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45 mins
Alexandra Sheherazade Salem is interested in the notions of transformation and vulnerability as a vector of creation and emancipation. Performing an encounter between poetry and choreography, the artist weaves the sensitivity of an emotional embodiment. She studies the body in relation to memory and explores nurturing gestures through the embodiment of gestures and movements in relation to her cultural heritage and/or daily life, which she diverts into a ritual of care.
« In a desire for affirmations and an affirmation of desires, Alexandra Sheherazade Salem proclaims a blossoming: « spring is my favorite season » ». – Matthias, in charge of Les Urbaines 2022 communicatio
Concept, choreography, performance: Alexandra Sheherazade Salem
Music: ven3mo, shera ziza (samples credits: Lava Dome – Yoshimitsu; Massacooramaan – Dancehall Princess; The Pussycat Dolls – Buttons)
Costume: Julia Botelho
Assistantship: jpp
Alexandra Sheherazade Salem (b.1996) is an artist and performer currently living and working in Geneva, Switzerland. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in visual arts from HEAD — Geneva where she is currently pursuing her Master’s degree to be completed in June 2023. Her recent work has been presented in various local spaces and festivals in Switzerland such as Les Urbaines, Forde, Fête du Slip, Plattform22.
Alexandra Sheherazade’s work combines the practices of writing, performance, video and installation. She is interested in the notions of transformation and vulnerability as a vehicle for creation and emancipation. Her work focuses on memory, the expression of the intimate and the navigation of body/bodies in the intersection of identity as a way to connect and interweave collective narratives.
Writing holds an important place in Alexandra’s artistic practice. She always begins with collecting and writing text – which take the form of a compilation of poetry, sentences which resemble to slogans or punchlines, narratives based on autobiographic events – and then works to find a form for them such as a sound piece, a performance, a video. She draws inspiration from her childhood memories in the context of growing up in a multicultural household in Switzerland, from her inherited feeling of longing by having a family scattered in different countries and continents, from daily thoughts, gestures and struggles, and intimacy as ways of remembering with words. Anchored in a perspective of questioning the power relations, Alexandra explores the act of nurturing through a poetic and vulnerable approach as many ways of theorizing feelings and of apprehending the intimate as political. In her performative practice, Alexandra explores an emotional embodiment and seeks to expose traces of the memory by the study of the body in relation to memory – the traces left on the body. In her current research, she explores the concepts of cycle and repetition and the power of transformation, shedding light on the notion of belief and transmission.
The show on the first evening (15th April) is a separatistic evening for people of the global majority/BIPOC. So please only book that evening if you identify with those terms. The show on the 16th of April is open for all. ---- We, Adam and Amina Seid Tahir, see how the terms BIPOC and people of color are less fortunate in their attempts of combating white supremacist andimperialistic ideologies, since they form in relation to whiteness (those ”not of color”) and therefore keeps whiteness as the norm. We rather use the term people of the global majority since we aren’t interested in identifying in relation to whiteness or white supremacy. ---- The term Global Majority was coined by Rosemary Campbell-Stephens. ”Global Majority refers to people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities’.” 1 This term was created for people of the global majority to not have to identify in relation to whiteness and to emphasize the fact that these groups make up the majority of the world’s population, specifically 80%. ---- The reason for choosing to use the term BIPOC despite this, is because we’re aware that the term people of the global majority hasn’t received as widespread attention yet. And since our main goal for this showing is to welcome our siblings from the global majority for a showing without the presence of a white colonial gaze, we choose to use the term that seems to be most commonly used in this festivals locality. ---- 1. Global Majority; Decolonising the language and Reframing the Conversation about Race” by Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, 2020