Marianna Simnett Brings Circus to Vienna Secession in Immersive New Multimedia Exhibition

Hinton Magazine
49 minutes ago
2 min read

From March 6 to May 31, 2026, the Vienna Secession presents Circus, a powerful new solo exhibition by British artist Marianna Simnett, bringing together light, sound, and sculptural works in a deeply immersive exploration of memory, identity, and bodily experience.

Opening on March 5, the exhibition draws on Simnett’s Yugoslav heritage and personal family history, weaving together references to folklore, performance, and historical trauma. Central to the project is the idea of the “circus” as both spectacle and psychological space — a place where fascination, discomfort, humour, and violence coexist.

Throughout Circus, Simnett transforms the gallery into a sensorial environment charged with laughter, neon light, spinning fabric, and overwhelming sound. Skirts whirl above visitors’ heads, lights pulse in sync with recorded breath, and disembodied voices echo through darkened rooms. These elements combine to blur the boundaries between performance, sculpture, and lived experience.

One of the exhibition’s key works, Catherine Wheel (2026), features a luminous blue skirt rotating relentlessly overhead, accompanied by recordings of the artist’s uncontrollable laughter. Captured during an extreme four-hour tickling session, the sound shifts from playful to disturbing, turning into something strained and unsettling. The installation references both historical torture devices and childhood fireworks, reflecting the fragile balance between pleasure and pain that runs through Simnett’s practice.

Another major work, Faint with Light (2016), revisits the artist’s earlier exploration of physical collapse and endurance. Monumental LED lights rise and fall in rhythm with her breath as she repeatedly faints on screen, creating a visceral environment that overwhelms the senses. The piece resonates with her family history, including her grandfather’s survival during the Holocaust, while also confronting the long medical and visual tradition of pathologising women’s bodies.

Rather than presenting the body directly, Simnett often removes it from view. In doing so, she resists historical narratives that framed female vulnerability as spectacle. Instead, she amplifies physical sensation through sound, light, and rhythm, forcing viewers to feel instability rather than simply observe it.

Neon lighting plays a central role across the exhibition, referencing folkloric female figures believed to ward off evil by exposing themselves. In Simnett’s hands, neon becomes intrusive and confrontational — not decorative, but demanding attention. It operates as a living presence, addressing the viewer physically and emotionally.

Curated by Bettina Spörr, Circus situates personal experience within wider cultural and political histories. Themes of migration, inherited trauma, spiritual protection, and bodily endurance unfold through symbolic gestures and material experimentation. Fantasy and excess are used not as escape, but as tools for transformation and resistance.

Rather than offering clear narratives, the exhibition constructs an atmosphere of repetition, anticipation, and sensory overload. Trauma is not represented directly, but embodied — activated through cycles of sound, movement, and light that continuously rework past experience in the present moment.

With Circus, Simnett reaffirms her position as one of the most uncompromising voices in contemporary art, using her own body and history as raw material to challenge how power, vulnerability, and agency are experienced and perceived.