The starting point for this performance is a refrigerator that appeared in a corner of my doctor‘s consultation room in the summer of 2022. The images on its surface were created by the artist Navot Miller and were made available to me by Praxis Kreuzberg as a loan for the exhibition Reality, where the refrigerator becomes a sculpture, stage and prop in the performance. I open it like a book and read a fairy tale beginning from ts interior.

The text material draws on contemporary cultural phenomena, observations and literary collections. At its core are reflections on anxiety as a response to dealing with authority.  I invite the audience to participate in the performance by gluing receipts from my last tax year, „loser confetti“, to my face and head. At Skin Contact carciogenic, maybe? A hair straightener is used to darken the ends.

Beauty and the Beast is a second point of reference in this performance and relates to an ongoing interest in musicals in the context of the AIDS crisis. If I Can’t Love Her originates from the stage adaptation and is no longer part of most current productions. In this version, the Beast appears marked by self-doubt, quesioning his capacity to love, which is ultimately tied to his survival. The songs for Beauty and the Beast were written by Howard Ashman, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1991. His sister, Sarah Ashman, was later asked whether the figure of the Beast might be read in relation to experiences of living with AIDS. While she expressed doubts about such a direct reading, she emphasised that a central quality in Ashman’s work was his ability to imagine himself into the realities of others, his capacity for empathy. The performance culminates in an interpretation of this song.

The starting point for this performance is a refrigerator that appeared in a corner of my doctor‘s consultation room in the summer of 2022. The images on its surface were created by the artist Navot Miller and were made available to me by Praxis Kreuzberg as a loan for the exhibition Reality, where the refrigerator becomes a sculpture, stage and prop in the performance. I open it like a book and read a fairy tale beginning from ts interior.

The text material draws on contemporary cultural phenomena, observations and literary collections. At its core are reflections on anxiety as a response to dealing with authority.  I invite the audience to participate in the performance by gluing receipts from my last tax year, „loser confetti“, to my face and head. At Skin Contact carciogenic, maybe? A hair straightener is used to darken the ends.

Beauty and the Beast is a second point of reference in this performance and relates to an ongoing interest in musicals in the context of the AIDS crisis. If I Can’t Love Her originates from the stage adaptation and is no longer part of most current productions. In this version, the Beast appears marked by self-doubt, quesioning his capacity to love, which is ultimately tied to his survival. The songs for Beauty and the Beast were written by Howard Ashman, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1991. His sister, Sarah Ashman, was later asked whether the figure of the Beast might be read in relation to experiences of living with AIDS. While she expressed doubts about such a direct reading, she emphasised that a central quality in Ashman’s work was his ability to imagine himself into the realities of others, his capacity for empathy. The performance culminates in an interpretation of this song.