Mats Staub | Research Trip

March 2020 — Multi-Disciplinary

In March 2020, Swiss artist Mats Stuab will spend two weeks in Tanzania based at our Regional Mobility partner Nafasi Art Space to develop content for his ongoing Death and Birth in My Life project. The project was initiated in 2018 during a research trip in South Africa, and last year Mats spent time in Bamako, Mali to add West African and Islamic stories to the project. A version of the project with stories from the region will be presented in Makhanda, South Africa, later in the year in the context of the National Arts Festival.

Death & Birth approaches universal themes through individual experiences and in relation to local contexts. In every place it is presented it brings people together to talk to each other about their experiences of death and birth – while also presenting conversations from other regions and establishing connections from one side of the world to another. In Death & Birth Mats brings two people together in a clearly defined space and enables them to engage each other in conversation while he is present as an invisible companion. The participants are filmed both speaking and listening – so visitors to the installation will be able to look at the faces of both the speakers and the listeners shown on two screens.