Biography

Darya Efrat makes performances and installations that move with, between, and in relation to spaces, materials and other bodies. Emerging from violent histories and multi-generational migration, the works attempt to reconcile questions concerning identity and belonging and offer unconventional encounters between the audience, the artist, the work, and the space. They are presented and performed primarily in public spaces and nurtured by many people along the way, including at Columbia University in New York’s visual arts and anthropology departments at the Stockholm University of the Arts masters program in New Performative Practices. 

Artistic project

Meeting in the Middle is a participatory performance work for public spaces. It involves placing a sack (bag) filled with recycled building blocks and inviting passersby to join in a joint construction. The work seeks to ask what can be built together and to enable a dialogue and encounter around the subject. It is a work that deals with the modern city as a place in constant construction and deconstruction- both physically and socially.
What is built during these encounters, will eventually be dismantled, but it is the experience of collective construction that will be remembered.
Through the means of construction material, passers-by are invited to experience unbridged encounters- moments in which they could meet one another through the act of building and rebuilding. 

Format: street performance/happening 

Size of audience: intended for passersby- a spontaneous audience. Small-scale interactions

Specific location: crowded square

Timing / duration: day installation- 30min each happening.