ZimZum in Taffeta

A durational performance with video projection, 2001

The performer is wrapped in pink taffeta and lies immobile, as if in a cocoon, within the
wooden beam structure of the gallery. 

Alongside the live performance a video is projected onto one of the walls of the space, which appears to extend the floor, rhythmically raising and lowering its horizon line and giving a sense that the space itself is breathing.

The title ZimZum acts as a linguistic description of the rhythm of breath and makes reference to a concept in the cabbalistic tradition. 

ZimZum, or tzim-tzum, proposes the contraction (of God) as a process, which generates a creative instance as well as a void, and which sucks in and destroys at the end of a cycle.

Being both the subject of breath and subject to breath the performer surrenders to this ambivalent condition.

Performed at:

Solo show, Piano Nobile, Geneva, Switzerland.

3rd/4th February 2001, 11.00 – 19.00hrs

Also installed in this show If you had spoken, video (2001)