Sonja Lau

Gerichts-Oper, 2021

In what might be best called an instant “Court Opera”, this balcony piece offers as a public reading of fragments from juridical court files related to child custody trials and parental disputes. A 'readymade drama' in its own right, the two lady computer voices “Lena (German)” and “Alice (English)” will guide through the array of claims, rearrange text passages, sample music tracks, whilst stubbornly moving towards some sort of 'happy end’.

-Sonja Lau

In diesem Balkonstück kommt ein noch wenig erprobtes Genre zu Aufführung, das sich am besten als „Gerichts-Oper“ beschreiben liesse. Die zwei Audio-Charaktäre, Voice „Lena (German)“ und Voice „Alice (English)“ rezitieren und transformieren in einer 20-minütigen Performance Fragmenthaftes aus der Aktenlage verschiedener „Child Custody“-Verfahren: Ein Readymade Drama, das sich verstohlen an ein happy end heranarbeitet.

-Sonja Lau

Sonja Lau

is a curator and writer with a focus on art and ideology, alternate art (hi)stories, and curating as a performative practice. She holds a masters in Curatorial Practice from the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, and has a professional background in cultural diplomacy including a position as cultural manager in southeastern Europe in Tirana, Albania, from 2011 to 2013, commissioned by the Robert Bosch Foundation.

She was a research fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Academy in 2013–14, has published essays and reviews in publications including Texte zur Kunst, Arts of the Working Class, and 10 Years Operndorf Africa (Spector Books), and currently teaches art history at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. She is the author of the taz-magazine blog Die Pflicht zum weiblichen Ungehorsam: https://blogs.taz.de/ungehorsam/.