Mermadeness

By exploring mermadeness, a 'process of becoming with', I produce different forms of presenting this embodied trans-species consciousness using performance as story-telling, movement practice and visual mapping. Here I build on the popcultural phenomenon of #mermaiding, where  shapeshfiting takes places as a popular instagram activity. In my research I look for ways of how to use the mermaid’s benign and naïve perception and pop-cultural relevance to develop a medium-term interruption of a western understanding of what makes a human body and what else it can be; which forms of relationships and assemblages with other non-human beings are possible.

In 2023 I already  participated in two residencies, remotely and IRL, as part of my mermadeness investigation; Mermade Outer Space was part of the Martian Chronicles  residency in Greece and Looking for Iara  part of the 2-week LABVerde residency research program in Amazonas in Brazil. In both video works I travel through an ‘alien’ world with my in-between body and explore these places on the quest to find water and other trans-species friends.

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Inspired by Donna Haraway’s notion of humannature as a continuum and Silvia Federici’s call for ‘re-enchantment the world’ in her feminist critique of capitalism, I perform and explore mermadeness as a means to resist ‘alienation’ within a capitalist production framework and dualist ways of thinking.

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