About
Sara Cowdell is a New Zealand performance artist and curator. She is the director and founder of Performance Art Week Aotearoa and previously the performance curator at Playstation Gallery. As a performance artist, Cowdell utilises multiple modalities including dance, costume design, video, collaboration, installation, and photography to explore society through a formalised and qualitative intimacy.
Drawing on her background in Anthropology, she engages in ethnography through interviews and conversations. These conversations form the conceptual core of her work, where the communion between interviewer/interviewee resonates across spatial, somatic relationships. Cowdell’s work strives for a raw viscerality and lingers on the uncomfortable textures of lived experience.
As a curator, Sara's work explores and expands on traditional art boundaries and instead focuses on experiential and participatory engagement with an overarching ethos based on experimental, site-specific and socially engaged practice. She has curated over 40 performance events, workshops, discussions and exhibitions. She works extensively to both present performance art and to develop performance art practises across New Zealand and abroad. Her events have taken place in numerous locations such as local galleries, a hilltop abandoned bunker, parliament grounds, a public park, a library and literally in the ocean.
CONTACT
Sara.cowdellmurray@gmail.com
FULL C.V
ongoing/current/upcoming
2017: Ongoing Artistic Director of Performance Art Week Aotearoa, New Zealand
2025: Upcoming live performance ‘it’s a CATASTROPHE’ to be presented at Turku New Performance Festival, Finland
2025: Upcoming live performance ‘Fuck you, I’m feeling sentimental’ to be presented at Sin Objeto Festival by Performance Køkkenet, Denmark
2025/26: Upcoming Art Resident with TEMENOS Art Fellowship at La Source, Brittany, France
2026: Upcoming participation in Arts Facilitation Training at School of Disobedience, Budapest, Hungary.
performances/exhibitions/publications
2025: ‘Twins of the Horae by Sun-Moon-Sara/Moon-Sun-Sara’ live performance in collaboration with Sara True presented at Waking Life Festival, Portugal
2025 : ‘女性法令 Feminine Decree. Part 1 & 2’ live performances part one presented at Shallow Breathing Performance in public space Chengdu, China & part two at Feichaun Art Space, Wuhan, China
2025 : ‘Taste of Cruelty’ live performance in collaboration with Ethan Morse, presented at The Mission to Seafarers, Melbourne, Australia
2024 : ‘Sara and Hugo’s Xmas Special’ participatory live performance in collaboration with Hugo Williams (PONY CAM), presented at Testing Grounds, Melbourne.
2024: ‘LIKE A BURNING STICK, YET YOU HAVE STILL NOT RETURNED TO ME’ video work presented at Daejeon Performance Art Festival, South Korea
2023: ‘who would fall in love with chicken with it’s head cut off’ live performance presented at Garbage Fest, Melbourne, Australia
2023: ‘terror tears of tape’ live performances presented at Garbage Fest and as public intervention, Auckland New Zealand
2023: ‘Scores from my artists’ live performance presented at ‘yours’ Dunedin, New Zealand
2023: ‘Associations/Associates’ live performance presented at the Audio Visual Arts Festival, Corfu, Greece
2023: ‘LIKE A BURNING STICK, YET YOU HAVE STILL NOT RETURNED TO ME’ video work presented at RUNT, performance evening, London, U.K
2023: ‘LIKE A BURNING STICK, YET YOU HAVE STILL NOT RETURNED TO ME’ solo exhibiting artist show at Next Door Gallery, Gold Coast, Australia
2022: ‘Houses of Madness’ live performance work presented as a part of Rosekill Performance Art Farm’s summer performance series, Kingston, NY, U.S.A
2021: ‘Oceans of Madness’ live video performance presented as apart of PAN Asia 11th Festival, Tauranga, New Zealand/Online/South Korea
2021: ‘FVEY - Upstream Data Collection.’ live durational performance on the Otakaroa river as apart of Tiny Fest, Christchurch, New Zealand
2021: ‘FVEY - Always together, Never alone.’ interactive online exhibition at Trocadero Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2020: ‘Green Witches Stare’ video performance work presented as apart of Tempo Online Dance Festival, New Zealand
2020: ‘Losing Touch’ a collaborative live performance work presented as apart of Melbourne Fringe Festival, at the Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, Australia
2020: ‘Caged Hearts’ an interactive online work commissioned for FUSE Festival, Melbourne, Australia
2020: ‘ONLY GOT 4 MINUTES TO SAVE THE WORLD’ video performance work, presented as a part of Performance Kokknet’s online covid video exhibition, Online/Denmark.
2019: ‘0.35%’ live performance performed at Trocadero Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2019: ‘A public reading of No friend but the mountains by Behrouz Boochani’, durational live performance on the Victorian Parliament Steps, Melbourne, Australia
2019: ‘How do we hold Shame’ live performance performed in two editions as apart of PAN Asia 10th Anniversary Festival, Seoul and Gwangju, South Korea
2019: ‘POWER’ a performance art theatre work presented at Basement Theatre in Auckland and Bats Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand.
2017: ‘ENOUGH’ live performance at Chandigarh Government Museum and Gallery, India
2017: ‘Call of a Sacred Woman’ performance art video, screened at ‘Karhake Festival of Protest’, New Zealand.
2017:’Skin Shedding’ A live performance as a part of ‘Veins’, Titirangi, New Zealand.
2016: ‘Girls that Yell.’ A live performance as apart of ‘Of Body, Of Blood’ at Old Folks Association, Auckland and at Chronophonium Festival, Northland, New Zealand
2015: ‘Peripheral Visions’ performer as a part of the performance art project by Samin Son and Alexa Wilson, for the Month of Performance Art Berlin, Germany.
2014: ‘Facilitated Fun with Sara Cowdell’ A participatory performance as a part of Stadtumbau, By Studio Osk in Berlin, Germany.
2012: Member and performance artist in S.A.M.P.L.E performance art collective, Wellington, New Zealand
Curations
2024: ‘ALBARKAS’ by Veronica Pena, presented in public space in Wellington, New Zealand
2023: ‘Not as simple as it sounds’ by Ivan Lupi, presented at Midsumma Festival, hosted by Testing Grounds, Melbourne, Australia
2023: ‘Put Out Weekly Performance Experiments’ Testing Grounds, Melbourne, Australia
2023/2021/2018/2017: ‘Performance Art Week Aotearoa’ Wellington, New Zealand
2020: ‘Epidermis’. By Ethan Morse, David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo, and Shubho O Shaha, Play_Station Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2020: ‘Ad hoc Re-Performance(NZ)’. by Anna Berndtson, Play_Station Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2019: ‘Unknown gifts. An evening of performance’ By Quinoa / Chris Kirk, Louie Neale, Band Sensations & Joanne Hobern’, Play_Station Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2019: ‘Tupi and not Tupi’ by Ève Chabanon, Play_Station Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2019: ‘Minter: Performances on Sound’ By Marcus Jackson, Antonia Barnett-McIntosh & Elliot Vaughan, Play_Station Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2019: ‘Suspending Time: Meditation.’ by Lou Drago, Sunday Night Club, Wellington, New Zealand
2019: ‘Performance Arcade 2019’ Curatorial Advisor, Wellington, New Zealand.
2016: ‘(you) hear me?’ Experiential art evening at Audio Foundation, Auckland, New Zealand
2016:’(you) feel me?’ Experiential art evening, Kingsland, Auckland, New Zealand
Talks/Residencies/Education
2025: Artist in residence, at Argo Art Residency, Athens, Greece
2025: Artist & Curatorial talk, at UPON Performance Archive, Chengdu, China
2023: Artist in residence at TTTlabs- New Repro-Rebirthing Retreat (NR-RR) Corfu, Greece
2022: Artist in residence at Mothership, New York, U.S.A
2022: Artist Talk at the Artist Salon, Mothership, New York, U.S.A
2021: Artist in residence as apart of ‘Making Space’ at Siteworks, Melbourne, Australia
2019: Artist Talk, as apart of the PAN Asia Performance Festival, Ilmin Museum, Seoul, South Korea
2017: Hosted a panel discussion ‘The emotional woman; the next feminist frontier’ at Chandigarh Government Museum and Gallery, India
2017: Artist in residence at Healing Hill Performance Art Residency, Morni Hills, India
2012: Post-Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
2009-2012: Bachelor of Arts Majoring in Anthropology, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand
Grants
2025: Creative New Zealand Development Fund for attending Arts Facilitation Training at School of Disobedience, Budapest, Hungary.
2024: Wellington Public Art Fund presentation of Veronica Pena’s ‘Albarkas’ performance and workshop
2023: Christchurch City Council for PAWA Tour show and workshop
2023: Hamilton City Council for PAWA Tour show
2023: Art and Cultural Fund Wellington Council for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2023: Wellington Public Art Fund for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2022: City of Melbourne Quick Response grant for presentation of Ivan Lupi’s ‘Not as simple as it sounds’
2021: Wellington Public Art Fund for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2021: Art and Cultural Fund Wellington Council for Performance Week Aotearoa
2021: Moreland City Council ‘Making Space’ Art Residency Grant
2020: Melbourne Fringe Festival Cash for Creatives Grant for Performance Development
2020: Creative New Zealand Arts Grant for Development of a Video Work
2020: Darebin City Council for Development and Presentation of Multimedia Work for FUSE festival.
2020: Creative New Zealand Arts Grant for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2018: Creative Communities Grant for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2018: Art and Cultural Fund Wellington Council for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2018: Wellington Public Art Fund for Performance Art Week Aotearoa
2017: Creative Communities Grant for Performance Art Week Aotearoa