‘the public sleeping performance’
Here is a review of Nichola’s sleeping performance during Nuit Blanche Toronto 2006/
‘…The stream flowing over our heads briefly kept off the rain – then, back above ground. The most striking installation in that zone was that of nichola feldman-kiss, a performance artist who in seeming defiance of the event’s philosophy spent Nuit Blanche peacefully asleep, nestled in a white duvet inside a glass box – warm and dry and restful while we were all cold and rained upon and tired. People clustered around one end of the box to watch her sleep. Of course I looked too: is she really in there? She looks as contented as a sleeping cat. It was disturbing seeing everyone else’s gaze and then realizing I was gazing as well. Soon after that Genna and I started back and parted to go to our respective homes. I got back around 4 a. m., threw off cold wet clothes, climbed into soft comfy if rather empty bed, and slept.’
by/ Toronto Star entertainment reporter/ Jen Gerson/ Oct. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM
Nichola Feldman-Kiss is an artist researching corporeality, identity and autobiography. The artist implicates self reflexive narratives in her performative exploration of body, gaze, subjectivity, sociality and consciousness. Her multi-disciplinary installations, performances, and objects are characterized by pristine and minimal elegance — subtly and subversively disturbing that which we take for granted, asking us to reconsider hard questions about being individual, collective and embodied. A graduate of California Institute of the Arts, feldman-kiss works have been presented in Canada, the US, Italy, the Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Finland and France. she has participated in performance style research residencies including the National Research Council of Canada (the mean body database), the Ottawa Eye Institute (the camera eye) and the Canadian Forces Artist program to witness collective trauma in a failed state embedded with the United Nations Mission in Sudan.