Start of the season and two questions for Theres Indermaur and Stephanie Müller

Dear visitors to Gessnerallee, dear artists

This Thursday, we kick off the new season with our programme focus on ‘(Un)gentle Learning’. The interactive installation ‘Stars Are Never Sleeping, Dead Ones and the Living’ will form the spatial centrepiece of the next two weekends at Gessnerallee. Come visit us and discover this immersive work of art. For more background information, we asked the two scenographers Theres Indermaur and Stephanie Müller two questions about their work. You can read their answers after the programme preview.

‘(Un)gentle Learning’ programme of the week

11th (premiere), 13th, 14th, 15th September, 8 pm each evening

‘Fourth Eye, 4.40 AM’ by Ceylan Öztrük

A multi-layered stage work about dawn and the twilight state of the mind, in which states of being manifest and shift again. Artist Ceylan Öztrük uses disorientation as a method of exploration that reveals the fragility of constructed self-images and the architecture of spaces of thought and perception. Duration: approx. 60 minutes.

Information: The premiere is already sold out. Secure your tickets now for 13, 14 or 15 September. To the tickets

Accessibility information: Relaxed Performance

12 September, 8 pm, and 13 September, 6 pm

Pas Moi by Diana Anselmo

Italian artist Diana Anselmo is finally coming to the Gessnerallee with her acclaimed lecture performance.

Using the development of the first devices for generating, transmitting and recording sound as a starting point, Anselmo analyses the close link between technological innovation and normative ideas about bodies from a deaf perspective.

An evening not to be missed. The guest performance is made possible by a collaboration between the Santarcangelo Festival (Italy), the Gessnerallee and Pro Helvetia. Duration: 60 minutes.

Information: The shows have limited capacity, so we recommend securing your tickets as soon as possible. To the tickets

Information on language and accessibility: Relaxed performance, LIS (Italian sign language), surtitles in ENG and DE. Interpretation in DSGS (Swiss German Sign Language)

14 September, 4.30 pm

‘Muscles Made of Plastic – a crip-queer reading’ by Kay Matter

The reading from Kay Matter's intuitive and moving debut invites chronically ill people and interested individuals to engage in conversation in a relaxed setting. The reading is not only intended as a space for listening, but also for sharing lived experiences.

Information: The on-site reading has limited capacity, so we recommend securing your ticket as soon as possible.

Anyone who would like to attend via Zoom can participate free of charge directly via this link.

Accessibility information: Relaxed performance, hybrid event, Covid-safe space

Background information on ‘Stars Are Never Sleeping, Dead Ones and the Living’

Gessnerallee: Flowing fabrics, round rooms, a multitude of light fixtures and the soft splashing of water. Your installation is an interactive, sensory spatial experience and, at the same time, an inclusive place of tranquillity during the programme focus ‘(Un)gentle Learning’. What inspired you?

Theres Indermaur and Stephanie Müller: Questions of meaning and sensuality are the main components of our work and inspired us to develop a space that fundamentally deals with our senses and plays with stimulation and reduction of stimuli. The result are room-within-a-room situations in which visitors are invited to focus on a particular sense or consciously not to use it.

Our own senses, as tools for being in the world, also confront us with the question of not being in the world and build a bridge to the big questions of life, which we must negotiate anew in all phases of life and which ultimately also make us aware of our own transience and mortality. Moments of transition, mourning and learning often leave us feeling small and vulnerable. David Bowie's song ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ reminds us of this feeling between humility and wonder.

The installation was developed according to numerous accessibility criteria – in collaboration with people with lived experience. The space is wheelchair accessible, there are low-stimulation areas, a tactile guidance system on the floor, a touch model, stim toys and noise-cancelling headphones for neurodivergent people. What was this creative process like for you?

The north wing of Gessnerallee is a long room with many columns. This condition, combined with our desire to fill the entire room with a walk-in, sensory installation, meant that we focused particularly on wayfinding within the space. How could we guide our disabled and non-disabled visitors safely and clearly through this challenging space? Another difficulty was how to create a space where everyone knew what they could and couldn't do with as few rules and as little communication as possible. It was important to us to create a sense of magic in the space and for visitors to feel immersed and at home in this atmosphere.

Preliminary discussions were very important for us during the development process in order to find out what different wishes and needs there were for the space. During the construction phase, site visits with people who had lived experience were also a great help, because we couldn't imagine all situations based on our own ideas. Examples of accessibility measures in museums and public spaces also provided inspiration. The process of incorporating different perspectives and needs into our project was an exciting challenge because we repeatedly reached a point where we had to ask ourselves what the structures of the theatre actually are. Respectively, that these often function in a very visual way and therefore a solution would be better for one group of people, but would then no longer work for another group. For us, this sometimes meant compromising in the design. This multi-perspective experience enriches our own artistic language and creates new ideas and aesthetics.

Newspaper

‘Die schmerzhafte Zärtlichkeit des Übergangs’ (only in German)

Dramaturge Isabel Gatzke gives us an in-depth insight into the programme focus ‘(Un)gentle Learning’. To the article

Speaking of newspapers: tomorrow, at the start of the season, the fifth issue of our newspaper will be published! Order your copy to be delivered directly to your home by simply sending an email to zeitung@gessnerallee.ch.

We are looking forward to the first weekend of ‘(Un)gentle Learning’.

The Gessnerallee team