What moves us, what makes us move

From the university magazine Zett

"Sliding through the Corridors", 2022, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, detail. Photograph: Björn Allemann

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Author Eva Vögtli

Linda Semadeni works with different media, but her works always involve performance. And even if we just look at her works, we cannot avoid moving, changing position, and taking different directions. Outer movement also induces inner movement. To think, she has to move, says Semadeni. Her art encourages us to think and rethink.

Your work often engages with the statement «I Am Not a Nice Girl» Where does this come from and what does it mean to you personally?

I use the expression «I Am Not a Nice Girl» and every single word as ready-mades that I can work with. It is material that I can perform. By repeating, twisting, stretching and shifting words, they change. I can discard or appropriate them, as well as move on and with them.

  • "Sliding through the Corridors", 2022, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, Detail and Installation view. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Sliding through the Corridors", 2022, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, Detail and Installation view. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Sliding through the Corridors", 2022, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, Detail and Installation view. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Endless love (Blue)", 2023, "Endless love (Pink)", 2023, Ausstellung "Manor Kunstpreis, Linda Semadeni" Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, Detail and Installation view. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Endless love (Blue)", 2023, "Endless love (Pink)", 2023, Ausstellung "Manor Kunstpreis, Linda Semadeni" Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, Detail and Installation view. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Endless love (Blue)", 2023, "Endless love (Pink)", 2023, Ausstellung "Manor Kunstpreis, Linda Semadeni" Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, Detail and Installation view. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Model", 2019, Ausstellung "Scripts", Kirchgasse. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Daumenskulptur", 2020, Bookshop Kunsthalle Zürich. Foto: Björn Allemann
  • "Sommer des Zögerns / Summer of Suspence", 2020, Kunsthalle Zürich, Installation View. Foto: Annik Wetter
  • Video "Untitled", 2020, Ausstellung "Scripts", Kirchgasse. Foto: Björn Allemann
You were recently awarded the 2023 Manor Art Prize. Titled “a feeling, a feeling, a feeling, a feeling,” the publication you created for this occasion consists of a drawing that presents the above phrases and expressions in a disassembled and reassembled order and as fragments. Similar associations seem to run through your work as a common thread. One example is your solo exhibition “Sliding through the Corridors” at Lüneburg’s Halle für Kunst.

Yes, that’s right, my work deals with movement. How do we move today? What moves me? What makes us act? How can I involve myself? I start from such questions. All my work follows a specific rhythm, like the drawing you mentioned, which I have been working on since 2020. It is like going for a walk. It is a performance that my audience can participate in. I focus on how I can bring these thoughts into space, into form. I managed to realize this vision at the Lüneburg exhibition. I think of «Sliding through the Corridors» as a performative sculpture. It unfolds as we move through it, and thus we become a part of it. The sentence sets itself and us in motion, while the work sets the sentence in motion. At the Manor Art Prize show (at the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur), enlarged zoom and back and forth movements became perceptible in the exhibition space. As viewers approached the works, they perceived the sentence’s complex constellations. The eye also featured as an additional element because it is a place where I want to be.

The sentence sets itself and us in motion, while the work sets the sentence in motion

Linda Semadeni
Do you find creating art intuitive or more conceptual?

In my work, intuition follows concept. In «Stopzeichnungen» (2020–2021), for example, I constantly stopped myself while drawing. Every line or stroke is a single action that was repeatedly halted by a previous one. Every stop was also a go, similar to a change of direction. In «Daumenskulptur», I started from a rectangular block of clay that I performed with thumb movements, similar to the movements on a smartphone. I imagined that the «thumb sculpture» represents residues or traces of these movements. I created «Rethinking Structures (Love acts!) » (2020), displayed as part of the «Sommer des Zögerns» exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich, on an iPad and had it printed 3×4 meters. Thus, a small movement became a large one.

Your work is very multi-layered: you work with sculpture, drawing, painting and video, using words and everyday movements in a performative way. Would you describe yourself as a multimedia artist? Or rather as a performer?

My work is performative, and I strive to use the appropriate medium. I work from a script.

Short bio

Linda Semadeni (*1985 in Bern) lives and works in Zurich. She completed her BA in Fine Arts at Zurich University of the Arts in 2015 by spending an Erasmus semester at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 2022, her first institutional solo exhibition was held at the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg. She was awarded the 2023 Manor Art Prize, which involved a solo exhibition at the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, as well as a publication titled a «feeling, a feeling, a feeling, a feeling». In 2024, her work will be shown in a group exhibition at the Bonner Kunstverein.