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EXCUSE ME, MY HEAD IS ELSEWHERE

Excuse me, my head is elsewhere, action, Oct. 2024, FNAF Festival of Naked Forms #10, Espace o25rjj Loupian, France.

I'm holding a spotlight lens between the flaps of my dress, which is open at chest level.
Through this lens, if you get close enough, you can watch a video looped on a small screen in my bra.

The sky and pigeons on a wire.
An alarm sounds constantly, more or less loudly.
A text appears and disappears: “Excuse me, my head is elsewhere”.

THE LONG SPEECH AND THE MISSING LEG

The long speech and the missing leg, action, July 2024, Festival NO W HERE, Goslar, Germany

 

I spoke of two things...
The story of a pacifist father.
During my last stay in Ukraine, I was struck by the growing presence of people who are missing one or more limbs.

White fabric, green plant and tape.

Photo @Madeleine Franke

CLEANING THE GROUND

Cleaning the ground, action, May 2024, Pančevo Art Biennale, Serbia.

Some of the words I have said during the performance : “It happens very often that I remember my parents asking before dinner if I cleaned my hands”... They were asking me this question several times each day. Today it’s still stuck in my mind. “Are my hands clean?”... I think it was something like two years ago now, the train station in Kramatorsk was bombed. (...) One picture is still stuck in my mind. I think there were something like fifty people killed. A lot of children. When I was peacefully sitting in France. One of the pictures was a teddy bear, a unicorn... full of colors. This one was full of blood. I am pretty sure the kid who was holding this teddy bear is not alive anymore. And so, I hear my parents asking me if my hands are clean. Everyday. I think the blood is one of the most difficult things to clean. It’s what I think actually, it’s a fact. There are a lot of things we don’t know how to clean. I don’t even know if we can clean the wounds. Oh! And if someone wants to take part in this situation, there are other brooms inside, you can ask people who know where they are. Just in case. Because it’s going to be long to do that. And sometimes it’s better when you don’t do things alone. Two months ago I saw a video, still I was in France. It was a video of an orange cat. I really like that, I think everybody likes cat videos, sometimes it makes us smile. This cat was sitting on a man actually, he was cleaning himself, really peaceful. And orange cats are really strange, funny. But then, I realized that the man was dead. So it was a dead body. It was on the ground of Gaza. Palestine. (...) Still I hear my parents asking me if my hands are clean. I try to remember how to clean the ground. Also, a few days after seeing this orange cat, I saw a video of a little girl. Still in Gaza. She was holding her cat. She was maybe five or six years old. She was telling the cat... Or maybe more begging her cat. “Please, do not eat me when I will be dead from the bombs!” She was really insisting. I don’t know if she is still alive... There are a lot of chances that she is not. So... Do I have clean hands? How can we clean? I feel like it’s kind of impossible to clean... some grounds.” Words written on the paper are “діти”and “أطفال”) “children” in Ukranian and in Arabic languages).

OUR BODY MEMORY

Our Body Memory, action, 3rd of September 2023, FNAF Altenburg 1964, Prague, Czech Republic. 

A table, a blue chair, a yellow chair, a mortar, a glass jar, a useless lipstick, ashes, a scarf, a long dress.

Words I had to say.

And my baby teeth.

Photo @Pascale Ciapp

THE LAUNDRY