BIO | CV
Honi Ryan is an interdisciplinary artist with a nomadic social practice. At the intersection of sociopolitically engaged art, progressive pedagogy, and performative expressions of utopia, her work has intercultural concerns and deals with the present body in relationship to others and their environment. Working with long-term social-performance projects at the core of her practice, Ryan builds relationships as works of art by creating heightened encounters in everyday life — encounters between people and place — activating deep presence in the mundane.
Ryan was born on the unceded First Nations land of Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. She lives and works between Berlin, Paris, and Naarm. Ryan has exhibited and performed in twelve countries, with recent group exhibitions alongside artists including Marina Abramović, Francis Alÿs, Marcel Broodathers, Gustav Corbet, Guy Debord, Hamish Fulton, Dora Garcia, Mona Hatoum, David Hockney, On Kawara, Richard Long, William Turner, and others. She represented Germany at the Karachi Biennale 2017 and the Lahore Biennale 2016, and is adjunct faculty at Paris College of Art. She founded the Silent Dinner project in 2006, which she continues to perform internationally. She has attended numerous residencies internationally with both collaborative and solo projects. Ryan has presented at art and philosophy conferences and taught at universities in Australia, France, Germany, Pakistan, and the United States.
Ryan's undergraduate degree combined visual art with experiential design between the Cologne International School of Design, Germany; and Sydney University, Australia where she graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art with first-class division 1 honours and was awarded the University Medal in 2008.
She then completed a Masters of Fine Art in Creative Practice with the Transart Institute in Berlin and New York in 2015 and was awarded the Transart Achievement Award in 2017. Her masters thesis is titled Gestures of Intent: Performance art enacting peace through presence and participation.
Ryan's research interests focus on art's role in peace mediation, pedagogy as form, unlearning, and the artistic residency.