About

Daniel Hellmann is a Zurich-based artist and activist, known for his drag alter ego Soya the Cow. Working across theatre, dance, music, film and visual arts, he brings queer and animal liberation together.

He studied philosophy, classical singing and theatre/performance in Zurich, Lausanne and Bern. Since 2012 he has been creating interdisciplinary works within his association 3art3, weaving together performance, language, music and movement. His works investigate the body, bodily relationships and desire, and question social norms around sexuality, human rights and animal rights. His performances have received several awards, including the June Johnson Dance Prize (2015), and have been invited to major platforms such as the Sélection Suisse en Avignon (2015, Traumboy), the Swiss Selection Edinburgh (2019, Traumboy & Traumgirl) and the Swiss Dance Days (2019, Requiem for a Piece of Meat).

During a residency in San Francisco in 2017, Hellmann developed Soya the Cow, a bold, species-fluid drag creature who has since become the centre of his practice. As Soya, he has created the solo show Dear Human Animals (2020), the electro-pop album Purple Grass (2021), the exhibition Planet Moo (2022), the art walks Try Walking in My Hooves (2022), the music-theatre piece Queere Tiere (2024, with Coco Schwarz) and De-Domestication (2025, with Rafa Bqueer), a performance, film and exhibition project.

With Soya, his work has expanded from theatre into music, film, visual arts and street performance, touring across Europe, the USA, Brazil and China. He moves between high culture and the underground: from galas, theatres and congresses to clubs and street protests, from The Voice of Germany (2021) and a TEDx talk in Zurich (2025) to the World Economic Forum in Davos (2026).

His work as Soya has been recognised with a cultural award from the City of Zurich (2023) and a Swiss Performing Arts Award (2025). From 2024 to 2026, Soya was “House Cow” Artist-in-Residence at Tanzhaus Zürich. In 2024, Hellmann founded the cross-species Arten Festival at Hof Narr animal sanctuary, which he has curated since.

Hellmann understands his art as intersectional activism. Through it, he works towards a more just food system, an end to animal exploitation, climate justice and resilience, and opens pathways towards multispecies coexistence.