PEOPLE WILL PEOPLE YOU

People Will People You explores the construction, projection and weakening of identity under society’s watchful gaze. Revisiting the spectacular images which have shaped his public image, or figure, Steven Cohen questions the normative effect of the gaze and the fabrication of roles assigned to us.

Novembre 2025
Leipzig (DE) – Festival Euro-scene
Rennes (FR) – TNB

Mars 2026
Strasbourg (FR) – TJP

Octobre 2026
Birmingham (UK) – Hippodrome (Fierce festival)

Novembre, décembre 2026
Bobigny (FR) – MC93 (festival d’automne)

Mars 2027
Mulhouse (FR) – La Filature Scène Nationale

Seldom working with the spoken word, Cohen has always preferred to use the body as a means of expression and element of his scenography. This time, however, the artist takes speech as a medium for continuing to exist, and resist. In doing so, he creates an encounter where every person, whether artist or spectator, becomes both witness and actor. With his interest in the question of ageing, he embraces slowness, pain, and fragility, transforming his presence into an act of resistance against the invisibilisation of these different bodies. In keeping with his deep-rooted political convictions, Steven Cohen revisits his actions in public and the violence with which they have been met, but also evokes Gaza and Sudan at the same time. In doing so, he aligns his own vulnerability with that of bodies which have come under threat across the globe. He maps out a space in which the emergence of new forms of thought and action become possible, in stark contrast to the runaway virtual world around us. In this performance, Steven Cohen gives himself over to a ritual which becomes an invitation to a shared transformation, in which art and life become one and the same thing.