Who

Malin Arnell is “a dyke, an artist, Swedish, a basketball player, a serious person, a life explorer, a sister, a feminist, a fighter, a citizen, an individual, a political body, a survivor, a member, a student, a lady and a rascal.” She was part of the feminist performance group ‘High Heel Sisters’ and a co-founder of the YES! Association. ¹

Imri Sandström is a visual/performance artist/filmmaker. With curator Hanna Wilde and Högkvarteret she organizes IN THE ACT, a pretty incredibly looking feminist performance event.

Clara T. López sometimes does art, or maybe writing, happily fixes bicycles, as well as reads and discusses theory.

What

A performed reflection on Malin’s previous re-enacting of a super influential landmark of performance art from the French feminist/ identity politics artist Gina Pane: Discours mou et mat, one of a series of performances in which Pane often enacted carefully planned and deliberately controlled self-wounding. It’s an allegorical performance of alienation, abjection and the female figure, of the extreme fragility of the body and the reality of suffering.

Why

What is to be gained from this repetition, this concern with her body, their body, our body? Is performance a means to think with the body? What are the connections between a woman’s body and the physical but also allegorical nature of our bodily fluids…

“Blood, or decay, does not signify death. In the presence of signified death—a flat encephalograph, for instance—I would understand, react, or accept. No, as in true theater, without makeup or masks, refuse and corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live.”
Julia Kristeva.

Review

The performance was reviewed by Bethany Rex for Aesthetica Magazine.