Photo by Jamie Gannon

On May 4, 2013 Daniela Ehemann and Carron Little embarked on creating an simultaneous interactive performance with two audiences one in Chicago at 6018North and one in Berlin at The Institute of Infinite Possibilities. We were interested in creating a dialogue between the two cities about how each city would like to re-imagine itself and what are the important issues facing each city and what are the possible solutions? We created an installation with tables, projectors and spaces both digital and real to create the feeling that each audience was sitting around the same table.

The conversation that arose between the audience in Berlin and Chicago was fascinating. The Americans were very abstract in their ideas and hopes compared to the Germans who expressed concerns about tourism. Carron probed deeper to find out if the issue was about tourism or immigration?’ It turned out to be immigration and a heated conversation ensued.
Daniela and Carron continue to collaborate questioning the problems facing Berlin and Chicago in an urban context.

Photo by Jamie Gannon

On September 5, 2013 we developed a second work that was an interactive public performance curated by DfbrL8r as part of Brave New Art World. The performance was inspired by the Gropius Housing Project in Berlin and the Cabrini Green Housing Project in Chicago. We started the performance by carrying architecture on our backs walking around two-sides of a square block and coming together. We each draw these respective sites and invited the public into build an ephemeral monument to these spaces that have been demolished.

Do not forget your towel! The performance Hitchhike To Utopia was an evolution of the performance entitled “Cities of a Floating World” developing a resort of otherness. Dealing with the ideas of an “occupied space” in an urban context with specific reference to Chicago and Berlin as “occupied” territories with modernist architecture and forms, this performance developed a resort for utopian architectural ideas. “Female Drag Queen Moon Rackers” worked through occurring structures as well as surprising happenings. The Female Drag Queen Moon Rackers performed whilst sitting on two islands and found a way to adapt new forms of thinking about our cityscapes with the audience. Hitchhike to Utopia transported the viewer through experiences of unreal scenes in the middle of urban Chicago to create new models for co-existence.

This was a three hour durational public performance for Brave New Art World curated by Dfbrl8r on September 5, 2013.

Image: Video Still

On June 8, 2018 Daniela Ehemann and Carron Little created a collaborative skype performance inspired by a poem they wrote entitled I is the Meaning of You & Me. This was performed at Berlin Arts Festival, 2018.

They were thinking about the relationship between language and the body and how it operates in a gendered context. Carron is pulling poetry about of her mouth while Daniela is drawing the words and phrases over and over her face. Thinking about how language frames and defines the body as much as it annihilates it.

Photo by Doug Fogelson

In February 2019, Daniela visited Chicago and they developed a piece entitled Soul Wings. They were inspired by Schlemmer’s geometrical division of space and incorporated movements developed in a dance workshop with Ayako Kato. It was one of the coldest Februarys where we had below freezing temperatures. The team of Doug Fogelson, Laura Mitchell and Jamie Gannon all supported the shoot. This piece exists in photography and video and has been exhibited in Berlin.

The performance happened in the Jen Jenson garden in Humboldt Park Chicago. To learn more about our collaborative projects please visit: https://ehemann-little-collaborations.tumblr.com/