Live performance
Presented at Third Space Gallery, Helsinki, Finland, 2017, and Azad Gallery, Tehran, Iran, 2018
Filming: Jakub Bobrowski, Laura Leif
Thing(-ing) series*

Only & Only If You Stare at My Hands explores what a specially designed object can do in performance, in terms of both its function and its form, and it is also a practice of care and hospitality. The object is made of alder wood, bronze and felt.

During the performance I sit on the floor among the audience, holding the object in front of me. Beside me is a paper bag of vegetables. Taking a leek, say, I use the object to cut it into small pieces and pass them to the people sitting nearby, encouraging them to help each other pass the food on until everyone in the room has been served. A microphone amplifies the sound of the cutting on the bronze surface throughout the space. As I work I ask people what vegetables they like. When everyone in the room has been served and is satisfied, the performance ends.

*Thing(-ing) describes a state of interaction with objects in which the interpreting mind steps back and the attention rests on the objects themselves — their nature, their materiality, what they are capable of. The aim is not a predetermined outcome but a genuine, conscious experience of the interplay between mind and body on one side and object and matter on the other: a phenomenological and creative encounter that lets me be fully present through physical engagement with the things at hand.