<< Gärtnergasse

Body Time is a multi-layered installation and choreography by Mia Sanchez, encircling the whole exhibition space. Before entering the pulsating room, we see a warm glow behind the closed glass door. We cannot access the environment immediately but are led to the back door that suggests an invitation to a backstage of an unknown performance. Through this, the artist prevents us from experiencing a frontal clash with the artworks. And before we know it, we’re there.

Sanchez invites us to a setting where we could embed and consider our personal clocks, surrounded by soft sculptures that mimic the power of attraction possessed by flowers. The soft sculptures play with the desire of wanting to lower oneself down, sit and listen to the meditative voiceover of Sanchez’s video work For Seasons and One in between each. The video is a collage comprised of personal experiences of weather change and various social surroundings. The footage is direct and relatable and shows traces of transit, that Sanchez gathered in places like her hometown Basel and neighbouring cities – Bern, Munich, etc. The story spoken in a slow voice, accompanied by a clocklike rhythmic beat, could be seen as a structured collection of impressions amassed during one year, sectioned into multiple blurred seasons. The disembodied voice is seeking a connection, however the work itself is questioning expectations of what a body should be capable of doing, regardless of weather conditions. The subject becomes ungraspable, sliding through different locations, fabrics and conversations. Language is communal but there is no community.

Sanchez sees seasons as a super structure, governing our daily routines and thoughts, which she stages in Gärtnergasse, taking the rhythm and the passing by of time into her own hands, and openly speaking about it. By revealing the pace of life that seasons cause, she exposes not only our dependency on them, but also their beauty and simplicity.

– Handbag