MUMMENSCHANZ

Since 1972, the Swiss theatre company Mummenschanz has captivated audiences around the world with its nonverbal and visually inventive object theatre. Through simple materials, masks, and bodily transformations, the ensemble creates poetic narratives in which humour, imagination, and human emotions unfold without the use of speech. 

Presented on the large screen in the inner courtyard of Museum Jorn is Clay Mask from 1974, one of Mummenschanz’s most iconic works. In this short sketch, two anonymous figures wearing soft clay masks meet in a wordless exchange as their masks continuously change shape. The shifting expressions move between joy and melancholy, the human and the animal, the comic and the unsettling. Through simple movements and transformations, an intense yet effortlessly poetic sequence emerges, in which identity and emotion remain in constant flux. 

Mummenschanz draws on a long tradition of non-verbal visual storytelling, from the mask traditions of classical antiquity and silent cinema to folk traditions and ritual performances. Furthermore, the group’s distinctive artistic language has inspired generations of performers, filmmakers, and visual artists. Clay Mask provides a view into the aesthetic and performative strategies that came to characterise Mummenschanz’s subsequent work.