Many Ones

In 2015, while Tania Bruguera was under politically motivated house arrest in her hometown of Havana, she and 50 others conducted a 100-hour reading of Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” in her living room. The reading was broadcast over loudspeakers into the streets. It ended with Bruguera being ar­rested by the authorities and detained for several hours. The performance was titled “Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions”. 

At Tangente St. Pölten, Tania Bruguera will present a new work entitled “Many Ones”. In September 2024, shortly before the Austrian parliamentary elections, a choir of citizens will perform at different places in the city at the same time. They may be immigrants or emigrants, people who had to leave their home country and came to St. Pölten or who left St. Pölten to find a home elsewhere. People who have no voice in democratic elections and people whose voices are omnipresent throughout the country. Many will come together to speak a truth that should not be up for debate. A call to action, a movement. Not to be ignored. Useful and beautiful. 

Tania Bruguera understands art as a means for social change. Her performances and installations explore political power structures and their impact on society’s most vulnerable. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, including at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall Commission and Documenta Kassel. Her art can be found in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum New York, MoMA, Van Abbemuseum, Tate Modern and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, among others.