Written Portraits

Written Portraits is a participative performance based on improvisation where, as painters do, Adrián Dozetas portrays a person improvising a poem with his typewriter and the person gets the poem in paper as a present.

Written Portraits is a participative, inclusive, diverse and transdisciplinary performance based on improvisation. As painters do, Adrián Dozetas (Argentina/Austria) portrays persons from the audience observing them and improvising a poem with his typewriter. Words and the portrayed person sitting in front of the artist drive this unique and unrepeatable moment into an experience of trance and personal interconnection that erases barriers, creates a sense of belonging, self-respect and inclusion, encouraging the audiences to be part of a self-discovering, self-respecting and anti-stereotyping piece of art.

Adrián Dozetas has portrayed around 1500 people and worked with more than 40 artists who also portrayed across their disciplines. In 2022 a book called The Written Portraits Poems was published, collecting poems and a prologue telling the story of the performance.

The Written Portraits Performance was in 2022 funded by the culture council of the city of Vienna, by the culture council of the Neukölln district of the city of Berlin. In 2023 it was funded by the culture council of the city of Linz, Austria. in 2023 was selected to be published on Emergency Index, the “bible of performance” which compiles the best performances of the world. in 2024 it was again funded by the city of Vienna. It was part of several festival such as The New European Bauhaus Festival, Berlin Circus Festival, Kultursommer Wien, Tanz Haus Salzburg, Vienna Literature Festival.