We visited Australian artist Honi Ryan at POUSH Studios in Aubervilliers, on the outskirts of Paris, on September 5, 2024

Text archive:

We are delighted to announce that our next studio visit will be with Australian interdisciplinary artist Honi Ryan on September 5th, 2024. Her studio is located at POUSH in Aubervilliers, a suburb just on the outskirts of Paris.

At the intersection of socially engaged art and progressive pedagogy, Honi Ryan's work has intercultural concerns and deals with the present body in relation to others and their environment. Her artistic research is iterated across performance, installation, photography, painting, sculpture, and writing. Working with long-term social-performance projects at the core of her practice, Honi builds relationships as works of art by creating heightened encounters in everyday life — encounters between people and place — activating deep presence in the mundane. 

During the visit, Honi will discuss the intricate relationship between performance art and aesthetics. Honi has recently been working on translating the history and methodology of her performance practice through the language of abstract painting. This shift in the relationship between performance and documentation is key to her current enquiry, as new types of formal objects emerge from the actions developed in her social performances. Reduction, absence, movement, encounters, and instructions remain central to the working methods across the various outputs of Honi’s artistic research.

We look forward to an insightful and enriching experience with Honi Ryan, as she shares her innovative approach to art and the dynamic interplay between performance and visual representation.


Honi was born on the unceded First Nations land of Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. She lives and works between Berlin, Paris, and Naarm. Honi has exhibited and performed in twelve countries, represented Germany at the Karachi Biennale 2017 and the Lahore Biennale 2016, and was a part of the Perpendicular performance troop for the São Paulo Biennale in 2015.

Honi’s 2023 solo exhibition was a retrospective of her 17-year performance project, the Silent Dinners which she has performed in 20 cities across 15 countries for up to 200 people at a time. The Silent Dinner performances continue on a semi-regular basis in Paris and internationally, performed with collaborator Abi Tariq. Honi’s group exhibitions in 2022–24 have been 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.

Honi is adjunct faculty at Paris College of Art, where she teaches in the graduate school of the Fine Art, Photography, and Transdisciplinary New Media departments. She has attended numerous residencies internationally with both collaborative and solo projects. Honi has presented at art and philosophy conferences and taught at universities in Australia, France, Germany, Pakistan, and the United States. 

Honi’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 Master 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 master thesis is titled Gestures of Intent: Performance art enacting peace through presence and participation. Honi’s research interests focus on artist’s role in peace mediation, mindfulness, ecology, migration, and unlearning.