Matthias Schönijahn (1981) is a Berlin based artist.He is working in the fields of visual arts, film, music theatre and performance. His work derives from theories and practices of deep listening, as an artistic strategy and a political way of action. One of his main focuses is the voice as a more-than-human phenomenon. Based on longterm researches he creates videos, listening-pieces and performative installations.
He presented works at the Nowy Teatr Warsaw, the Spielart Festival Munich, SOPHIENSÆLE Berlin, the Theaterdiscounter Berlin, the Mousonturm Frankfurt am Main, Elisabeth-Kirche Berlin (Mitte), the Staatstheater Darmstadt, the Stadttheater Gießen, the European Center for the Arts Dresden Hellerau, and others. In the context of the museum he presented works at the Senckenberg Museum Frankfurt am Main, the atelierfrankfurt e.V., the Naturhistorisches Bern and Museum Berlin-Lichtenberg.
Matthias studied literature, sociology and media studies in Potsdam and graduated with honors from the Applied Theatre Studies M.A.(ATW) program in Gießen. He was part of the project group of the Institute for Sound Research (Offenbach). At the B3 Biennale of the Moving Image 2013 in Frankfurt, his video work BREAKING NEWS was awarded the B3 Newcomer Award, ‚BEN‘. In 2012 he worked in Tarek Atoui’s sound lab at dOCUMENTA (13).
Matthias is actively engaged in the association Zeitgenössisches Musiktheater Berlin and co-founder of the nationwide Netzwerk freies Musiktheater. He is also a member of the advisory board PROSA I Kulturräume.