How were the projects in Germany organized? How did you choose the works to be presented? 

Anna Gritz, curator at the Haus am Waldsee museum, initiated this project and invited curators Kathleen Reinhardt from the Kolbe Museum and Andrea Niederbuchner from the Sophiensäle to collaborate with her in shaping it. 

This isn’t so much a retrospective in the sense of presenting my work exhaustively or chronologically from 1999 to today. Instead, it’s a curatorial project designed to allow visitors and spectators to discover my practice through its various forms and my formal exploration of perceptual frameworks. 

At the Kolbe Museum, my work is placed in dialogue with that of my predecessors—European modern artists who worked at the intersection of sculpture and performance and used anthropomorphic objects as critical tools. 

It’s fascinating to work with Anna Gritz, Kathleen Reinhardt, Andrea Niederbuchner, and all their and my collaborators because their curatorial approach genuinely allows history to be written in the present, with reflections on both history and art history. 

This is a collaborative effort, and together we selected the works and how they would be articulated to create and narrate this experience in Berlin. The project explores notions of silence, stillness, presence, and reality through physical experiences. 

Born out of a collaboration between Haus am Waldsee, the Georg Kolbe Museum, and the Sophiensæle, the exhibitions "Gisèle Vienne. This Causes Consciousness to Fracture – A Puppet Play" and "Ich weiß, daß ich mich verdoppeln kann. Gisèle Vienne und die Puppen der Avantgarde" have been open in Berlin since last September. One of them notably takes the form of a play. What particularly draws you to staging?

In this case, what I call a play is indeed an exhibition, but I invite visitors to approach it as a theatrical piece because this already shifts their perspective. Changing expectations can help us think differently. By subtitling the exhibition at Haus am Waldsee "a puppet play", I invite museum visitors to engage with it through the lens of theatrical expectations. These expectations are typically associated with movement, narrative, and sound within the specific history of theater. This exhibition encourages visitors to listen to everything spoken within what is termed "silence," which is not silent, and to observe the movements of so-called stillness.

What I call choreography is a semiotics of the body. The observation and listening to bodies and their interactions in space and time is a language that speaks—a language we do not usually learn to read or that is often dismissed as such but is crucial to understand. In reality, we are capable of interpreting all kinds of non-verbal languages if we look and listen closely. My choreographic practice has influenced the way I composed the exhibition. It is a piece that stages what is conveyed through so-called silences and stillness.

I create my works in various settings, such as theaters, operas, museums, and even outdoor spaces. My practice encompasses sculpture, film, photography, puppetry, theater, and choreography as a cohesive body of work. Each workplace and medium involves different cultural and artistic histories, economies, social environments, and expectations. Considering them together aligns with my perception of the world.

Your creations have a powerful visual identity, brought to life by dancers, actors, and puppets. What are your sources of inspiration? How do your projects come to life? 

My sources of inspiration are numerous. My experiences and interactions, the artists I work with, are all collaborators from whom I learn a great deal through our exchanges. Philosophy, literature, cinema, dance, music, and all the arts nourish me—experiencing other works is essential for me. 

Creating, for me, means inventing a methodology of work that allows me to think—and to think in a particular way—based on phenomena and philosophical questions. Questions, desires, anger, and joy are what make me think, move, and create. 

After performances in Berlin, your piece Crowd will be staged at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris. Can you tell us about this work, which brings together fifteen dancers? 

Crowd unfolds the density of the present moment, where past, present, anticipated future, memory construction, and imagination coexist, questioning how the emotional prism influences perception. This piece also explores the physicality of love and the unique perceptual state it can generate. 

Crowd also recounts the underground techno scene of 1990s Berlin—those critical, marginal spaces where new ways of being were attempted. Crowd tells the stories of countercultures, immense and vital reservoirs of creative, intellectual, and political energy. 

Created in 2017, Crowd has become a classic in your repertoire. Do you make your works evolve over time and through performances? 

Yes, works are always in progress and constantly evolving. This is what makes touring so exciting and allows us to work on a piece for years. I believe this also makes the audience's experience far more interesting and moving. 

The performing arts are a living medium that transcends eras and is shaped by our lives. This is the strength of this artistic practice, which is inherently always in motion. 

What are your upcoming projects? After the success of Extra Life, do you already have another piece in mind? 

The book This Causes Consciousness to Fracture, named after the exhibition, was recently published by Haus am Waldsee and Spector Books. This book is an artistic project in itself; we explored choreography and its writing in collaboration with photographer Estelle Hanania, using the book as a medium. It’s a work that ties in with the other artistic experiences presented in Berlin. 

Additionally, I’m working on writing a new piece, which will premiere in December 2026, as well as writing a film. I take a lot of time to create each project, to allow for movement within my process, and this movement requires a great deal of work.