CARDELLINI | GONZALEZ’s practice begins where things seem already set. A guided tour, a performance, a walk: they take existing situations as their starting point. Through performance, theatricality and installation, they shift familiar elements until they can no longer be taken for granted. Presented in theatres, exhibition venues and public spaces, their work engages audiences from the position they already occupy, never allowing them to remain entirely outside what is taking place.
SALVE production & technique
Valérie Niederoest
valerie(at)salveprod.ch
Rue Docteur César-Roux 13
1005 Lausanne
CARDELLINI | GONZALEZ is a duo formed by artists Igor Cardellini and Tomas Gonzalez. Their practice takes shape through performances, installations, and site-specific or itinerant works. Whether in theatres, exhibition venues or public space, their work turns context into an active component, the audience’s position and presence becoming materials in their own right.
The duo’s approach unfolds through acts of displacement. Their works redistribute roles, subvert established uses, restage conventions, or push familiar situations to the point of estrangement. They often engage audiences from the position they already occupy: that of bodies present, caught in expectations, habits, and pre-existing relations. In doing so, ways of looking and being together cease to seem self-evident.
This research extends into their teaching at La Manufacture – University of Performing Arts, where they explore with the students how dramaturgies emerge through encounters with specific sites, situations and audiences.
In Switzerland, co-producers of their work include Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne and Maison Saint-Gervais Geneva, with further support from partners across the country’s linguistic regions. Their projects are presented across Europe and South America in collaboration with institutions and festivals including BUDA, Théâtre de Liège, VIERNULVIER, Ménagerie de verre, Klöntal Triennale, La Bâtie, Les SUBS, Fierce Festival, MAHN, Dublin Theatre Festival, Santarcangelo Festival, Short Theatre, NEXT Arts Festival, FIBA and FIAC-Bahia.
Fellows of Istituto Svizzero’s Roma Calling programme (2022–23), they also took part in the Swiss Selection at the Edinburgh Festival (2021), and in 2024 one of their works was selected for the Swiss Theatre Days.
Following a three-month residency at Tokyo Arts and Space in 2026, they are currently pursuing their research at Kaserne Basel and the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.
IGOR CARDELLINI is an artist and theatre director. With a background in anthropology, sociology and political science, he works across performance, choreography and the visual arts. His practice is rooted in the places where collective life plays out and in the ways they shape bodies, behaviours and power relations.
TOMAS GONZALEZ est metteur en scène, acteur et chercheur. Diplômé en lettres de l’Université de Lausanne, puis en Théâtre de La Manufacture, il travaille sur la copie, l’imitation, le reenactment et sur la manière dont les modèles circulent d’une époque, d’un·e interprète ou d’une représentation à l’autre. Il enseigne à La Manufacture depuis 2017 et y propose, avec Anne Pellois, une histoire sensible du jeu d’acteur·ice.
« Igor Cardellini et Tomas Gonzalez pour leur spectacle « This is a trap »», RTS Vertigo, Anne Laure Gannac, 17.08.26
« Sorties. Théâtre, stand-up et danse : les dix spectacles et festivals à ne pas manquer en ce moment selon ‘Libé’ », Libération, 26.05.2026
« Igor Cardellini & Tomas Gonzalez : Lutte des strass », Mouvement, Thomas Corlin, 16.04.25
« L’univers subversif de FRKS », 360°, Dany Niederhauser, 09.04.25
« Revendiquer sa monstruosité », Le Courrier, Emma Chapatte, 08.04.2025
« Interview avec Igor Cardellini et Tomas Gonzalez », RTS Vertigo, Pierre Philippe Cadert, 27.03.2025
« Jérôme Bel sans Jérôme Bel », Magazine CND #5, Belinda Mathieu, 20.03.24
« Igor Cardellini et Tomas Gonzalez font entrer l’âge d’or dans un centre commercial », Les Inrocks, Jérôme Provençal, 5.10.23
« Critique de « L’Âge d’or » », La Terrasse, Manuel Piolat Soleymat, 28.03.23
« Interroger le rapport au travail », France 3, JT 19/20, 18.03.23
« L’Âge d’or », Radio Nova, Antoine Boj, 24.01.23
« Igor Cardellini et Tomas Gonzalez, « Un spectacle » », RTS Vertigo, Anne Laure Gannac, 05.12.22
« Igor Cardellini & Tomas Gonzalez, Le théâtre doit réactiver le sens commun », MaCulture.fr, Wilson Le Personnic, 17.11.22
« Adaya Henry talks about « The Golden Age » », BBC, Rakeem Omar, 17.10.22
« Swiss Dreams. О фестивальной Швейцарии », St. Petersburg Theatre Journal, Nika Parhomovskaya, 18.09.22
« « L’Âge d’or » di Igor Cardellini e Tomas Gonzalez. Metateatro da supermercato, alla portata di tutti », Krapp’s last post, Giulia D’amico, 01.08.22
« Intervista con Igor Cardellini e Tomas Gonzalez », ATP Diary, Guendalina Piselli, 12.07.22
« Le théâtre transfigure l’espace commercial pour faire réfléchir à la société de consommation », Franceinfo, Jérémie Lanche, 24.05.22
« À Lausanne, le théâtre s’invite au centre commercial », France Culture, Jérémie Lanche, 22.05.22
« « L’Âge d’or », une visite théâtrale au centre commercial », RTS Vertigo, Thierry Sartoretti, 20.04.22
« « L’Âge d’or », l’origine du mall », Libération, Annabelle Martella, 19.04.22
« Igor Cardellini et Tomas Gonzalez », Le Beau bizarre #16, Zineb Soulaimani, 22.09.21
« Cardellini & Gonzalez : « L’Âge d’or » au Festival Bonus », Mouvement, Thomas Corlin, 06.09.21
« Connais ton ennemi. « L’Âge d’or »», IO Gazette, Victor Inisan, 09.07.21
« Un show anthropologique drôle et érudit », Le Courrier, Cécile dalla Torre, 29.08.19
2021, 120 min.
EL VIAJE is a group journey towards a nearby “island”. Over the course of this walk through an urban or rural landscape, a “guide” questions the expectations raised by the word island. They map their own trajectory through the structuring forces of gender, class, sexuality and belonging, connecting these forces to the landscape unfolding around them. In doing so, they bring human and non-human flows into relation and question notions of borders and exoticisation.
Through this intimate narrative, EL VIAJE explores the social, cultural, political and geographical dimensions of mobility. Who is allowed to move freely, and who is not? Who is afforded safety, access and visibility in public space ? EL VIAJE places these tensions at the very heart of the act of walking together, suggesting that mobility is never neutral: it is shaped by privilege, history and power relations.
A work conceived by: Rita Aquino, Paula Baró, Igor Cardellini, Felipe de Assis, Tomas Gonzalez, Marina Quesada
Artistic collaboration and performance: Mustaf Ahmeti, Flora Nomada, Davide-Christelle Sanvee, Anahì Traversi, Val Wandja, Kylian Zeggane, Xin Alessandro Zheng
Assistant director: Ludmilla Reuse
Restaging collaboration: Camilla Parini
Administration: SALVE production & technique, Valérie Niederoest, Isabelle Campiche, Sarah Gumy
Images: Ix Dartayre, Lars Duchateau, Emile Barret, Eric Scaggiante
With support from: Fondation Jan Michalski, Fondation Leenaards, Pro Helvetia
Past dates:
18-19.10.25 Farout festival, Base Milan, IT
27-29.6.25 Festival de Marseille, FR
17-18.5.25 Viernulvier, Gand, BE
12-13.9.24 Short Theatre, Rome, IT
24-25.5.24 Schweizer Theatertreffen, Lugano, CH
12-13.8.23 far° festival, Nyon, CH
2-3.3.22 FIBA, Buenos Aires, AR
10-11.7.21 Festival de la Cité, Lausanne, CH
30.11.20 Buenos Aires, AR (étape de travail)
26.10.19 FIAC, Bahia, BR (étape de travail)