Ver-ontschuldiging (de-guiltifying)
Performance | 2015
I squat down on the floor. In my dress I hold a large amount of buttons. I place the buttons on the floor, forming a ring around myself. With each button I put down I say: “I am sorry”. The following rings the amount of being sorry increases to “I am very sorry” and “I am so, so sorry”. I continue till I cannot reach any further. I stand up. The buttons that are left drop on the floor. I walk away.
The Minotaur schizophrenia
Performance | 2015
This performance is designed as a ritual to materialise the Minotaur. I start the performance as the builder. I construct a labyrinth out of lights. When the labyrinth is finished the transition happens: The builder disappears and for a brief second, I am just me, naked and exposed. But not for long. A mask is put on and I become the Minotaur. The Minotaur is a wild, playful and unpredictable creature. Even I do not know what is going to happen when he performs. In this performance he finds his way out of the labyrinth and starts playing with the lights. Destroying the system of lights and the systems of thoughts in my head.
Thank you Antti Ahonen for the pictures!
Because I love(d) you
Performance | 2015
I stand in front of two little inkbottles and a set of brushes. One bottle contains white ink, the other one contains black ink. I grab the black ink and carefully choose a brush. Slowly I lift my right foot and draw a black circle around my big toe: “Yeah, I can sweep the breadcrumbs of the cutting board when I am done with slicing my bread. No problem “ I state. The next circle is drawn around my ankle: “Sure, I fold the laundry exactly the way you want. Neat and tidy, the fold straight in the middle”.More and more circles are drawn on my body, traveling up. With every circle a sentence is spoken, all containing adjustments within a relationship,
Then I stop, put down the brush and the black ink. I reach for the white ink, choose a brush again and starts to trace the black circles with the white ink. Every time when a black circle is turned into a white one I state: “because I loved you”.
When I reach the last black circle, the one around my neck, I grab a bigger brush. The last circle also becomes white. “Because I love you”.
Greetings
The performance took place in a dirty, abandoned factory, in the centre of Bucharest, Romania. In the middle of the space I formed a big circle, containing bags of flour, matchboxes and incense. I executed a ritual, containing repetetive actions, forming a white circle of flour on the black dirt.
Halfway my performance, a woman came in and started to talk to me in Romanian, which I could not understand. It was clear that she wanted me to stop.
The woman took the flour out of my hands, started to rip apart the matchboxes and took away the incense. I had no more material, so I knew the end of the performance was near. I wanted to stay with my loving intension and went to the woman. I gave her some incense, looked her in the eyes and repeated for the last time “ohm nama shivaya”. Abruptly she gave me a very long and intense hug and started to cry. She said something like “we have the same eyes”. Romanian audience told me that during the performance she kept saying that she wanted me to stop suffering.
Pictures by Jürgen Fritz, danke schön Jürgen!
For the birds
Performance | 2014
A swarm of 3000 hand made birds take a short flight with the help of a leaf blower.
No heart feelings
Performance with Liesje van der Berg | 2014
Twelve jars containing twelve hearts made of honey. An inside and an outside. Two half hearts, seperated, one placed outside, one placed inside. Are the two halves going to be together again?
