Performance art originated in the early 20th century as a radical break from more traditional art, focusing on the body and lived experience rather than static objects. Emerging from movements like Dada and Futurism and gaining prominence in the 1960s and 1970s with artists like Marina Abramović and Joseph Beuys, performance art addressed themes ranging from identity and politics to concepts of time.

Today, performance art continues to evolve as it intersects with technology and interdisciplinary practices, as artists use live performance, digital platforms, and installations to engage audiences. Themes of social justice, environmental crises, and systemic inequities are common, while artists incorporate sound, film, dance, and A.I. to reflect the modern, interconnected world. Performance remains a powerful tool for experimentation, dialogue, and exploration of complex societal and personal narratives. 

Here are five artists who are pushing the boundaries of the form, using it to reflect and engage with the complexities of modern life.

Prem Sahib

Prem Sahib, Alleus (2024). Photo: Charlotte Cullen.

Prem Sahib’s (b. 1982, London) artistic practice spans objects, installation, and performance, exploring themes of queer intimacy, desire, and the intersections of personal and political spaces. Their work often examines structures of belonging, alienation, and confinement, drawing attention to the traces of touch and the dynamics of looking.

Sahib’s performance work extends these themes, as seen in Alleus (2024), which was co-commissioned by the Roberts Institute of Art and Somerset House Studios earlier this year and traveled to the Edinburgh Art Festival. Alleus critiques xenophobic political rhetoric by dismantling and reworking an anti-immigration speech by former U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Prem Sahib, Alleus (2024). Photo: Charlotte Cullen.

The performance layers Braverman’s incendiary words—recorded and distorted—over live readings by three young performers who alternate between mimicking Braverman’s phrases and speaking over her. The performance emphasizes her controversial statements about illegal migration and asylum.

Sahib’s performances highlight the power dynamics of language and space, challenging audiences to confront societal frameworks while emphasizing themes of care, resilience, and resistance.

Solomon Garçon

Stills from Solomon Garcon, Opening credits 4 sunset beach (pilot) w Josiane Pozi (sub-titles on). Courtesy of the artist.

Solomon Garçon (b. 1991, London) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans sound, sculpture, and performance, exploring liminal spaces and narratives drawn from the digital realm and underground subcultures.

Recent performances include Opening credits 4 sunset beach (pilot) w Josiane Pozi [sub-titles on] at 243Luz in Margate, which unfolded as a live-streamed, POV journey through his family home. Using red light filters and spliced hidden-camera footage, the performance was set to a distorted ‘90s noise track by the American band Harry Pussy and culminated in a provocative, intimate tableau. Garçon’s recurrent use of temporary, inactive Instagram accounts emphasizes themes of ephemerality and voyeurism.

At Studio Voltaire, London, Garçon’s first U.K. institutional exhibition earlier this year presented a haunting mise-en-scène of sound and ambiguous forms. Cadaverous sculptures partially hidden under shrouds suggested latent violence or protective coverings, while empty chairs acted as surrogates for absent spectators. Low-frequency soundscapes and reverb simulations amplified notions of territoriality and surveillance.

The exhibition incorporated Garçon’s signature exploration of scale, materiality, and shape-shifting imagery, influenced by horror genres and reality television. Featuring three live performances, the exhibition positioned visitors as both observers and participants, encapsulating Garçon’s fascination with unlocking, transforming, and concealing narratives.

Ndayé Kouagou

Ndayé Kouagou, Please, don’t be! (2024). Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ndayé Kouagou (b. 1992, Paris) works with language and text, expanding into performance, film, and installation. His practice explores contradiction, humor, and existential questioning, using digital-age aesthetics and aphorisms to engage his audience in a dialogue that is as exploratory as it is disorienting.

Kouagou’s recent performance, Please, don’t be!, presented at the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, exemplified his unique approach to performance. Centered on elliptical narratives and delivered in his characteristic deadpan tone, the piece blended spoken word with minimalist staging. Kouagou presented a series of open-ended statements and rhetorical questions that left attendees in a space of playful yet provocative introspection.

Ndayé Kouagou, Please, don’t be! (2024). Photo courtesy of the artist.

Another standout work, 4 Chiens et Une Prune (“Four Dogs and a Plum”), was performed at Paris’s Fondation Louis Vuitton. The performance invited the audience into an interactive exploration of existential inquiries. Through questions and movements, Kouagou blurred the lines between performer and spectator, creating a communal space of uncertainty and discovery.

His recent solo exhibition “A Message for Everybody,” at Gathering in London, continued his exploration of mediated communication, as his work mirrors the fragmented realities of modern life, challenging us to reconsider what it means to connect, question, and exist.

Coumba Samba

Coumba Samba, FIFA (2024). Performance by École Des Sables. Sound by Gretchen Lawrence Photo: Anne Tetzlaff; Courtesy of the Artist and Cell Project Space, London.

Coumba Samba (b. 2000, New York) is a Senegalese-American interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, installation, and performance, exploring the intersections of material culture, ideology, and diasporic narratives. Her performances address themes of global capitalism, colonial histories, and cultural exchange. 

Earlier this year, at Cell Project Space in London, Samba’s exhibition “Capital “invited audiences into a room-sized mud enclosure surrounded by photographic prints and industrial materials. The exhibition included a commissioned performance titled FIFA, a collaboration with École des Sables and artist Gretchen Lawrence, and examined the ideological circulation between the West and West Africa.

Coumba Samba, FIFA (2024). Performance by École Des Sables. Sound by Gretchen Lawrence Photo: Anne Tetzlaff; Courtesy of the Artist and Cell Project Space, London.

Drawing from football, Senegalese Laamb wrestling, and the South American game Queimada, FIFA presented a choreographic score of repetitive gestures, leaving imprints in drying dirt—a metaphor for agency and the residue of human labor. Lawrence’s soundscape, blending Senegalese field recordings with distorted audio loops, reverberated throughout the space, creating a layered sensory experience.

Samba’s performances and installations consistently challenge dominant narratives, spotlighting marginalized voices through provocative and engaging works.

Hongxi Li

Hongxi Li, Sandcastle (2024). Photo courtesy of Neven.

Hongxi Li (b. 1996, Xiamen) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines human behavior, societal systems, and emotional intricacies through sculpture, performance, sound, video, and installation. Transforming mass-produced objects with traditional techniques like metalwork and ceramics, Li creates narratives exploring personal and collective memory while critiquing urbanization, materialism, and corporate structures.

Her alter ego, Jolene, serves as a vessel for examining systemic authority in performances. Sandcastle is a 30-minute performance that took place at the Stage in Shoreditch, London, presented with Neven Gallery as part of her solo exhibition “Heaven Green.”

Hongxi Li, Sandcastle (2024). Photo courtesy of Neven.

In Sandcastle, Jolene, dressed in corporate attire, builds fragile skylines from recycled construction soil using a bucket shaped like a brutalist housing block. Set within an active construction site, the performance critiques urbanization and environmental fragility, reflecting on China’s early 2000s real estate boom and the vulnerabilities of rapid development.

Li’s work merges minimalist aesthetics with incisive commentary, addressing trauma, resistance, and systemic violence. Through her work, she invites audiences to question societal narratives and confront the fragile foundations of modern progress.