Josephine Baan
ecology - education - gender - performance - writing
Josephine Baan is an artist and educator based between Zurich and Rotterdam. They are interested in the complexities of collectivity and engage in art, education and collaboration as means to initiate creative survival. Josephine performs with their body and voice and makes installations, props, scripts and choreographies that explore the spaces and relationships between the flesh and the word, human and non-human bodies, and change and preservation. Materially and performatively thinking between things, beings and situations, they consciously switch perspective to influence roles and readings of power and control in relation to affection and gestures of care.
Their practice is closely linked to their work as educator, which is influenced by radical pedagogy and non-hierarchical, collaborative methods. They are a founding member of Rotterdam-based educational collective Friendly Stalking. As of 2020, Josephine co-runs Zurich-based School of Commons, a community-based initiative dedicated to the development of knowledge decentered.