Nana Bauernfeind
performance, artistic research & education
My practice examines identity, intersectional equality and the deconstruction of naturalized narratives through collaborative, site-specific, and performative (sound) installations. In addition, I develop (queer-)feminist educational formats for institutions and freelance artists. With an academic background in philosophy, English literature, linguistics, and art theory, focusing on queer and critical aesthetics, I work in between artistic research and performative practice.
I share the authorship of all of my ideas, musical, artistic, and academic alike. They arise from a network of care, shared perspectives, knowledge and performative experimentation with affiliated artists and researchers.
monster prayers aus cult baby (Kapitel I I am Monster) (c) Leif Ingold, Chain Mail Design: Johanna Möller
pray for me (digitale Bearbeitung von found footage eines biografischen Gebetszimmer aus cult baby: Kapitel I I am Monster (c) Hannah Uszball, Christina Bauernfeind
Arching into Hysteria (Live Footage Performance I am Monster: Schmerzlinien kultureller Prägungen, 26.07.25, zeitraumexit Mannheim) (c) Gina Lauser
medival longings (aus cult baby: Kapitel I I am Monster (c) Leif Ingold, Chain Mail Design: Johanna Möller
only monsters left alive (aus cult baby: Kapitel I I am Monster) (c) Hannah Uszball, Christina Bauernfeind
hit me from the back (aus cult baby: Kapitel I I am Monster) (c) Leif Ingold, Chain Mail Design: Johanna Möller
Live Footage Performance, Ausstellung udn Forschugnslabor: I am Monster: Schmerzlinien kultureller Prägungen, 26.07.25, zeitraumexit Mannheim (c) Gina Lauser, Performerin: Lola Zbornik
Collage aus Forschungsmaterial "I am Monster: Schmerzlinien kultureller Prägungen", installierte Fotografien
von böse blumen
Collage: Lea Bäurle, Gina Lauser, Künstlerische Forschung: Christina Bauernfeind, Christina Bergemann
You’ve seen all of this before.
I’m drawn to grand images, to kitsch, pop, and artistically unruly pathos. Images that cling to our hearts like cold, wet cloth.
Oh mother, hollowed be thy name
*
Oh mother, hollowed be thy name *
Dear Valie,
it hurts still
Performance & Interview mit boldbitchink (2025)
The body as an altar of pain, displaying the tattoo that incorporates material gathered at the beginning of the artistic research project “cult baby” in Sicily. During the tattooing, an interview session took place on feminist appropriation of Catholic iconography and tattooing as an emancipatory practice. The work activates Valie Export’s BODY SIGN ACTION.
der schmerz ist ein wiedergänger
*
der schmerz ist ein wiedergänger *
We hold each other while we break away
We hold each other while we break away
(c) Christina Bergemann
Performance KKT Stuttgart mit Lola Zbornik
I work in fluid positions: as a performer, writer, dramaturg, curator and musician. I also design feminist workshops, dialogical tours, lectures, seminars, and bespoke educational formats for independent venues, individual artists and art, culture, and academic institutions. Since 2022, I have served on the jury board of the international photography exhibition of one of Germany’s oldest queer festivals. In 2024, the publication Deeply Human – Global Queer Photography was released by Kettler Verlag as part of this program, where I contributed as an author.
I additionally work as an academic staff member at the Heidelberg University of Education, where I teach performance, artistic research and art theory.
I’VE WORKED 4 & WITH and SHOWN AT
böse blumen Kollektiv für künstlerische Forschung und widerspendstige Praxis, Theater Performance Kunst RAMPIG, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Kunstverein Gastgarten Hamburg, Millenium Film Brooklyn New York USA, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Valentino Skarwan, Kleist Forum Frankfurt (Oder), ORE Arts Heidelberg, Europa Universität Viadrina Frankfut (Oder), Frameless Magazine Stuttgart, Carmen Westermeier, Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg, Wunder der Prärie Festival, GEISTHA, Ruprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg, zeitraumexit Mannheim, Zentrum für Kulturelle Teilhabe Stuttgart, LSBTIQ Beauftragung der Stadt Mannheim, QZM Mannheim, Mannheimer Stadtensemble, Kulturamt der Stadt Mannheim, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, KKT Stuttgart, Nationaltheater Mannheim, in Assistenz für und mit Beata Anna Schmutz: Mozarteum Salzburg, Metropolitain Theatre Tokyo
Online Article: cult baby – excerpt chapter I // monster prayers // Hartikel
20-08-2025 / Nana Bauernfeind
We hold each other while we break away. Don’t let go, MOTHER. You are not with us, I know, but please hold me. Stories of Catholic power and submission, of neglect, an Early Modern rebellion, met with extreme violence, dating back to the witch mass murders in the lands I call home. An excruciating New Modernity you got there, FATHER. My Modernity - traces of a sisterhood. Source material of scornful trials salvaged stories of what, in today’s age, would be called a feminist uprising. In my village, Schutterwald, Anna Katherina Sütterlin, carrying the literal name of my great-grandmother, raised up a band of women, girls, persons, aged fourteen, against patriarchal violence. So it begins, she cast embers in the face of submission. July 1557 they all burned. Sisters in name. History is slippery, though. (1) So we pray: (…)
Aktuell laufende künstlerische Forschung: 𝒸𝓊𝓁𝓉 𝒷𝒶𝒷𝓎 ❦ ARCHING INTO HYSTERIA mit böse blumen: Kollektiv für künstlerische Forschung und widerspendstige Performance
// 2025: Lecture Performance: Witchy Stories, Kunstverein Gastgarten, Hamburg // Ausstellung From a Frame to a soft Place, Millenium Film, New York (USA) // Performance I am Monster, Frameless Magazin, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart // Performance cult baby, Kulturkabinett (Kkt), Stuttgart // Forschugnslabor und Performance I am monster, zeitraumexit Mannheim // Katalog Deeply Human: Global Queer Photography, erschienen 2024 im Kettler-Verlag // Akademische Mitarbeiterin Pädagogische Hochschule Performance & Künstlerische Forschung //
The Dead in the water
(Rewriting Expression, Performance Sketch with Rebecca Okechukwu, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Nov 2025
