As part of the fifth edition of VIVA! Art Action, articule presents performances by Emilie Monnet and Sandra Johnston at the Ateliers Jean-Brillant. The events will highlight the work of these artists of different generations and origins yet who share an interest in working on memory.

In the work of Sandra Johnston, a visiting artist from Northern Ireland, memory is created through actions that become relics salvaged from a forgotten moment. Johnston works in the area of site-responsive actions, video installations and durational drawings. Her art often proposes alternative approaches for considering the aftermath of trauma, particularly in relation to location, testimony and empathetic communication.

Sandra Johnston has been active as an artist since 1992. Since 2002, she has held several university teaching and research posts, including a Research Fellowship at Ulster University in Belfast, investigating issues of ‘trauma of place’. In 2007, she was the ‘Ré Soupault’ Guest Professor at the Bauhaus University, Weimar. Currently, she is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Northumbria University (England). In 2013, she published a PhD project entitled “Beyond Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation of Doubt, Risk and Testimony Through Performance Art Processes in Relation to Systems of Legal Justice” with LIT, Munich. Additionally, Johnston has been a co-founder and committee member of various artist-run collectives in Belfast, namely Catalyst Arts, Bbeyond, and Agency.