Yvonne Buchheim is an artist and educator interested in questioning the role of art within the everyday. As an interdisciplinary artist, she often works in public contexts where she engages audiences in unexpected ways, from intentional participation to incidental observation. Her long-term Song Archive Project (SAP) consists of live events and an archive of 1000 amateur song performances. The resulting artworks function as a framework to explore who we are and the idiosyncrasies of human behaviour. This 10-year art project culminated in a SAP publication in 2011, drawing together written contributions from the fields of psychology, neurology, philosophy and fictional writing.
Moving to Cairo in 2012 she witnessed a society in change and became aware of herself as an outsider. From this position she turned the camera onto herself, allowing personal experience to become a catalyst to shape her new artistic work. Her current practice consists of drawings and photographs that appear to come alive in stop-motion animations alongside personal narratives reflecting on loss, identity and belonging. These intimate themes aim to connect with wider social concerns focusing on our sense of self-image in a fragmented world.
Her interdisciplinary work involves social art practices along with educational and international collaborative art projects. She has been an active member of artist groups such as Cairo Bats (Egypt), International Girl Gang and Format (UK). She was a year-long artist researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Bath and in the Digital Cultures Research Centre in Bristol. She has been awarded residencies and commissions in the UK, Ireland, Germany, USA, Iran, Jordan and Egypt. International solo exhibitions include the Cheekwood Museum of the Art in Nashville, USA, Butler Gallery in Kilkenny, Ireland, Oriel Davis Gallery in Newtown, Wales, Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts in Bath and an underwater sound installation in a swimming pool in Cardigan, Wales, UK.
Yvonne Buchheim was a full-time assistant professor for 10 years at the University of the West of England until moving to Egypt, where she taught at the American University of Cairo. In 2015 she became an integral part of two independent learning programs: the Cairo Institute of Liberal Arts and Science and Spring Sessions in Amman, Jordan. Her pedagogical projects often combine theory with practice to explore how we understand and value different forms of knowledge. In this process, participants experiment with art making, creativity and play to determine motivations and methodologies in order to imagine what is possible in a wider social context.
