Anya Liftig week at Performistanbul

Between January 23rd and 27th, we are welcoming Anya Liftig as the first guest of our series in which we will host international performance artists in our research space.

As of 2024, Performistanbul actualises the performance video, film and documentation screening programme through which it aims to present the works of various performance artists from around the world to the Turkish audience, with a special selection prepared with the artists.

Anya Liftig will present in Performistanbul, her video works along with sections from her book “Holler Rat a Memoir” in which she describes how she became a performance artists along with her lively and heart wrecking memories. Along with her book and performance video screenings, Liftig will meet the audience through a public presentation.

In Holler Rat, Liftig masterfully interweaves family lore from her Appalachian childhood with her performance art pieces and scenes of the yearlong period in which her life fell apart and plumbs the cathartic self-reckoning that followed. She takes us from her Mamaw’s porch to Yale, from the site of a violent family land feud to a pre-gentrified Bushwick loft, and from a devastating childhood leg injury to having 243 raw eggs pelted at her in the name of art. In visceral, beautiful prose that ranges from raunchy and outrageous to sobering and tragic, Holler Rat is the origin story of an unconventional artistic life and a captivating account of the stumbling blocks, sacrifices, and discoveries along the way.