Today, on Mother’s Day, I am sharing a work I made at the beginning of my art studies and first exhibited in June 2023.
The piece is called My Mom is Red.
I painted it with my body. Suspended beneath it on the floor was a letter written by my mother. I found this letter only after moving to begin studying art. Until then, I had never read it.
Inside were the words I had always longed to hear from her. I have seen my biological mother only a handful of times in my life and she was never able to actually talk to me. She wrote those words while being pregnant with my little sister in 1997, only 25 years old.
I grew up between absences and translations of motherhood. I can call two women my mother, and yet the experience of being understood by either of them always remained fractured in different ways. Mother’s Day still carries that split within.
When I found art, something shifted. Not healed, not solved. But placed somewhere outside my body for the first time.
text for exhibition handout:
Meine Mutter ist rot und schlägt Schatten einer glühenden Sonne. Ihre Abwesenheit schimmert in der anwesenden Beugung meiner Glieder, denn die Person, die ich nicht kenne, kennt meinen Körper anders. Meine Bewegung ist ein Abdruck ihrer Röte im Rhythmus einer sich ständig verändernden Temperatur.
Wie ein geteilter Atem, rosig eingehaucht und unbehaglich verflog. Unverbrauchte bipolare Inniglichkeit.
Meine Mutter ist rot und ich weiß nicht warum.
Rot scheint das, was ich mit ihr teile.
My Mom is Red, 2023
Body, pastel and oil on paper
#performancepainting #performanceart #painting #mothersday2026 #art
Durational Performance, presented as part of the exhibition Auras Present Decay, @wehrmuehle Biesenthal 2024.
Churning the Sea of Milk was developed during a stay in Cambodia, the land of my ancestors, grounded in a physical engagement with transgenerational trauma.
Through the process, mythological narratives and cultural references began to intertwine – most notably the Cambodian origin myth of the ocean of milk, in which devas (gods) and asuras (demons) churn the cosmic sea to retrieve Amrita, the nectar of immortality.
This movement – a pulling and counter-pulling – continues through the body: in slow, dragging gestures shaped by a wearable sculpture that simultaneously receives and repels.
The performance can be understood as a poetic gesture of struggle—not between good and evil, but between what emerges and what withdraws. The body becomes a vessel for a movement that seeks neither resolution nor arrival, but instead explores the force of the in-between
Churning the Sea of Milk
04:40min Video Performance prefilmed
2 hours turning in original performance
body, fabrics
bed installation by @bigtimebrad as part of the groupshow Aura‘s present Decay curated by @tjioe.hecken and @felipeschwager@Wehrm ühle 2024.
In addition to my video work Dead Earth, Churning the Sea of Milk was presented as part of the exhibition—extending the live performance and unfolding in resonance with works by
@anamendietaartist@angela.jimenezduran@anna_talens
#berlindedebruyckere
@bigtimebrad@dirk.braeckman@ella__taub@isabel.cordovil@irisschieferstein
Julian Rosefeldt
@kaanbulak
Manuela Morales Délano
@marlondeazambuja
Niklas Bolten
@rubinhenkel
Natacha Donzé
Ana Viktoria Dzinic
@paulowirz@romansigner1983@shira_kela@clementinahosszufalussy
Stephanie Maier
@ybdg_4@gaweda_kulbokaite@wolfgang_tillmans
short version of my Video work ‘zirkeln’ I performed one year ago.
Zirkeln
04:44min Video Performance
may 2024 / body, wooden panels, paint
camera @ferdinandmolck_ude
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be part of @tonymaahoni performance in Berlin tonight. The first round starts at 8.30pm. See you there @vorfluter .
In the work “To the rottenness I say you are my father. And to the worms my sister and my brother.” Toni Ehrhardt translates a long-term research on the hierarchical relationship between humans and animals into an immersive performance. Based on a fictional past, the work focuses on the potential for communication between
our fauna and the human species. However, the seeds planted in the past only appear to be past - and are only partly fake. After that, isn’t our entire human history just speculative archaeology?
APRIL 5. AND 6. 2025
@VORFLUTER PROJECT SPACE
DONAUSTRASSE 112, 12043 BERLIN-NEUKÖLLN
BOTH DAYS FROM 8:30 PM
ENTRANCE IN LIMITED NUMBERS, 3 REPETITIONS
Concept & Scenography: @tonymaahoni
Performers: @tonymaahoni@afruitsbruises Lena Düspohl
Sound: @entangledhands
Outside Eye: @whoisrenen
Philosophical & Technical support: @julianschakal
photographer: @mauroduek
Collection of my works for @burg_halle in White House with public presentation of selected works from the last few months.
burn out, Video performance
research performance installation
Zirkeln, Video Performance
photography series performance
Thanks to everyone supporting me!
#artexam #artpresentation #performanceart
