Duration: 90 min. Location - Engels Berlin. 13.01.2024 (first time).

Assistant - Dimitry Förster

Photos - Tom Klingbeil

The performance “STRINGS” idea is based on the metaphor of a marionette - controlled not only from above but from all sides. It is controlled by society and often pulled in different directions, just like each of us.

The strings symbolise hopes. In mainstream content, hope is often painted as something positive - something you should never lose, as life has no meaning without it. And who has the most hopes? Of course, immigrants, because we leave behind everything that we had in the country of our origin, where often return is not possible, as not all of us relocate willingly.

Although, in the concepts of Hanna Arendt, for example, hope is viewed as something that prevents one from action, and so prevents the real changes to better from happening. Politicians often manipulate us using our hopes, promising to make everything right with very little action required from us. Salesmen manipulate us likewise. Sometimes even our partners, friends and family do so.

Many relationships are based on only hopes and promises, not on real actions. But is hope then utterly bad and should we abandon it completely to become free? This is the question that the performance “STRINGS'' asks. During its action viewers are invited to manipulate the artist through the strings and wires attached to her - for good or for bad or for neither, and are given tools to do so. It is an experiment with an open ending.

The instruction was saying: "Hold the strings, watch me dance.

You are invited to interact with the strings around the

artist using the provided tools. You can pull the strings in

any direction, cut them, remove them, or add more of

them and tie them. The strings symbolize hopes.

You are also invited to use markers and paper tape to

write your hopes and stick them to the strings".

“STRINGS” is a performance against cruelty - towards animals and people alike. A person caught in nets of false promises, manipulations and coercions is like a bird in a trap, like an animal in a cage. Just those cages and traps are often invisible. Would we behave the same if we could see them and their impact on somebody’s life? Would we assume that anyone can set oneself free of them without help? Or it is only possible for some?

An interesting moment about this first time I performed it was that in the end I was not able to fully free myself from strings and wires. They got tangled around my anckle together with the cloth that I was wearing - like a cloud that I was dragging behind me and that limited my movement.

Interpretation is up to every viewer, but I think that it is not a good idea to live in hopes. Doing something to change the system is the alternative.