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video courtesy ZOOSCOPE

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exhibition views from Trap Me Like An Animal In The Zo
at St Martin, Lausanne, February 2015
images courtesy the artists

photos: CHARLOTTE KRIEGER

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Earlier this year, the swiss art collective RATS has been invited by another multidisciplinary swiss collective called ZOOSCOPE to present a one-day exhibition show titled Trap Me Like An Animal In The Zo in a given location in Lausanne after having spent a two weeks residency in the space.

Trap Me Like An Animal In The Zo was a cross between a party, a curated show and a performance where people came together for one day to participate in something surprisingly fresh. The event took place in St Martin, a performing arts venue in Lausanne, which looks like a dusty abandoned depot.

For this exhibition, artists from the RATS collective made used of found materials readily available to hand  — everything from wood frames to sound samples and pieces of old carpet — to create works that eventually projected the threat of impermanence, evoked a precarious, handmade quality and vibrated with anti-Minimalist energy. Perhaps the most imposing piece in the show was by MAZYAR ZARANDAR, who removed the carpet of the space and hung up the torn pieces on a chaotic and precarious tubular structure, while THOMAS KOENIG drew with bleach onto large black canvas. ANTOINE TILLE reinterpreted a piece by TERRY RILEY entitled In C (1968) by recording sounds in situ, then this impressive audio summary of the site filled the entire floor of St Martin thanks to the several hanging loudspeakers. As for CHARLOTTE STUBY, she placed several luminous spots in the space conveying a dramatic effect within the gloomy rooms and emphasizing her engraved mirrors . Finally ZOOSCOPE showed a video featuring the artists filmed during their residency.

This action seems to have given the RATS collective the permission to keep the works restless and unfinished, an “unfinished” state that was open and rough.

RATS collective was for this show AURÉLIEN BALLIF, MICHAEL JORDAN (LIVE), THOMAS KOENIG, BLACK SALAT (LIVE), CHARLOTTE STUBY, ANTOINE TILLE, VERMINO and MAZYAR ZARANDAR.

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