SUNNY PFALZER
they/them*born 1991 in Vienna
photo by Maryse Boyce
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work begins in the body: whether I perform, sew textile sculptures, hold a camera or build immersive installations, I follow a felt, somatic sensation.
I am interested in the public space as a stage and to intervene through gesture and presence, expanding these strategies with sensitivity, playfulness and romance. These experiences form the basis of my long-term pratice into embodied collective strategies such as movement as a swarm, a shared aesthetic worn as a costume, choir techniques, collaborative poetry and cuddling on the street.
Each of my works begins with a performance that later transforms into video essays, soft sculptures or social installations. After the adrenalin rush of live action, I create horizontal, soft environments in the museum: spaces for resting, digesting, leaning. My textile works transform costumes into sculptural collages or blueprints of the performers’ bodies, forming collective shapes that visitors can inhabit.
I am deeply interested in what people feel, what they are concerned with and how collaborative artistic methods can give space to multiplicity and intersectionality.
Friendship, care and fair working conditions ground my practice. I understand ethics as a structural principle. Something not only represented in the final work but integrated in the daily relations of production.
SHORT BIO
Sunny Pfalzer is a performance artist working with fabrics, poetry and video. Whether they perform on stage, sew textile sculptures, hold a camera, or choreograph for public spaces, their approach is always bodily and felt. Sunny depicts how body language and clothes can construct statements. Sunny transforms their practice into various mediums. Costumes become sculptures, live performances are translated into video works, and installations mutate into social spaces. Facilitating workshops and collaborating is an integral part of Sunny’s practice, as these formats provide time and space to share knowledge, lived experience, and time to reflect and unlearn together.
Sunny studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, ENPEG La Esmeralda in Mexico City, and the University of Vienna. Their works have been presented internationally, among others at the Quebec Biennale and Musée d’art de Joliette, Goethe-Institut New York, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Kunsthalle Vienna, Shedhalle Zurich, Les Urbaine Lausanne and Wiener Festwochen. Sunny has taught at various institutions, including Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Städelschule Frankfurt, and most recently as Guest Professor for Fine Art and Mediation at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts from 2024 to 2025.