Braun&Duan-Performance

unheimlich da-und wo?

Sarah Braun+Yingmei Duan
Performance/Video
www.Yingmei-art.com

Sarah Braun "sisi eko"("Lagos girl") 12.10.2006

International Tradefair Complex, Lagos/Nigeria

Zwischen den abwechselnden Live Auftritten
werden ihre Videos gezeigt.

Sarah Braun
I am interested in simpler forms of the
complex language we use.
I also deal with emotions, twisted and stretched.
I open the arena for the passing highlights of everyday life.
The grotesque aspect of life is very important for me.
It leads to a discharge of the tension that I want to create in the room.

Yingmei Duan
Three Performances

Friend

Duration: 8 min.(dependent on the space)
Performance with Claudio Torsa in Braziers International Artists Workshop, Oxfordshire, England, 2003
Photogrph: Martina Kienow

I come from China, which has a very different culture. There is no sex education in the school system. Before I was 21 years old, I really knew nothing about sex and I had never even spoken the word. I had a lot of questions in my mind at that time, for example: ? Why does a woman become pregnant??, ? Where do I come from??, ? Why do parents have so many arguments??. This obtained until the day a girlfriend asked me what I knew about sex. I have been very busy since that day.

live Performance:
In summer a naked man stands in a large field. He is looking ahead. There is a very beautiful bird sound in the field and a big sun, sometimes there is wind. I appear in the distance and approach the man. At first the public is unsure what to do since I am so far away. With time, the viewer sees that I?m wearing a pink dress and big glasses. I am looking for something with a magnifying glass and go stealthily towards the man. Although reticent at first, I am very curious about the penis and check it thoroughly through the magnifying glass. After I have finished my intensive studies of the penis, I leave thoughtfully.

Clown
Duration: approx. 3minutes
(dependent on the space and the audience)
Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, Germany, 2004Photograph: Viola Yesiltac

I have made up my face like a clown. I am grinning stiffly at the
audience. With a contorted animal-like face, I laugh right into
peoples faces, moving past them very slowly. The feeling conveyed is
that the situation is anything but funny.

From face to face
Duration: approx. 5 minutes
Der Offene Kunstverein e.V. Potsdam, 2005
Photograph: Zhao hongli

I stand in front of the audience, with my large pair of glasses on the floor nearby. Slowly, I move towards somebody in the audience and stop. When we are almost touching noses, I look the person straight in the eye. Sometimes I have to stand on tiptoe if the person is very tall. To look into the eyes of those who are seated, I have to crouch down. As soon as I have looked at everybody, I return to my place. I look for my glasses, and then put them on, I smile...

Yingmei Duan
was born 1969 in China.
After her study in
Petroleum Exploration in China she began to work as a freelance artist
for several years. From 1993 to 1995 she was artistically active in the
East Village in Beijing. To add one meter to an anonymous mountain is
one of the most well-known performances, in which she participated in.
Until 1998 she works in China freelance.

To develop herself artistically, she went to Germany in
1998. Until 2004 she studied performance under Prof. Marina Abramovic
and film under Prof. Birgit Hein at the Hochschule fuer Bildende
Kuenste in Braunschweig and finished her diploma last year. Since 2005
sie has also studied Kunst in Aktion under Prof. Christoph
Schlingensief.

During her study in Germany she participated in a
multiplicity of IPG exhibitions organized by Marina Abramovic (e.g. Recycling the Future at the Biennale in Venice 2003; Persistent and
Gradual Loss of Self control in Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam 2005)
influenced her development and also the workshops Cleaning The House.
Likewise the participation in numerous national and international
exhibition, projects, and workshops (e.g. Braziers Internationally
Artists Workshop in England 2003). There was lots of exchange of
experience among artists from all over the world and interesting
community projects were developed. She could take up important impulses
through a co-operation with other artists, which positively affected
her own artistic work.

Besides she could present her artistic work in single
exhibitions, whereby the 26 performances of the exhibition in the OKS
gallery(26 days in OKS) in Braunschweig were very important; In the
single exhibition Playing with 14 rooms 2005 sie connects performance
and installation.

Sarah Braun
Lives and works in Berlin.
1995 - 2004 studies of fine arts at the HBK in Braunschweig.
In class of Marina Abramovic (Performance/Video)
and of Mara Mattuschka.
Diploma in 2004

Nollywood Day, Independent Film Lounge Studio  Berlin 2007
Djah Djah meets Braun, Goethe Institut  Lagos 2007
Uwa Gba Oto (The World is Naked, Int. Tradefair Complex  Lagos 2007
Heimatschorle, allgirls galerie  Berlin 2006
Ladies are in the house, Projektraum DKB Rosenthaler Straße  Berlin 
2005
Bodypower Bodyplay, Württembergischer Kunstverein  Stuttgart 2002
Pret a porter, Viafarini  Milano 2002
Transart Festival, Franzensfeste  Brixen 2002
Abramovic Class, Museu de Arte Moderna  Santiago de Compostela 2002
Marking the Territory, Irish Museum of Moden Art  Dublin 2001
Real Presence, 25. Mai Museum  Belgrad 2001
Visible Differences, Hebbel Theater  Berlin2000
Grand Prix d´Amour, KuLe  Berlin 1999
Finally, Kunstverein  Hannover 1998


Stipendien:

DAAD- Graduiertenstipendium füer 6 Monate in Lagos/ Nigeria.
Aufenthalt vom 1.6.2006 bis 1.2.2007