Andrea Saemann
About the artist
Andrea Saemann
Performer, curator and networker, Andrea Saemann prefers to work within self-initiated artistic movements and presentation platforms. Between 1997 and 2000, she organized an artist-run space in Basel called Kaskadenkondensator. From 2002 to 2012, she developed a tool for activating the history of performance art through the project Performance Saga – Interviews, Performances, Events, dedicated to pioneering women in performance art. Between 2011 and 2017, she coordinated the Swiss Performance Art Award, advocating for greater institutional support and funding for performance art. In 2014, she co-founded PANCH, a professional network of performance artists in Switzerland. Since 2014, she has curated the annual International Performance Art Giswil, a performance art festival held in the Swiss mountains.
Archive in Progress
This performance addresses the role of the naked body in the early history of performance art as a medium. It highlights the ambivalence between the desire for performances to reach future audiences through documentation and performance art archives, and the fact that such works inevitably acquire new meanings when encountered in entirely different contexts.