Digging
Performance & Land Art, 2023

Authors: Cyril Dériaz, Job Griffijn, Nadja Karpinskaya, Kasia Oleskiewicz, Emmet Ward

Longdurational performance over five days and land art piece
Diameter 4.9 – 5 metres, depth 2 meters

Art interventions in the Kunstraum Zehendermätteli The exhibition Stirring up the soil — a cooperation between the Zehendermätteli, the foundation JETZT KUNST and the Bern Academy of the Arts

The idea of the performance is to dig as deep a hole as possible in five days, thus creating a new land-art object in the park. Each day the work runs from 9am to 5pm. The five-day duration creates a sustained state of attention and responsiveness to the site, where time becomes a material condition of engagement.

Through the notion of “response-ability” (K. Barad), the work frames responsibility as co-produced by artists, environment, and material, where every action generates a reaction. The hole emerges gradually through labour, weather, and resistance of the ground, revealing continuous transformation of both landscape and perception. The resulting void remains temporary and unstable, shaped by human and non-human agency.