ana zeno de courcy - If Our Bodies Could Rust p2p

If the body could rust, how would it decay?
Through the strain of resilience or the quiet erosion of touch?

In this work, the body is both structure and surface, enduring weight and releasing it. Balanced on a metal grid perched atop ice packs, the performer’s movements carry the duality of strength and surrender—jumps that echo with force and pauses that stretch with fragility and hesitation. 

The costume—kinesiology tape, shoes, socks, hairpins—clads the body in readiness, only to be undone. Piece by piece, the layers are stripped away, revealing the skin beneath, marked by effort and time.

This is not a narrative of recovery or return. The body here bends and stretches, resists and releases, unable to reclaim its original shape. It becomes a witness to its own transformation, a site where forces meet and leave their trace.

The body dreams of surfaces and seams.

Mattresses, those intimate witnesses of rest, cradling exhaustion and fear, linger in the recited text. They too hold a record of what has passed, only to be discarded. 

Evacuation. Exhaustion. Dispossession. 

This performance moves through cycles of endurance and undoing. It is a quiet rebellion against the demand to be whole, a space where the body speaks of exhaustion and surrender. 

This performance is part of the event programme of the exhibition Sapphic Entaglements with with Ruxin Liu, ana zeno de courcy, Sasha Levkovich and Clara Mannott from 21.01. - 04.02.2024. This exhibition is curated and organized by Sophie McCuen-Koytek and Linn Felgendreher as part of the Kunstraum.p2p format. This exhibition is sponsored by the Studierendenwerk OstNiedersachsen.