Prehensile Pow Wow : Monika Tobel [PAST]

Screening & Performance

Session One : 22 March 2024 Friday 6:30pm

Session Two : 23 March Saturday 4pm

Session Three : 23 March Saturday 5:30pm

Session Four : 24 March Sunday 4pm

Session Five : 24 March Sunday 5:30pm

£5 | 8 places only each session | Please email divfuse@gmail.com for tickets

Running Time : approximately 21 minutes plus 25 minutes performance and discussions


  1. Exercise in Conscious Listening: Maple, 2021

Film. Running time: 10:26

‘Maple is the third instalment in the Conscious Listening series. The performance took place in Tottenham Park Cemetery as part the of Be-coming Tree International Performance Event. These exercises bring attention to the importance of listening and communication in order to un-learn built-in hierarchical modes of relating, and to build a more harmonious relationship with other species. Using non-lingual communication methods, such as touch, sound, and movement, I attempt to tap into the tree’s communication system. Trees use vibrations in their roots in order to send and receive messages through a fungal network linking them underground, by using my voice and limbs, I hope to create vibration patterns that allow me to tap into this wonderful system. The audio is a representation of the conversation which took place during the performance, using manipulated field recordings and vocals.’

2. Infinite Breath, 2022

Film. Running time: 9:37

Infinite Breath is a meditation on the role of the atmosphere within human and other-than-human connections through time and space. The artist wearing her listening device attempts to respond to the sounds and airflow using movement as a communication tool.

It is through the atmosphere, through the act of breathing that we are connected to all things, past, present, and future. Since the dawn of the planet the atmosphere has been a space of circulation for all elements, forms, and beings, “the metaphysical space of their conjunction, the unity of all things, measured by the coincidence of breath.” Coccia (2019)

Prehensile Pow Wow

Performance duration: approximately 12 minutes

The performance is a reflection on multispecies connectivity and the importance of listening and openness. Through engaging with other than human entities and by opening ourselves to diverse forms of knowledge and differing intelligences, we allow the possibility of new world formations that interpret time and space in a non-human-centric manner.


Monika Tobel is a London based Hungarian artist researching communication and connection with the more-than-human world. Her work consists of performance, video, and sound alongside installations.  The main focus of her practice is to investigate the possibilities of non-lingual communication between different entities, and the potentials of information exchange via scents, sounds, touch, and movement alongside deep listening practices. The driving force behind these actions is to find ways, through rituals of inclusion, new call and responses beyond the human centric experience and expand social modalities towards and into the other-than-human sphere. She is currently studying for a doctorate at the University of East London.

Photo from Monika Tobel, Infinite Breath 2022