Opera and Steel

Frozen in a sculpture

Especially for Performatik17, Grace Schwindt creates a performance for the theatre stage. She portrays the dilemma of an ornithologist studying the effects of oil pollution on seabirds. The victims he records symbolise the efficiency of capitalism.

Schwindt creates a poignant sketch of the relationship between capitalism and morality – and the individual experience in this kind of setting. She draws inspiration from Bernini’s 17th century Apollo and Daphne, a sculptural group in which a single moment in a story is frozen in a marble sculpture. Starting from the dynamic of this frozen scene, she creates a striking overall picture with music, song and acrobatics.

• Grace Schwindt is well known for her performances and films, in which she integrates sculptures and drawings. Her work deals with historical events and social relationships. In 2012, she was artist-in-residence at Wiels. She is represented by the Antwerp-based gallery Zeno X. During Performatik15 she presented the film Only a Free Individual Can Create a Free Society and an exhibition of recent video work at Argos.