We need to grieve to heal. We need to heal to live in the dying. We need to come together and touch Earth, hold the soil in our hands and the sorrow in our hearts, to be able to let go. Suicide is not an option. Surviving is not an option. We want to live a liveable life in the dying.
This is Not a Love Song will unfold in two parts; two workshops and a participatory performance in public space.
The workshops will include moments of walking, breathing, sounding, screaming together, to enable collective mourning. The participatory performance will take place in the public space and will build on the exercises and materials we developed together during the workshops.
You are invited to participate in both the workshop session and the participatory performance, or you can choose only to be part of one of the workshops and become an audience for the participatory performance. You can also choose to just be part of the participatory performance by following the instructions offered without having attended the workshop.
There are many ways to be a part, there are many ways to be present together – to grieve together. We will explore a few.
The workshops and participatory performance is planned in dialogue with Mar Fjell’s solo exhibition at Lou Gallery between 9 November – 30 November 2024.
This is Not a Love Song is a production of Lou, curated by Remi Vesala. The collaboration expands on the dialogue that began in 2023 between curator Vesala and Hanna Parry.
When Dr. Malin Arnell (b. 1970, SE) and Mar Fjell (b. 1981, SE) come together, they become an interdisciplinary art worker, performer, collaborator, researcher, educator, and musician. Since 2017, they have shared breaths through many forests, waterbodies, islands and cities – now inhaling Helsinki. They engage in affectivity within a queer eco-erotic ethics, exploring participatory practices and vibrating togetherness. Their work embraces all things queer and opens up for an unending dynamism of entanglements.