Veronika Merklein and Ela A. Sattler, “Garden Eden”, performance
31 May & 2 June 2022, 19:00
POP UP, VIENNA FESTWOCHEN, ARCHIVE
Few acts of eating, if any, have had more serious consequences for humanity than that one bite of the forbidden fruit. Veronika Merklein and Ela A. Sattler’s performance “Garden Eden” is a queer fat version of the story of Adam and Eve and invites the audience to take part in an interlude about a toxic relationship between two narcissists and a seemingly never-ending story about consuming Eden’s apples. The Fall of Man is not just about the realisation that there is good and evil: it also brings with it a longing and a mourning for a paradise lost. Harmony and security – the ultimate disposition of the land of milk and honey in our uncertain world and age? Garden Eden does not come up with a solution nor does it find redemption; instead, the silent performance maintains the state of limbo, in a sensually sinister continuous loop.
Concept / Performance: Veronika Merklein, Ela A. Sattler
Objects: Martin Pölzl, Veronika Merklein, Ela A. Sattler
E.A. Sattler lives and works as multimedia artist in Vienna. Their artistic work plays with the deconstruction and expansion of the definition of power, as well as classism and codes within bodies. Within this spectrum they go deep into gender, bodypositivity, sexpositivity, and nature in an enhanced way. The medial focus of their work lays in videoinstallation, performance, and staged photography which comes ever closer to queerfeministic pornografie and post porn politics.