katharinajej (* 1982 Munich) studied fine arts and performance at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, at the Facultad de Bellas Artes in Valencia and at the HBK Braunschweig. She completed her studies with a diploma and master student. Since then she has been living as a freelance artist in Cologne, Germany, and cracks up our public everyday life with her interventions. Defying urban anonymity, she seeks connection with the strange in her work and creates moments of tranquility in the midst of urban hustle and bustle.
Together with Julia Dick she is the performance duo katze und krieg since 2007. In their performances they show new ways of being and thus question existing conventions of our everyday city life. Together they go shopping in the greatest deceleration in a beautiful ball gown at the most efficient supermarkets or rattle loudly screaming at lanterns and fences to reawaken the animalistic of a very tidy city district. They intervene in German-speaking and international spaces, in the context of many festivals. In 2021 they are invited to a guest professorship in Performance Studies at the Justus Liebig University Gießen.
www.katzeundkrieg.de
2022
walking together // Performative interventions in Cologne // Supported by the City of Cologne as well as the Kultursekretariat Wuppertal and the state of NRW
hand in hand // Performative interventions and residency at workspace brussels in Brussels Belgium // Supported by the state of NRW
becoming familiar with each other # urban nature // Performative interventions in public space and projection in Detmold // Bildstörung Detmold
2021
becoming familiar with each other # urban architecture // Performative interventions and poster series in Cologne Kalk as well as exhibition at Strizzi Cologne
2020
becoming familiar with each other # Yangon // Performative interventions and residency new zero artspace Yangon Myanmar // Supported by the State of NRW
becoming familiar with each other # nature // Performative interventions in Cologne
warming one another # Zuhause // Performative interventions in Cologne as well as a feature contribution for Deutschlandfunk
2019
lie down with me // street theater festival Holzminden
warming one another // Performative interventions and poster series in Cologne // Supported by LAG NW, NRW Landesbüro freie Darstellende Künste and the City of Cologne
2018
The Three Kings // Performative interventions in Cologne // Supported by LAG NW
We live here // Public video installation in Cologne Ehrenfeld // Supported by LAG NW
2017
3,3 km/h // Participative interventions in Cologne in cooperation with the Senior citizen house Heilige Drei Könige // Supported by the Fonds Soziokultur and the City of Cologne
In the hammock // City Leaks Festival Cologne
lie down with me // International Context Festival of ephemeral art in Sokolovsko Poland and Schwabacher Kunsttage Ortung X
Galerie Mantél // Performative interventions for the art weekend AIC Cologne
dein fluchtort // Installations in public space Cologne // Supported by the Migration Working Group of the Diocesan Caritas Association for the Archdiocese of Cologne and the State of NRW
2016
PerformanceZuHauseFestival // Organization of a festival with performances developed and exhibited in the homes of local artists // Buenos Aires, Argentina // Supported by the state of NRW
share a dream // Performative interventions in Buenos Aires, Argentina
2015
PerformanceZuHauseFestival // Organization of a festival with performances developed and exhibited in the homes of local artists // Cologne, Germany // Supported by the City of Cologne
24 // Performative interventions in the own residential street Cologne
2014
I pose for you // Paersche in Flensburg and Denmark
In the hammock // Lothringairfestival Aachen
2013
Give Me a Present // Performative Interventions at Christmas Markets in Cologne, Vienna and Munich
2012
here i waited for xavier // installations in the public space of Cologne during the festival plan14 parcours architecture in context
I love you for two euros // performative interventions at the Oktoberfest Munich
2011
schenk mich // Exhibition Kunstverein Hildesheim
Since 2013 katharinajej is together with Julia Dick, Florian Müller and Saskia Niehaus the experimental and performative band inachild. In 2014 four participatory concerts take place at the Neue Kunstforum in Cologne, 2016 two concerts at the 686 Festival in Cologne with the new additions Giotto Roussies and Lucas Leidinger. In August 2016, inachild sets out on a rest stop tour. Together in a bus on the way to the sea, inachild stops at rest stops to play at these transit sites. In 2017, inachild opens its exhibition at Matjö - Raum für Kunst in Cologne with a performance. By means of sound installations they make the space playable. www.inachild.tumblr.com
Since 2009 katharinajej works artistically-pedagogically with pupils, students and adults in the context of theater festivals, a performance AG, a seminar teacher training and children's culture projects. For this she cooperates e.g. with the architecture biennial plan 14, Theaterwerkstätte Villigst, the city of Coesfeld or the Academy for Teacher Training Dillingen. She encourages people to intervene in their own environment - be it their own urbanity surrounding or everyday life. For example, katharinajej founds a gang of policemen with children who put up self-painted mandatory signs in the city center that demand that the residents enforce them, or as cheeky princesses they stick out their tongues at passers-by in the pedestrian zone, involve them in a newspaper street fight, or dance wildly to music.