters: participatory short workhops.

Concept

We invited small groups to test our methods and dive into our creative practices. The participants worked with each of us for 15 minutes and then swapped places. We also invited them to reflect on what they experienced in the end.

Composing shapes and space

I shared my creative working methods around observing compositons of shapes and the sens of space, distance and proximity, density and pathways that they might show.

*Documentation shot of table with white paper and cut out*
*shapes* *on top, and cut out larger shapes in the background*
*pinned on a cork wall. All shapes have different colours.*

I tested with the participants how sensing our breath and volume of the body might change how we perceive these compositions, and if rearranging them could express some of our sensorial experience. We worked on a table and on a wall.

Photo of myself lying on the floor on blue cushions, with my
knees bend, hands on belly, eyes closed.

Documentation shot top down onto a table with white paper
and cut out shapes on top. They are coloured in pale pink,
pale yellow, brown and pale blue as well as white. Some look
aligned, some placed randomly in piles on top of each other.

Next steps and reflection

I was not yet able to implement creating shapes out of different materials that could be rather felt than seen. By using fabrics I would like to explore how a purely haptic composition might work out.

I am reflecting on how the experiences might contribute to future participatory formats, and how they influence my pieces. You can see one of them and more documentation photos below.

*Flat and not flat, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.*

*Black and white documentation*
*shot of hands rearranging shapes*
*on the table.*

*Black and white documentation shot of a*
*person rearranging shapes on a cork wall.*

Mira Hirtz

Basing her work on performative tools and somatic techniques, Mira Hirtz explores multi-sensory experiences and and articulations of our being-in-the-world. Looking at the intersections of art, health, ecology and science, her practice embraces the messiness of navigating life and dives into concepts of body, care as well as human and non-human interdependencies. Her work takes many different formats, from performance, installation and painting to curation and mediation. She graduated from the MFA Creative Practice at TL Conservatoire London and from the MA art research at University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. She co-curated the program series “How do we care?” at Badischer Kunstverein 2020, as well as the touring exhibition “Critical Zones. In Search of a Common Ground”, initiated by the ZKM | Karlsruhe, the Goethe-Institut South Asia, and Bruno Latour. Her recent exhibitions include “SOMA CITY” at We are Awareness in Art, Zurich; “Sensing P.: Kakosmos (after B. Latour)”, in “Every food is a landscape”, Milan and “Exploring notions of care: a performative workshop” at La Loge, Brussels. In her current research project, Mira Hirtz investigates the dialogue between her own experience of chronic health conditions, healing and art, developing a series of participatory scores, performative installations and collections of research.