Tension
Performance, 2023

In collaboration with Maria Motyleva

Duration 35 minutes
Blue thread 80 meters

Auguetbrücke, Muri bei Bern

Standing on opposite banks of a river, two performers stretch a thin thread between them. The action takes place on the Aare River in Muri bei Bern. The line spans more than 40 metres and is held in a state of attention and balance. The performance lasts approximately half an hour as a quiet, meditative act.

A fragile line emerges across distance — a temporary bridge where separation and connection coincide.

The work unfolds as a minimal action embedded in the landscape. The thread is sustained through attention, balance, and mutual awareness. Even the smallest shifts in the environment affect its state, so tension does not appear as a fixed condition, but as a relation continuously made and unmade.

At the same time, the thread can be understood as a gesture of repair: a large stitch cast across the river, suturing what is separated. The action follows the logic of mending — a careful process in which rupture and distance are held together, if only temporarily.

Tension considers connection not as a stable form, but as an ongoing effort. It suggests that relation requires maintenance, and that proximity exists only through sustained attention across distance.