“ANTILOPES [...] transports an emancipatory desire into a universe between laboratory and video game, where physical, social and emotional landscapes are redrawn.”

Nagi Gianni (CH)
is a swiss visual artist based in Geneva, Switzerland. At the core of his work, he stages the human body as an element and as a vehicle to express the complex nature of social relationships.

Nagi Gianni, "Antilopes" rehearsals, Aug'20, Geneva, courtesy of the artist
Nagi Gianni, "Antilopes" rehearsals, Aug'20, Geneva, courtesy of the artist
Nagi Gianni, "Antilopes" sketches, 2019, courtesy of the artist

A FEELING OF VERTIGO (process-excerpt of ANTILOPES) by Nagi Gianni

1. What work are you presenting?
NG: I'm presenting an excerpt of research around my performance piece “Antilopes” which will premiere next year in Arsenic (Lausanne) and Théâtre de l'Usine TU (Geneva). The presentation at schwazerscafé is a situation for one performer with extended legs, exploring different possibilities of grounding and relating to the space.

2. What is your personal approach to your art works?
NG: I'm always starting my projects trough a collision of images, which I then develop to create complex universes as a fluid frame to explore narratives between the body and a specific environment.

3. What is alien to you?
NG: Alien is for me a consciousness of not fitting in, it can also then be a motor to develop new strategies to inhabit a space, a body, finding new perspectives to orient oneself towards different possibilities and realities.

4. How do you change perspective?
NG: I always like to observe animals move and interact with the outer world, there are so many ways of doing so, I think embodying those qualities can really open up emancipatory perspectives and feelings on the self and the the outside.


At the core of his work, Nagi Gianni stages the human body as an element and as a vehicle to express the complex nature of social relationships. In the form of performances, videos and installations, he creates fields of tension among his actors who operate within hybrid, often mythical fantasy worlds, as they cope with existential themes such as love and the struggle for survival. In his performances, Gianni frequently develops experimental settings that function as his laboratory for improvised action and choreography. Props, costumes and masks, projections and sound provide a background for his figures, and at the same time, are mirrors of their respective emotional states. The handcrafted masks are an extension of the characters‘ visual identities, and define the idea of individuality within a certain group or community.

Concept, direction, mask: Nagi Gianni
Performance & co-choreography: Florian Schlessmann
Soundscape: Chienne de Garde
Costume: Nagi Gianni & Irène Schlatter

for more insight into Nagi Gianni's work visit
https://www.nagigianni.com//