40 DAYS ON A BENCH IN BERLIN, 2022-2024
A long durational performance. I spent 40 days on a bench in Berlin, 40 days in a row, same time, same place every day. The purpose was to "do nothing", as a protest against a society focused on being productive. Every day I wrote down my observations after the sitting and published it on social media, using the hashtag #40daysonabenchinberlin These notes later became a book, published by Poesiwerken Publishing in Sweden in 2024.
INSTRUCTIONS:
*Find a park bench in any city
*Sit on the bench for 40 days in a row
*Make every sitting exactly 40 minutes
*Sit in the same place at the same time every day
*Sit regardless of weather and health iusses
*Sit still and sit in silence
*If someone you don't know approaches you and talks to you, you're allowed to talk back
*If someone you know wants to visit the bench they also need to sit still and in silence
*If someone behaves badly you're allowed to leave the bench and carry on later
*Do "nothing" on the bench
In 2024 I when launching the book about the project, I invited people to join me on benches in different cities. Below is a documentation from a sitting in Tranås by Naw Studios who has also made an introduction.
WOMEN OF THE NORTH, 2024
In September 2024, I took part in the residency Women of the North in Quebéc, Canada for three weeks. It's an exchange project funded by the Nordic council ministry of arts. We were exploring the topics nordicity and equality as well as relating to the surrounding environment.
Below is a performance with the other poets and performers in residence (in Swedish, but a translation was also read out in French):
Here's a poem, I wrote during the residency:
LAC CONNELLY CALLING
I was born in the sign of pisces
am drawn to water as others are drawn to
human bodies
When I go to bed I look forward to
waking up
wishing for Lac Connelly to swallow me
and cool down my doubts
I was raised with lakes as
r e c r e a t i on
something blue and wet to rejoice in
bath-swim-paddle-row
Possibly fish,
as mediation – not for survival
grandma couldn’t swim
but knew how to gut a perch
A couple of generations ago
lakes were a source to wash yourself
and your clothes in, fish for food
I open the curtains
gaze at the day and see only blue
despite the trees turning red
Lac Connelly is already my friend
her name is Irish, male
and means ”hard as a hound”
but with her I soften
I ponder if you can reach a point
where you don’t see the shore
there are lakes big enough to get lost in
both in Canada and Sweden
Canadian poet Margaret Atwood writes:
”The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.
I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.
It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am”
Lac Connelly is my bathtub and womb
11 kilometres long and 1,1 kilometres wide
If I held my phone in my hand
I’d be a blue dot
in a pool of pure joy
The Swedish poet Ingela Strandberg writes:
”I call a lake.
You can’t call
a lake, I call
a lake.”
I think that it’s Lac Connelly
calling me
before the alarm makes a noise
the voice of the lake cuts through the window,
asks Where are you?
I throw off my clothes
and run down to the blue,
feel my clitoris swelling
enveloped, whole, home.
PINK PUNK POETRY, 2023
An EP of collected spoken word poetry by my alterego "Lou Ice", produced by AVzounds, UK
"I first met Lou-Ice in Brighton a few years back and it was pretty obvious that here was a complete original, bright, bold and raw, onstage or off it.
I set up AVzounds, my music production company, in 2023 to work with poets and spoken word performers and I very much wanted to work with Lou-Ice but wasn’t sure if she would do it. Luckily for us, she did and we collaborated on Pink Punk Poetry, AVzounds’ 2nd album, of which I am very proud.
I wanted to emphasise Lou’s tough but vulnerable stage persona, her attitude, and the clarity and honesty of her work, so kept the music as minimal as possible so her voice would ring out loud and clear.
Lou-Ice’s poetry does not dabble in abstraction, symbolism, or surrealism, it is real. Her emotions, her physicality and sexuality, her impatience with trivia and fussy bourgeois habits, all of these are subjects that make her poetry with attitude so interesting. We recommend that you listen to her."
Dr. C. Ritchie, Director, AVzounds
"VOICE JOURNEY", 2023
Performance video work created during Transit Kulturinkubator virtual residency in 2023. An exploration of the voice using poetry and bad advice from doctors.
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