FREEDOM

Janis Joplin’s raw, unforgettable line — “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” to Joseph Beuys’ more conceptual and aspirational phrase, “Art is the science of freedom”, reflect radically different notions of the same fundamental pursuit.

Joplin’s line speaks to a kind of existential brinkmanship — a freedom that emerges not from abundance, but from surrender, from the absence of obligation, possession, or safety. It is the freedom of having nothing, and therefore nothing to fear. In contrast, Beuys posits freedom as a process, a form of inquiry — a science — in which art becomes the medium through which new forms of liberation can be imagined and enacted. Freedom here is not a given, but a practice.

In the space between these two poles of radical detachment and visionary transformation, lies the terrain of performance art.

Performance, perhaps more than any other art form, is constantly reaffirming freedom as the nucleus of its vocabulary : freedom of expression, of movement, of presence; the freedom to risk, to fail, to provoke, to be vulnerable, to resist. But also: the freedom to be seen, to be heard, to make meaning in real time, with and through others.

Yet freedom is never singular. It is not a possession, nor a static right, but a shifting relation — a condition articulated between the self and the world, between the individual and the collective. Freedom often evokes emancipation, autonomy, escape — the exhilarating sensation of limitlessness. But true freedom, the kind that endures and transforms, is rarely solitary. It is always related to responsibility, respect, and our capacity to coexist with others.

Freedom is often framed in individualistic terms: the right to speak, to act, to move without interference. But this view risks ignoring the fundamental truth that our freedoms do not exist in isolation. Every act of freedom echoes through a web of interdependence. One’s freedom can empower — or diminish — another’s. Freedom without accountability becomes domination and arrogance. Freedom without relationship becomes indifference.

As artists, as audiences, as humans, we must ask: what kind of freedom do we seek? And at what cost? What kind of freedom allows us to remain attentive to each other — to histories, to wounds, to difference, to justice and equality ? What kind of freedom includes listening, experiencing and receiving as a form of action, and vulnerability as a form of strength?

Performance art, in its immediacy and relational nature, opens a unique space for such inquiry. It embodies the tension between autonomy and interdependence — between the freedom to act and the responsibility to receive and respond. A performer stands exposed, and so too does the audience: implicated, addressed, transformed. In this encounter, freedom is not merely expressed, but tested, expanded, and made porous.
To be free is not only to break away but to belong and be respected for who you are. To be free is not only to speak — it is also to care for the conditions in which others can speak. It is to choose, with awareness, how our actions reverberate. It is to hold open a space where we do not agree, but remain in relation.

As we mark 20 years of Live Action and gather artists from different geographies, identities, and urgencies, we do so not to define freedom, but to trace its contours. We return to this theme not as a fixed ideal but as a living question. In a world increasingly defined by censorship, war, polarization, starvation, surveillance, displacement, genocide and environmental collapse, what does freedom mean today — and for whom? Where is it exercised? Where is it denied? Can art still open spaces for critical imagination, for shared agency, for collective breathing, for survival ? Or is it too late ?

This year’s program brings together voices from across the globe — from Palestine and Sweden, to Canada and South Africa — whose works engage deeply with the many tensions of freedom: between body and structure, voice and silence, the personal and the political. Some respond with fierce resistance, others through quiet endurance; some with ritual, others through rupture. Together, they invite us to reflect on freedom not merely as a right or an ideal, but as a lived, embodied, and ever-evolving condition — both in life and in art