Interview with Agnes Questionmark (Agnes?) on “Slaughterhouse” Performance
Agnes Questionmark (Agnes?) ile “Slaugterhouse” Performansı Üzerine // Türkçe
Agnes Questionmark(Agnes?) presented by Performistanbul‘s Artist Residency Program will bring animals and humans face to face, and they will be in similar conditions. Our slow breathing accompanied the artist during the protest performance that lasted for 30 minutes…
In the performance on the lowest floor of the 3-floor venue, the audience was greeted by pieces of fish hanging from the ceiling and wall. With the images of swordfish and tuna cuts projected onto the wall, clear ideas began to form in our minds about what was going on in the space.
Agnes Questionmark (Agnes?) revealed the most remarkable part of the performance and welcomed us in a cabinet which filled with water. There was no oxygen tube. He was breathing through a simple pipe. He would turn left and right, sometimes looking up. Agnes? His tightness as he breathes, his limited movements and the possibility of what will happen at any moment made us feel breathless and constricted.
Accompanied by the slaughterhouse videos and sounds swirling in the background, Agnes?’s performance in the closet was on point to draw attention to endangered fish. While watching the performance, I said, “I would probably choose such a form of expression and fiction, too.” The fish that were cut in order on the screen, first Agnes’ breathing and the restriction of her movements in the narrow space, once again reminded what can happen when people replace fish and what happens to the fish. This is not only a reminder, but also made me think of the massacres that took place in the ocean even at those moments.
I asked Agnes Questionmark (Agnes?) about her “Slaughterhouse” performance, which is interesting and makes you think about her next move.
Here you go…
How would you introduce yourself to our readers who don’t know you?
My name is Agnes Questionmark and I am a transpecies artist exploring the concept of otherness and becoming. I am interested in the potentialities that humans have to establish new connections with inhuman worlds, such as the sea. As a transgender person I am able to quickly shape my personality in order to fit certain situations, very much like cephalopods, crustaceans or mammals do underwater. This fluidity and sensibility allowed me to explore my body in its potentialities, which means that I can shape and change according to my needs and looming threads that the world is submitting me under; as a trans body in a binary society and as a human being in the midst of a climate disaster.
I would like to start my questions by asking how you got together with the Performistanbul team. What was the action, the idea that gathered you under the same place?
At the end of a trip to Istanbul I met an artist who connected me with Performistanbul 5 minutes before catching my plane back to Italy, it was a blessing!
Soon after, Simge (Burhanoğlu), Azra (İşmen) and I talked via Zoom from our houses and we started sharing ideas and thoughts on possible collaborations. We all knew my experimental approach would fit into their residency program, so we decided to start a project together. I came to Istanbul for 2 weeks to explore the city and its energy. Through their help I was able to quickly delve and permeate into the city and able to live it fully. I was so inspired and excited from all the stimuli I received that I could no resist doing a performance to initiate new adventures in Istanbul and Turkey.
At first, I’m curious about your preparation process for the performance called “Slaughterhouse”. Because what you want people to focus on is the pain, the blood, and the death. How was it like to perform this process?
It’s important to embody a character while I perform. In Slaughterhouse I embodied a fish and thus I really had to believe I was a fish. It is very important that all the elements in the performance, from the place, the clothes and the objects around are well chosen. Since it’s about a lived experience I have to live and feel it, first of all.
Inside the refrigerator I really felt I was a fish trapped. I was tired, then bored and sometimes comfortable. I did not know what to do, I had no plan and it was pure improvisation. I felt uncomfortable often, but then also happy because I believed that refrigerator was my only home. There is a sense of sadness and melancholy in my performances because I often create a house for my body where it does not really fit nor belong to. But, would we live in refrigerators one day? What will happen if fish would store, cut our skin and eat us?
We watched your minimal movements, turning left and right, in a cupboard full of water. While watching you, my breathing was short of time, fish smell came to my nose, I felt restricted in my movements. What was going through your mind during the performance, how did you feel about being stuck, breathing and abouth life?
During my performances I let myself go to the situation. Every performance is different. I need to live in the moment and let my emotions come out, to be able to respond accordingly. If I feel pain, my body will move uncomfortably, or try to accomodate a better situation. If instead I am relaxed, my body flows like a foetus in a womb. I really try not to think about anything but feel I am ‘that specific thing’ or ‘being’ in that specific situation. It’s a challenge I put myself in. I’m interested in responding to difficult situations where I have no other options.
The instinct reaction of my body is quickly getting out of the water, instead I try to establish a connection with it, and to fuse with the element; become the element; become the water; become the fish; become the refrigerator.
We saw that you have swordfish, mermaid, ship anchor tattoos on your body. It is understood from here that you have a strong bond with the sea and sea creatures. What is the meaning of the sea in your life? By making it a part of your performance, you actually make it feel that its place in your life is great…
My father sailed the world for over 20 years, so I was raised as a sea kid. I dived at the age of 8 and learned names of fish before literature characters. I was always fascinated by the underwater habitats because it reflected more the way I felt, the fluidity that was inside me. No rules underwater, no gender, no binaries, is place full of mysteries and where things change at fast speed. I have a strong relation to the sea because it brings me back to my childhood but it also allows me to dream of future habitats for the human beings.
What is the meaning of famine, climate crisis, massacres, ecosystem for your performance called “Slaughterhouse”? We have in common that there are creatures fighting their own cyclicity in the ocean while fighting them in the metropolis. However, the fact that sea creatures do not kill humans exalts them. What do you think?
I think we are deeply underestimating our ocean, by considering it as a mere resource extrapolation rather than a place to learn, discover, and evolve with. The ocean can offer lots of resources rather than mere food but this will not change if we do not change the way we see it. We should humanise the ocean, familiarise with its habitats and then discover the full potentials of it. Or, if this won’t work, we shall oceanise our human being. One way or the other, we must fuse with the ocean. This is the only way we will stop slaughtering fish, destroying the bottom of the sea and polluting our own home.
If I go back to the performance called “Slaughterhouse”, when we entered, it was obvious that the place you were in was the slaughterhouse. The video, the materials, and your performance at that moment conveyed carried the message and kept it alive. Will there be a next stage of this performance? Where will it go, what will it evolve into? The fact that it has a protest side also makes us think that it should cross the borders.
Slaughterhouse opened up a new series of work that I would like to explore. Incisive symbolism of human habits have been raised through this project, such as, fishing, slaughtering, storing meat, consuming animals, etc.
Interesting objects have come up such as fish bait, hooks, knives, swords, etc. And very urgent concepts such as human speculations, interconnections with the sea, mass extinction, have posed questions into my work. I definitely have a lot of research to do and to perform. My intention in the future is to start performing my own research, to show that human activities can be shaped through performance art.
What side would you like to be on when you imagine a universe where humans take the form of fish and fishes take the form of humans? Do you have an universe where you create your own utopia?
I am already preparing myself for this event. I am creating an imaginary place where my body can fit and adapt to hybridity , shape its morphology from land to water. We are mainly terrain creatures but I am developing to become a fluid being. I definitely see myself flowing in the Atlantic currents with whales and orcas rather than crossing pathways with office workers.
