Theresa Zwerschke ~ Keywords: rurality, class, agropolitics, social imaginations, scattered archives, folklore, nostalgia, other experts, situated knowledge, socio-culture, farmers theatre
Theresa Zwerschke (*1993, DE) is an artist, writer, and cultural organiser based in London. Her practice moves between artistic research, collective study, and performative methods, exploring the conditions of art as a tool for speculation, self-organisation and self-determination.
She is a PhD candidate in the Advanced Practices Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she researches on the intersection of Marxist cultural theory and performance studies through the figure of the amateur-as-producer, workers’ culture, and concepts of reenactment in relation to prefigurative artistic practices.
Since 2023 she has been part of the team of the Berlin-based street newspaper Arts of the Working Class, where she regularly publishes her own writing. Together with Steph Joyce, she co-runs Catwings, a research and study initiative focused on abolitionist strategies in the arts. Catwings hosts an ongoing reading group at Cittipunkt Berlin and has facilitated workshops at Anti-University London (2025), the School of Performance Art Berlin (2025), and received a Research Fellowship at the School of Commons in Zurich (2023/2024). They are currently working on a publication with HumDrum Press, Rotterdam.
Zwerschke studied Fine Arts and Pedagogy in Leipzig and Amsterdam and holds an MA from the Dutch Art Institute (2023). She has received various scholarships and grants, including a study scholarship and doctoral scholarship from Cusanuswerk, Fonds Soziokultur (2022), the Natural History Museum Leipzig (2021), and the Salzburg Summer School (2021).
Her work has been presented in cultural contexts including Palazzo Ziino (Palermo), Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst (Berlin), Kunstverein Leipzig, documenta archiv (Kassel), Okay Space (Athens), Halle 14 (Leipzig), 90mil (Berlin), Radio Vilnius, Cashmere Radio (Berlin), and Atelier Bardaff (Brussels).
*Learn more about Theresa Zwerschke's 20 minute performance rocks like meteorites retain light for WHERE THE MOON IS UP ~ DAI's Aeroponic Acts, July 2023 at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy.
*Learn more about Theresa Zwerschke's written MA thesis (DAI, 2023): Playing Periphery: The Farmers’ Theatre as a Rehearsal of Reality
*During her journey with DAI, Theresa Zwerschke made significant contributions to: COOP SUMMIT 2022 ~ Watering, Wandering: An Anthology of Echoes as well as COOP SUMMIT 2023 ~ My mother composed me as I now compose her
*Theresa Zwerschke was an esteemed 2021-2022 co-leader of the COUNCIL, DAI's consultative student body.
*Follow Theresa's "Life after DAI" on Instagram