Hüseyin
Badilli
PLAYING POSSUM
My Brothers Might Kill Me
The performance is centered around the opossum animal defense behavior that I found myself in, after being subject of a threat of honor killing.Opossum is a behavior in which an animal takes on the appearance of being dead in dangerous situations. But in my situation, was the danger gone? Can it be gone? In order to complete my physical and emotional opossum, I will organize my own funeral. Since there are usually no funerals for the victims of honor killings, because their families are the murderers. My funeral will be according to the rules of Islam.
I EAT PORK
The performance is based on manipulating, provoking and eventually confronting the visitors with their own hypocrite behaviors. The patterns, codes and experiences that we have been collecting or emposed by media, corrupted system, politics and religion, become our datas which make us assume "things" in other words creates our palet of prejudice towards what ever we encounter in our lives. My face, my skin colour, the way I look "determine" my identity and who I am according to the "data" that the person that I encounter with. I live in such a soceity where many religions and cultures are "melting in one pot" I thought, until I heard the "Careful! There is pork in it" from the both societies that I encounter everyday; Dutch and Dutch-Turks.
STRANGE FRUIT
"Strange Fruit" is a combination of a video and live contemporary music performance which aims to be a reflection of the discussions which is still going on lately in The Netherlands, about Racism. It is such a sensitive topic and yet everybody has got something to say or people feels like that they have to say something. But what and why? In which way? Does everybody really tells what they think and feel? Or they choose to be hypocrite? Is Zwarte Piet racism or not? Did Zwarte Piet got black because they came into houses thorough the chimney or it is matter of choice that human being makes, in order to believe or hear a "better" story.
UPCOMING: GLORY HOLE
“Glory Hole” is a one to one performance which is based on anonymous way of connecting. It is originally a hole in a wall often between public lavatory stalls or in some of the night clubs combined with dark rooms or adult video arcade booths, for people to engage in sexual activity. In addition to the penis, fingers or the tongue may be inserted into the hole.
In this performance “Glory Hole” (metaphorically) represents the “Black Hole” in the space and the “Black Hole”implies the emotional holes; emptiness, in order words the endless trial of human being in order to fulfill the holes which we have been carrying since the evolution. A black hole is a geometrically defined region of space time exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing can escape from inside it.
It investigates our occupations to fulfill the emptiness that we carry with in us, in life and trying so hard not to fall in these black holes. It also focuses on how different cultures and social classes deal with this emptiness and investigates the roots of the occupations which are based on the fundamental needs of human being such as; food, religion, love, sex, art, music, etc. But also the need of over consuming or getting really extreme on these needs.