Ika Schwander
Maker
Ika Schwander (1999) makes visual productions, films and installations. She studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London and in 2023 completed the performance programme at Toneelacademie Maastricht institute of performative arts with the graduation show è vero è vero è vero. Her first production with Frascati Producties, of all your soft words and strange ways, premieres in March 2024.
Biography
French-Dutch director and performer Ika Schwander prefers to work at the intersection of various media including film, performance and installation art. She creates work on themes such as trauma, care, religion, ecology and death. Throughout, she maintains a constant dialogue with others and the world around her while going in search of friction, both in the form and content of the work, connecting the past to the present and merging fiction with non-fiction. In a world in which everything is simplified, Ika seeks to urge us towards ‘a plurality of emotion’.
Ika studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London and completed the performance programme at Toneelacademie Maastricht institute of performative arts (2023). Prior to this, she was an intern with Jan Decorte and Sigrid Vinks (Jamai je n’oublierai la mort) and Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe (Madrigals). She stood out with her graduation production é vero, é vero, é vero, about the aftereffects and timelessness of sexual violence, later performed at various venues and festivals including Theater Cement, Frascati, Theater aan Zee (BE) and Monty (BE).
Alongside her work within the theatre, during the past year Ika made the short film Prosecco Wisdom with Lizzy Deacon (UK), screening at international film festivals including The 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival (Michigan), LUX Moving Image (London), London Short Film Festival (Rio Cinema), IndieLisboa (Lisbon) Monumental Callao Gallery (Peru) and LUFF Festival (Lausanne). In addition, she has shown work in museums and exhibition spaces including Museum Ludwig (Cologne) and Marres Huis voor Hedendaagse Cultuur (Maastricht).
In March 2024, Ika made her debut for Frascati Producties with her production of all your words and soft strange ways, a mix of video art and performance. Inspired by climate activist Julia Butterfly Hill, who had to recover from a serious car accident at a young age, she investigates how the (sick) body relates to a world undergoing devastation. Ika shares the stage with 61-year-old Brazilian choreographer and performer Marcelo Evelin, to perform a duet between two generations. The production has its première at Frascati on Wednesday 6 March and can also be seen at Festival Cement 2024.
