Attention

Performance

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Deeply rooted in my system there is the sense of ‘tough it out on your own’. This is something that is constructive in a lot of situations but destructive in the aftermath of things in life. Something that often came paired with shame towards one’s own pains. Shame that resulted in hiding emotions, feeling alone and often numb. Some- thing that throughout the privileged platform of an art academy has been able to come out and forward. Having
to and wanting to deal with myself and my direct society around me, I took the platform to show this pain and shame. In “Attention 2018”30, a 4-hour perfor- mance where - after doing a series of “impressive tricks” and scream asking the audience if they “see me now”, I climb a 6 meter high rope ladder to sit for
4 hours uninterupted on a beam. No safety, allowing myself to think my one line of thought to be in the moment and be with the loneliness within the setting of an audience. Being up there, slowly feeling the pain from the sitting on the hard beam getting numb, the tingling sensation in my legs and the few of
the audience in the corner of my eye, i stopped feeling alone, i stopped feeling like i had to tough it out on my own. Even the “falling in love” feeling, the short lived but true connection felt with a person back on the ground at the end of the performance, was present.

Something that ended up being extremely healing in the moment. Also, because I was allowed to show this, it resulted in a feeling of being seen, and therefore reflect, both on a conscious and on an unconscious level.