Be Körner is an artistic researcher, activist and educator working with performative strategies. Be is working as a research associate at the professorship Arts and Research at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and is doing a practice-based PhD on the entanglement of performance art and mental crisis.
The dissertation project looks at conflicting ideas of normalcy and deviation through the entanglement of artistic privilege and psychiatric stigma. Be explores moments of transgression and the productivity of deviation and wildness.
Since 2012, the works have been exhibited internationally in galleries and institutions, for example at Reykjavík Museum of Photography, CCI Fabrika Moscow and Bundeskunsthalle Bonn. Be works both as a solo artist and in changing collaborative constellations.
imagine two
who
love to play
setting on fire
what’s on their way
imagine two
who
love to fight
taking no prisoners
as they burn bright
imagine two
who
don’t pull back
when the pain peaks
and there’s blood on the tracks
imagine two
tears on my pillow
BK January 2021
performative research happening
*** Für die deutsche Version bitte nach unten scrollen ***
We invite you to join us for a performative evening hosted by the Crying Institute in collaboration with the PhD Programme Art and Design at VdV, HP05, where we will chop, cry and cook an onion soup together.
The research happening will begin with a performance lecture by Nadja and Be. We will reflect on crying as transgressive act, onion cutting as encounter between two bodies, and the materiality of tears. This will be followed by a collective ritual, at the end of which there will be an onion soup that will be shared with everyone present.
Please bring your own cutting board, knife and onion if you want to participate in the collective action. We kindly ask everybody to self-test before the event to minimize the risk of infections.
In excited anticipation,
Be Körner and Nadja Kracunovic
on behalf of the Crying Institute
***
Wir laden Sie und euch zu einem performativen Abend ein, der vom Crying Institute in Zusammenarbeit mit dem PhD Programm Kunst und Design im VdV, HP05 veranstaltet wird, wo wir gemeinsam schneiden, weinen und eine Zwiebelsuppe kochen werden.
Dieses Research Happening wird mit einer Performance Lecture von Nadja und Be beginnen. Wir reflektieren über Weinen als transgressiven Akt, Zwiebelschneiden als Begegnung zwischen zwei Körpern und die Materialität von Tränen. Es folgt ein gemeinsames Ritual, an dessen Ende eine Zwiebelsuppe steht, die wir mit allen Anwesenden teilen werden.
Wer sich an der gemeinsamen Aktion beteiligen möchte, bringt bitte ein eigenes Schneidebrett, ein Messer und eine Zwiebel mit. Wir bitten alle, vor der Veranstaltung einen Selbsttest zu machen, um das Risiko von Infektionen zu minimieren.
Vorfreudige Grüße,
Be Körner und Nadja Kracunovic
für das Crying Institute
03.11.22, 5:26
I can feel them coming in the night: A warm force within my closed eyelids. Each and every time, I hope they will subside before the pressure is high enough to release them into my sleepless night. I am terrified of what will happen otherwise.
So often in the past two years, a single drop would lead to hours of crying. A silent sob, barely recognizable through unsteady and pressed breathing might build up to an open cry with soft moaning which may then escalate into a panic attack, depending on which images and thoughts well up in the outpouring. It would leave me empty, embarrassed, and exhausted, a mere shadow of my former selves. With each of these crying sessions, I would sink deeper into the darkness, awakening the ghosts of older wounds that would accompany the recent ones on their way to the surface of my eye.
So when I feel them coming, I try to suppress the transgression with breathing techniques, a softening of the face muscles, an adjustment of my posture to make more space for the wet disaster lingering on my eyeballs. I turn to discipline to force the immanent loss of control back into the realm of the unconscious. If I succeed, sleep may find me again.
Tonight, it’s just two tears on my pillow.