After Unica

Image of performer in After Unica by Malcolm Tulip and Unica Zürn

Recent Event: Thursday, August 31 and Friday, September 1 at 7:30 pm
Duderstadt Center Video Studio (overflow seating in Design Lab 2)

After Unica is a multi-media solo performance. It is a chimeric non-linear surreal autobiography intertwining Tulip’s family experiences and artist Unica Zürn’s life, art and writings.

There are references to mental illness, suicide, death and sexual violence.

Unica Zürn (6 July 1916 – 19 October 1970) was a German Surrealist writer and artist best known for her anagrammatic poems and automatic drawings. Her work was to be closely identified through the lens of her mental illness, her traumas, her partners, and her suicide. More recent scholarship removes the lens and looks at her work as an artist not an outsider. I was instantly drawn to her work, and as a performer and the son of a suicide I was interested in the conflation of her identity, her illness and her work.

Automatism: Actions which when performed without thought or conscious intention reveal untapped personal dialogues.

There is no charge for this performance, but please reserve your tickets here!

Scenery design – Prof. Emeritus Vince Mountain

Costume – Prof. Christianne Myers

Video design – Prof. Jeromy Hopgood (EMU)

Sound design/performance – Cy Tulip

Texts by Malcolm Tulip and Unica Zürn