HItStories - Maïté Chénière & Anna Tje — Codes to keep burning
(2021)

HitStories is a programme of performative events and workshops curated by flight of fancy and taking place at HIT, a Geneva-based art space, between May 2021 and May 2022. Each episode of HitStories highlights, over a few days, the practice of an artist at HIT. Events (conversations, workshops, etc.) aimed at deepening the research carried out by the artists accompany their performative intervention.

A year and a half after the second edition of the Archipelagogo Club at the Théâtre de l’Usine in January 2020, a performance fuelled by resilience and flamboyance as the first lockdown was approaching, Anna Tje and Maïté Chénière have continued for HitStories their exploration of the use of sound and electronic voice as a space of emancipation and healing for archipelagic bodies.

Through their conversations, the artists have nurtured an occasional practice of sharing mantras, films and music, as if to support each other at a distance. Their work, which is situated between performance and immersive installation, took the form of a duo performance at HIT. The performance was a testimony of their correspondence, conceived as a poetic dialogue between soundscape and enchantment, during which they shared the affirmations resulting from their discussions, their favourite films or readings.

After their performance at HIT, their intervention continued to inhabit the exhibition space in the form of a sound installation, conceived as a meditative space where participants bodies could lie down on cushions in the shape of plum stones.

HitStories is supported by Pro Helvetia, la Loterie Romande, la Ville de Genève, la fondation Leenaards, le Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain, DCS, Genève and la Fondation du Jubilé de la Mobilière Suisse Société Coopérative.