Iskra Podanova, “Confession of Sigh”, performance

28 March 2025, 19:30


BERLIN, S&T RESIDENCY, ARCHIVE



In a world that extracts articulation, optimises breath, and mechanises every motion, what if we surrendered to the unspoken—to that which refuses to be anything but air escaping? What if, instead of speaking, we sighed?

Drawing from her research on Utopia, Iskra experiments with the sigh—not as function, not as failure, but as a fleeting event that unsettles. Here, breath is neither optimised nor contained; it is intra-acted, archived as residue, and extra-acted, exceeding the body’s borders. It drifts, it lingers, it leaks into the architecture of the moment, revealing a language older than words—where collapse is not crisis, nor repair, but a quiet, exquisite rebellion.

The practice of sigh is the quiet laugh of the tragic. 

Iskra Prodanova’s residency and event was supported by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)
Free admission
Language: English
Duration: 30 min

Doors open at 19:00. Performance starts at 19:30.

Iskra Prodanova is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher with a background in contemporary dance and performance art. Her latest research explores (inner) UTOPIA as resistance and resilience, investigating art, identity, memory, colonial legacies, collective healing, and justice through the lens of the present. She focuses on liminality, slowing down, (un)learning, and listening to embrace new ways of being.
RESIDENCY EVENT: Ye Wuji, date 17th July to be confirmed