if i am not here
esssay with mistakes
written in the framework of
"i fail, we fail, we are failed"
Belluard/Bollwerk Festival
june 25 - july 4, 2026
if i am not here,
it is because i am not able to.
i am failing.
i can't stick to usual working hours; i can't fulfill expectations that are familiarly put on performance artists; you might have liked to know what to expect before coming here.
well, all this does not bother me.
because, in reality, i am liberating us from the weight of norms that do not belong to us.
aesthetic of failure and
crip aesthetic.
reminder:
aesthetics = politics
"crip" comes from "crippled", an old english word that was used to mean "disabled"
and has become derogatory. but it has since been re-appropriated by the disabled community.
just like the word "gay" has been.
and like others and i are now using the words "handicapéex" and disabled.
when i say i am disabled, i say it with the pride of my survival and that of my communities,
in the mindset that we are simply and only different but in an ableist society that does
not want to integrate us in its norms.
i am invisibly disabled, handicapé, crip.
i practice the crip aesthetic. i try.
the goal of crip aesthetics is to crip the arts and our social and political norms,
so that the way of functioning and the needs of minorities, and not only those of the
disabled community, are moved to the centre of processes and products. and so, the
norm does not only smile at us to "include" us, but is fundamentally transformed.
towards a true equality.
that equality that makes equity obsolete.
beautiful, no?
all this said, still, there is something that bothers me about my inability to be here.
in some way, my absence is an evidence that my current being can't do it otherwise than by betraying some of my values.
instead of having the gut energy to come here with the trust that i would find a flow
of solidarity that would replace this "take care of myself" that we so often do, all alone,
i feel the necessity to stay away and dedicate myself to what i think is my survival.
i do not feel any brutality against myself or you when i am away; we could say that i chose softness and care and this is true.
but i also know that my lack of trust in human beings is part of the brutality of our system and of its lethal effects.
i am at a point where i (often believe that i) must embody our system to survive.
and this is not the only example.
there are others in which i can feel with shame that i involuntarily reify mechanisms inscribed in my flesh and thoughts by my privileges, included that of having a white skin.
and here, it hurts.
in you
in me.
could you accept my apologies?
are you able and willing to tell me what else you would need?
all this is so sad,
while in the botttom of my heart, i would like to build with you an identity, one
that is anchored in relationality, a worldview that is unspeakably different from the western
individualistism, capitalism, coloniaiism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, biphobic,
enbyphobia, xenophobia and so many other phobia, war-making, fascism...
i am failing and i am also an evidence that our system has failed.
i become my art and my absence is a product i am offering to you.