Artist Isabel Rohner displays new work in Yemen

Isabel Rohner

A newly emerging art form is performance art- Isabel Rohner is one such artist who creates living pictures. She was born in Switzerland, and at twenty one she studied sculpture and drawing in the Czech Republic. After completing her master’s degree, she returned to Swaziland to found the Schweizer Spitzen-Laboratorien group, a group who performs a show based on a specific theme every month.

Mrs. Rohner came to Yemen to perform her new work, the Orient- Myth, which was inspired by Yemeni landscapes in the German House with the support of Pro Helveta and the German Embassy, Sana’a on Tuesday December 2nd, and she will continue performing until December 17th.

In a round table discussion before opening night, Mrs. Rohner displayed many of her previous performances on DVD, and said that many of her works are related to communication for instance. In one of her works, she took a huge red loud speaker and held it behind her ear and just listened. She also discussed her taboo work, for instance when she put sculptures made from potato’s and shaped like animals on the floor. She then made the audience believe she would use a spoon to throw an odd looking smelly brown substance at them, though she ended up throwing it at the wall.

Another of her ideas for performance art involved an old hospital, and a piece of work using operations as the theme. Her work involved her in an operating room dressed as a patient and putting pig organs in plastic bags- because they look more like human organs – and then connecting this contraption to her stomach with pipes. She then reclined on a ladder, and for about half an hour simulated being in a real operation with tubes running in and out of her body. To complete the picture, sculptures which looked like ribs were hung above her.

Advisor to the Minister of Culture Mr. Hakim al-Akel, who attended the round table expressed his happiness that such a performance was being held in Yemen. 

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