In 2009 I have been invited to participate to a Performance Art Festival in Switzerland…not as photographer but as performance artist.
I loved the challenge but I asked only one condition that I would collaborate with a local artist and friend Sonia Rickli.
Every evening for the four days of the Festival, Sonia Rickli and Manuel Vason collaborated towards the aim of becoming an image.
Each image was offered to the audience to be documented and recorded through their eyes' retina. Each image was an attempt to find a connection between 2 bodies and 2 minds.
On the first night we invited the audience to sit on the main auditorium of the Theatre de Usine and witness the light changing while myself and Sonia were suspended and immobilised on rope. The performance lasted nearly 30 minutes.
On the second evening we invited the audience in the Theatre auditorium and then asked them to exit from the emergency exit where they encountered myself and Sonia on the table. After a while the audience follow the instruction of carrying the table around the city as a procession…
Photo documentation by Patrick Gillieron Lopreno
On the third evening we performed on the bridge that connect the financial area of Geneva with the residential one. We performed a breathing exercise in which dressed as scuba divers we were exchanging oxygen. A water pump was collecting water from the river so to create a fountain.
On the four night we performed on top of a water barrier, turning a large size mirror creating reflection on the building around. Like on a theatre we had lighting of different colour to illuminate the performance that lasted around 20 minutes.
