The research residency at Kunst Raum Mitte has been awarded to Berlin-based artist Anna Zett. During her two-month residency, Zett will investigate forms and practices of ‘ritual association’—performative events that are formally, affectively, and physically concrete, yet remain open on the level of meaning. Zett’s work examines performative actions from the late period of the GDR and searches for socio-political parallels to Chinese performance art from the upheaval years of 1989/90, which is currently being received anew in China against the backdrop of advanced censorship.

Anna Zett: “In view of the current confinement of thought in national contexts, systemic destabilization, and political repression, my artistic research focuses on associative connections across historical and geopolitical thresholds.”

Building on her research residencies and film screenings in Beijing, Fushun, and Shanghai, as well as her many years of work on her participatory format Post-Socialist Group Improvisation, Zett’s research project explores ‘autonomous’ performance art as a physical and relational self-experience. Her artistic interest lies in the relationships documented in the historical materials of the former galerie weisser elefant, as well as the resulting personal connections and associations with current or historical conflicts.

Anna Zett (*Leipzig) is an artist currently living and working in Berlin. Her analytical narrative practice, which appeals to all the senses, questions dominant structures of meaning and creates space for open dialog, intensive encounters, and free association. This approach results in a variety of outcomes, including films, texts, performances, radio plays, touchable installations, and participatory live formats. Since the release of her first videos in 2014, Zett’s work has been shown in diverse contexts, including contemporary art, research, film, and performance, both in self-organized spaces and formal institutions (e.g., Serpentine Gallery London, Berlinale Forum Expanded, Berlinische Galerie, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Whitney Museum New York, Goethe Institute Beijing, Manifesta 14 Priština). In 2018, Zett began exploring her own East German perspective. Through research in the Berlin archive of the GDR opposition, she created the series Deponie and the archive thriller Es gibt keine Angst (2023). Her publications include two experimental radio plays (DLF 2015, BR 2017) and a collection of literary texts (Divided Publishing, 2019).

The research residency at Kunst Raum Mitte has been awarded to Berlin-based artist Anna Zett. During her two-month residency, Zett will investigate forms and practices of ‘ritual association’—performative events that are formally, affectively, and physically concrete, yet remain open on the level of meaning. Zett’s work examines performative actions from the late period of the GDR and searches for socio-political parallels to Chinese performance art from the upheaval years of 1989/90, which is currently being received anew in China against the backdrop of advanced censorship.

Anna Zett: “In view of the current confinement of thought in national contexts, systemic destabilization, and political repression, my artistic research focuses on associative connections across historical and geopolitical thresholds.”

Building on her research residencies and film screenings in Beijing, Fushun, and Shanghai, as well as her many years of work on her participatory format Post-Socialist Group Improvisation, Zett’s research project explores ‘autonomous’ performance art as a physical and relational self-experience. Her artistic interest lies in the relationships documented in the historical materials of the former galerie weisser elefant, as well as the resulting personal connections and associations with current or historical conflicts.

Anna Zett (*Leipzig) is an artist currently living and working in Berlin. Her analytical narrative practice, which appeals to all the senses, questions dominant structures of meaning and creates space for open dialog, intensive encounters, and free association. This approach results in a variety of outcomes, including films, texts, performances, radio plays, touchable installations, and participatory live formats. Since the release of her first videos in 2014, Zett’s work has been shown in diverse contexts, including contemporary art, research, film, and performance, both in self-organized spaces and formal institutions (e.g., Serpentine Gallery London, Berlinale Forum Expanded, Berlinische Galerie, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Whitney Museum New York, Goethe Institute Beijing, Manifesta 14 Priština). In 2018, Zett began exploring her own East German perspective. Through research in the Berlin archive of the GDR opposition, she created the series Deponie and the archive thriller Es gibt keine Angst (2023). Her publications include two experimental radio plays (DLF 2015, BR 2017) and a collection of literary texts (Divided Publishing, 2019).