L-INKED/THE SOLO is part of your social science research project L-INKED. Can you explain what this research project is about?
The research project is like an earthworm in an oyster, developing through experiences and reflection. The earthworm of the research project establishes itself in researching identity – formation and un/re/embodying the approach of forming relationships with other entities based on our socio-cultural learnings of expression of intimacy through the notions of desire, love, sexuality, and gender. The earthworm investigates the intertwining of the topics by first exposing itself to a team of senior and young-artists, educators and curators and forming an oyster around it. The oyster is filled with research, reflection, and un/re/learning body politics in harmonizing intimacy amongst human bodies. It is achieved by exploring personalized body movements and dialogues, researching social media-consumption and momentarily or long-lasting desires – repressed/suppressed/habitually practiced.
The purpose is that some, if not all, people reflect on these topics without passing judgement on who they are or could be, how their desires flow and who others are, and find non-toxified ways to manifest desires of living varied sexualities and different kind of relationships of intimacy. The earthworm engraves itself further into the oyster through the process of collective-working and re-shaping qualities of desire and love, which is presented at varied stages of formation in sub-projects/formats taking place in different spaces like exhibition in museums – art spaces and open spaces – with different contexts of festivals, approaching variety of audience and giving them a chance to observe the development of relationship within people, with themselves and with the space. L-INKED/THE SOLO reflects research through a human body, where I talk about my journey through examples and excerpts from my autobiographical life …
During the last imagetanz festival you developed an online version of L-INKED, how has the performance transformed in terms of content since then?
The performance has transformed in embodiment for my-self – referring to the invisible layers, giving more time and thought to process with others. Being a production leader with such a sensitive topic and with changes in team and increase of (foreseen) responsibility helped in understanding that it is about system narratives: what system is dealing with these topics or what these topics deal with which systems? Thereby, it has changed in terms of adding various layers technically to expand the notion of the content like adding audio notes, video layers during the performance, to give it a bit more of depth and various doors for audience to dive in, whilst I present my solo journey around the topic.
The online version Around L-INKED, presented last year, was a film around the whole production L-INKED – so many processes and people being part of it since then made it into a collective work to re-fine the research, highlighting that even in showcasing personal stories – how to reflect, understand and take care of how others perceiving the same situation as it isn’t about liberation of one body but many, rather the work begins by our own bodies… Doing different formats has transformed it in a way that the real work is in transiting from one phase to the other, and that respect and consent is important. As well, that not everyone will be part of this system at once and it is also not the idea, rather it’s an endeavour to keep this system of reflections ongoing and re-transforming.
How do you deconstruct labels in your performance?
Inviting energy, opening questions, saying things from experience, hypothesising the reasons of intimacy, repercussions, and benefits and by focusing on the transitions and execution of transitions… A journey between the outlook, internal references, and fantasies. Labels act as a door-policy… I am approaching destruction by not dissolving the labels rather finding new ways of connecting between labels, cherishing flexibility, and raising awareness by putting things in “different” orders of the narratives. Sometimes it means to show-off the learnt narrative and go through them… Embodying the structural build-up that backs them up and by working in transitions – in the unknown to raise awareness about the beauty of transformations.