La vulnérabilité du serpent au moment de la mue
The vulnerability of the snake at the time of sloughing its skin
Lecture-performance, 20', 2018
The project Would you like to look at the photographs of a German soldier? culminated with the lecture of an essay written in response to the various meetings that took place around the collection of photographs. The text La vulnérabilité du serpent au moment de la mue is written in first person but blends a plurality of voices, including visitor's reactions to the images, biographical narratives, personal thoughts and ghostly utterances. Drawing on these voices, on theoretical texts who accompanied the project and natural sciences, I bring into vicinity the experience of wearing a uniform, certain animals' capacity of changing their skin and ever-present wartime ghosts and wonder thereby about the possibility of a shared vulnerability in the face of haunting historical events. While reading, I constantly move off-centre and look for different spaces among the spectators from where to speak, literally leaning against them, skin-to-skin.
Performed at SUPERDEALS, Brussels (2018). Photos by Thomas Depas.