Becoming Native
Evamaria Schaller
Becoming Native – Performative Photography
3 Sept. – 2 Oct., 2021
Opening: 2 Sept. 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Opening hours: Thurs & Fri 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., Sat 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
‘We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors – we borrow it from our children.’
CHIEF SEATTLE, report from the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, 1991
Where do we come from?
Why are we here?
Where are we going?
The hype about human DNA, which, at the same time, is storing our most intimate data in obscure data bases; data mining used as a weapon in the war of digital network mines… At the same time, the reductio ad absurdum of a white-dominate racial doctrine.
These questions were the motivating force for the photo performance "Becoming Native" which was created during the lengthy recovery process from a serious illness. It is based on DNA tests and the obvious realisation that we are genetically not linked to a single ethnicity and my desire to find identity in the borderless genetic globalisation.
How far can I go as an artist in appropriating characteristics of other identities seemingly rooted in my DNA, even when performed with the utmost appreciation and respect?
Evamaria Schaller, 2021
Evamaria Schaller (Austria), born in Graz / Austria, lives and works in Cologne and Austria. Until 2011 she studied video art and performance with Prof. Julia Scher and Prof. Matthias Müller at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. After her graduation she received numerous prizes, awards and scholarships for her artistic work, which oscillates between performance and video art. In her live-performances she deals with everyday actions and their absurdity. Schaller‘s own body is her measure. In her explorations she reflects and intervenes with site specific conditions and creates actions or installations through simple, clear gestures. She transforms and decontextualises daily materials or found footage.
Evamaria Schaller is part of the artist duo Jellyspoor (with Andreas Gehlen) and co-founded the PAErsche Aktionslabor in Cologne (2010) with which she initiates international performance art meetings. The gift, hospitality and encounter are important gestures she likes to share through PAErsche and performance art itself. She describes her artistic process as an attempt to translate “time into images in space”.
She shows her art projects internationally. She has participated in various exhibitions, performance art festivals and encounters (a.o.) in China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Morocco, Turkey, Poland, Russia, France and Austria.
