Hans Christian Van Nijkerk (NL/Norway) &

Hiroko Tsuchimoto (Japan/Sweden)

Hans Christian van Nijkerk (NO / NL – b.1982, based in Bergen, Norway) and Hiroko Tsuchimoto (JP / SE – b.1984, based in Stockholm, Sweden) are an artist duo who have collaborated since the end of 2016. As a duo, they work with performance art, video, scenography and installations with a particular focus on audience participation.

Hans Christian van Nijkerk is a performance artist, visual artist and musician currently living in Bergen, Norway. After a successful career as middle‑distance runner and years of gaining stage experience through music performances, he studied at the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art.

In his performances, he inhabits a variety of stage personas ranging from energetic and charismatic motivational speakers to more introverted eccentrics. Both serious and playful, he toys with the audience. Voluntarily or involuntarily they become test subjects for his social experiments through their predictable or unpredictable reactions following or disobeying instructions and games. His more recent video works use elements of the documentary genre, while experimenting with storytelling, self‑staging and sound.

Since 2015, Hans Christian has shown his work in 6 other countries. He has organized performance art events and exhibitions as a member of Performance Art Bergen and BLOKK and has received grants from Arts Council Norway (2013 and 2018) and working grant from Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond (2016‑2018).

Hiroko Tsuchimoto is a visual and performance artist, living in Sweden since 2008. She began her career at Musashino Art University in Tokyo and went on to study at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design and Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Her works are generally manifested as stage performances and social experiments in public spaces. In her performance pieces, she often provides communal experiences to audience members through physical assignments, dialogues, and collective movement. Since 2008, Tsuchimoto has presented her works internationally both inside and outside art spaces. Tsuchimoto is also active as an organizer to promote ephemeral art in Stockholm. She is an organizer of PALS, Performance Art Links, and a member of Fylkingen. In addition, she is currently focusing on developing her methods to lead performance art workshops in non‑hierarchical and decentralized settings. Tsuchimoto is a working grant recipient from Swedish Arts Grants Committee for the year 2013 and the years 2016‑2018, as well as a grant holder at IASPIS residency in Johannesburg in 2018.