MOCA Movements 2026: Monika Oechsler
The Eagle Dance (after M.B.), 2017

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Combining elements of contact dance, performance art and falconry display The Eagle Document (part 1 and 2) was choreographed to sound tracks by the experimental band Bender. Inspired by Marcel Broodthaers Départment des Aigles and the body art performances by Rebecca Horn, the work playfully engages with Deleuze’s notion of ‘becoming animal’.

​Both dancers draw on contact improvisation to emulate bird like gestures imagining a merging of human and animal. The dancer’s interaction with the Falconry birds was choreographed for part 1 of The Eagle Document, a live performance, which took place in 2007 at the James Hockey and Foyer Galleries in Farnham. The Eagle Dance (after M.B.) presents a short version of part 2 of The Eagle Document, a five channel video projection installation, which was exhibited at the James Hockey and Foyer Galleries in 2008 and the Herbert Read Gallery in 2012.

@moca_london
www.monikaoechsler.com
@monikaoechsler

Credits:
Director: Monika Oechsler
Production Manager: Steve Hines
DOP: Mattias Nyberg:
Second Camera: Roger Eaton
Camera Assistant: Mike Tombeur
Lighting Gaffer: Ben Kerr
Camera operators 3 & 4: Bernie Fredrickson & Greg Taylor
Falconry service: Impact Falconry Ltd.
Supervising handler: James Bradbury
Performers/Dancers: Morag Wightman, Craosmor & Yumino Seki
Choreography: Monika Oechsler & Morag Wightman
Set design: Helga Goellner & Monika Oechsler
Sound system: Live Sound Hire
Stills photography: Alexander Hidalgo
Sound: Bender

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Biography
Monika Oechsler is an artist working between London and Berlin. Her interdisciplinary practice spans film, sound installation, sculpture, performance, print, and photography, investigating the intersections of language, memory, architecture, and place. Her sculptural text pieces and performative films contrast cultural phenomena via emotional states inspired by literary and cinematic narratives.
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She is the founder of the Salon for a Speculative Future (SFASF), a multimedia platform supporting interdisciplinary artistic knowledge exchange. Oechsler has taught in major UK universities and exhibited widely internationally in major institutions such as Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool; MoMA, New York; ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; NGBK, Berlin; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein; Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz; Steirischer Herbst, Graz; Kunstverein Bregenz; Sharjah Biennial; Artissima, Turin; Kunsthalle Budapest; Kunsthalle Bergen; Yokohama Triennale; and the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki.

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