Not the uncanny, or necessarily the strange, but the weird as that which is out of place, a refusal in plain sight, a blurring of boundaries and relations. By challenging dominant perspectives, which have historically framed what is the “correct” narrative, weirdness becomes a space of knowledge production. Shedhalle Zürich invites a selection of artists and thinkers to imagine together how weirdness can create alternative and inclusive futures. “Protozone11: it’s weird” is a multi-format project, developing as an experiment in exhibition making, performance presentation and educational exchange.
Since the first Protozone back in 2020, it has been established an alternative model for exhibition making. Within it, we are continuously expanding and renegotiating the boundaries of artwork and reception, how to gather in public and our institutional roles. We remain receptive and porous in our relationship to our audiences and continue to learn from them. At the same time, we remain in the process of defining our mission, questioning the relevance of art production during a historical moment on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Shedhalle has once again opened its doors to process-based scenarios, inviting previous and new collaborators to inhabit the space over the next nine weeks. “Protozone11: it’s weird” opens with choreographer Angela Goh first in a suite of three weekends of performance with her work, Body Loss, and the European premiere of her new film, The Concert (2022), commissioned by the Sydney Opera House. She remains in-residence at Shedhalle, bringing in-process performance works for the two following weekends. Staying on view throughout the program we will have Michael Portnoy who invites us to look at sex as dance and comedy, presenting the film Progressive Touch (2020); Kris Lemsalu who appeared on Opening night with a performance in collaboration with choreographer Maria Metsalu, and has left the traces of this phantasmagorical and sentimental intervention to remain at Shedhalle; and Autumn Knight has returned to Shedhalle for the third year in a row, developing on work begun in the SHED in 2021, bringing the virtual work-in-process to our walls. Finally, Pontus Pettersson, artist-in-residence 2022, returns to Shedhalle on July 1st, to reconfigure the entire set up of the space with his own weird project pancor poetics.
Over the course of its nine-week manifestation, curator Michelangelo Miccolis, producer & moderator nick von kleist and guest editor Lisa Andreani will develop and serially publish The Weird Reader. This slow publication opens new and weird spaces for access and engagement with the works and processes of “Protozone11: it’s weird.” It uses the processes presented as its foundation for us to both listen to and build on, collectively.
at Shedhalle Zürich
until August 6, 2023