Bio
Vida Simon?s work has been presented internationally, in a wide range of contexts ? galleries, hotel rooms, storefronts, theatres, rooftops, a former synagogue? She recently performed at the ZAZ Festival of Performance Art (Tel Aviv & Haifa, Israel), the 9th International Performance Art Festival (Giswil, Switzerland), and created Cantastoria, a multi-layered performance-installation in a former horse stable (Montreal, Canada). In 2012 she has projects in Slovakia, Poland, Wales, Germany, and Canada. As an extension of her practice, she often collaborates with other artists and holds art workshops. Vida is from Montreal and is currently living on Fogo Island: an island off of the island of Newfoundland.
Statement
Through drawing, writing, objects, gesture, and sound, I create context-sensitive performances and installations. My work explores the tension between intimacy and theatricality, often playing with scale extremes, for example through live projected drawings or situating the body in relation to miniature worlds. My work is improvisational and questions how to compose a space in which the audience may empathize, or even become part of the tableau. Recent performances have incorporated live drawing, for example drawing with charcoal over a period of several days, or on an overhead projector ? the moving image unfolding right before the viewer?s eyes. For me drawing is the most direct form to express my interests in visual storytelling, elemental materiality, and gesture. I approach drawing as an embodied language, a process of excavation, a way of wandering and wondering.