brauche ich wirklich einen Stuhl oder braucht der Stuhl mein Verlangen nach ihm mehr?
(also: Is It really a chair that I need or does the chair need me more to need it?)
Reading Performance, in German, 20’00’’
costume by and in collaboration with Karolin Brägger
since 2019, ongoing
performed at:
Plateaux Festival, curated by Mateo Chacon-Pino, Marcel Hörler & Martin Blum
Hof Blum, Samstagern (ZH), CH; 31.08.2019
earlier version, in English: Kitchen Presentation (Dutch Art Institute) at Silent Green, Berlin, DE; 17.05.2019, 14’00’’
The text written and spoken by Martina Mächler, while situated in different, almost frozen gestures, plays with gestures of a stand up comedy set. But Martina Mächler talks about sitting on non-existing furniture and structures not fit for everyone, while assimilation towards them is still so often performed. Using personal anecdotes and stories, she describes flexible surroundings and the love and affection uttered towards one‘s work environment, for example through motivational letters. The fragmented anecdotes are interrupted by stumbles and falls - the unexpected, that just happens, affecting emotionally - targeting the body, interrupting a rhythm, creating breaks and potentially making living otherwise possible. At the same time the poses Martina Mächler performs might remind of the exhaustion the pretense of inhabiting stability triggers, just like when you pretend to sit on a comfortable chair while actually squatting on plain air for about five minutes.