Author: Portable Door
the Island
Islands.
Islanders.
Surrounded by water 
All around, the four sides of the sea melt and form a deep 360° boundary, encapsulation.
which makes one or me only feel both safe and stuck without supplies if one (me only?) has not brought enough of…
{ or wait, give it a thought, what was it that one would bring to a semi-deserted island?
if one thing only? }
Cause ships coming and going from island are graceful and bring resources.
Bjork has written an anchor song 
– piosenka kotwica (pl.)
which sounds like that
We just spent a weekend on Danish Ungdomsøen (Youths’ Island) on the occassion of Peace Camp.
Our ship was gracious too, a Cornish crabber from 1971 with Gavin as captain.
video
the peace manifestation in the harbour was artistically initiated by Pipaluk (video by Magnus)
Ungdomsøen ( previously called Middelgrundsfort ) is the biggest of three islands seen from the north end of Copenhagen Channel – artificially built for protecting the land from seaside war attacks. (photo and article from ‘Båd’ magasin’18)
The second of the 3 – Flakfortet – I had sailed 
to many years ago on my own boat. Without knowing any of its history. We only talked to its islanders. People living on and running the island that once was military’s, then abandonded, then went into private hands and opened for sailors visiting. Then temporarily closed because of visitors bringing potential damage to its historical heritage.
Interesting people…
Trekroner, the third island, we would sail to and practice harbour maneuvers for Dueligheds Bevis exam.
Yes.
And all those words above to give a sensation of peculiarities of Island as space and beautiful, strange culture.
And because I feel there’s a vibe in Islands. And in places once upon a time abandoned by military.
Which shift then into another shape.
Sunday shadows, myths rewritten
Today is Sunday. Aloneness turns out to be pregnant with past-gathered stories, myths and images that ask me to bring them anew to the surface of today.
Warm mischevious sun and Spring lurking shyly from behind tree barks. Trees are not blossoming yet. Here She comes again, yet again for the first time.
“Everything happens for the first time. Just in a way that is eternal.” (Borges)
Eternity of Change.
“Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, excerpt for this woman whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity!” (Zarathustra)
Eros and Thanatos – are one and same thing, said Deleuze* about Freud’s two opposites.
Maybe therefore none of the opposites can win? The Two don’t even take the resolving fight. They need each other untill a conflict as a process becomes complete. As much time as it takes. Like towards a child. Or towards love. (Inner) conflict is painful… and conscious. And one day, suddenly, it’s some subconscious force – the Anima – or some other train of unexpected outside events, who brings a resolution to the conflict of “opposites”. There is a fairytale that pictures it: the conflict between two opponents (the Faithful and the Unfaithful) gets surprisingly resoved by a third character, Anima (the Princess)**.
Fairytales and poetry have special language that makes it possible to understand. Gain a deeper insight. Bear in mind: it’s also the language of “the Weird”. The weird and anima are often neglected. The Other.
(Inner) conflict is painful often. When one believes (s)he has to choose between shadow and light.
14 years ago I received a special (back then) book from a friend: ‘Owning your own shadow’ by Robert N. . Since then I’ve gotten to like and understand almonds much more. Mandorla.
When I was little I wanted to be good. But I couldn’t somehow 😉 I was convnced I wanted to marry Jesus, because he was good.
For years it felt there was some missing element in religion. Now in adult life I know what it is. Attraction. Mutual attraction between human and God. Maria Magdalena maybe? Or at least some kind of Anima of Jesus.***
* on Eros and Thanatos being one. Pleasure containing death drive in itself as a “curved line”, sustaining the libido drive, taking care of it’s repetition.
(Quote by Deleuze, taken from S. Zizek’s book “Living in the end times”)
** from a chapter ‘the Anima and the Heroes’ by Marie Louise von Franz
*** my own little Sunday blasphemy
**** original photo by Josh Blake (getty images)
Intimacy of Death
I have an honor of presenting a visual Death Testimony, created by a wonderful woman called Rose.
Rose wrote…
I would like to share a little testimony about the intimacy of Death.
As my mother passed away the family chose to keep her in her home for three days never leaving her alone.
I spend the nights alone at her side and watched the rapid changes of her face and body trying to capture her transition with my pens and brushes.
I realized that Death is all but silent, but in the lack of words describing the phenomenon other systems of non-verbal expression takes over, languages of prayers, dreams and poetry, art and music.
In my testimony I share the intimate process of grief that could only be expressed in poetic ways recovering the world after the loss of a huge impact in life.
I share with you the sketches and drawings I made of my mother after she passed away, but also the recovery of her lost places as I one day suddenly discovered her portrait on the surface of the moon ~
soul synchronizes what cannot be spoken, I hope you will receive the soulful message
Sisters Hope’s Symbolic Testament
“ I want to thank everyone who came to my funeral (…)“
stop for a moment, press play, take three breaths and look around.
Come back. continue being a witness…
Her office was already dark when I stepped inside.
Dimmed lights, I mean, suede turquiose pillows, soft carpet that makes one wanna live and love.
She then lied down on this black carpet.
With my hands, I prepared her body … for transition.
I lit the candle.
Her candle and Her golden nail behind her head crown.
I covered her all, her face last.
I let her be where I was not, her Time was ticking different than mine.
After Time, I uncovered her slowly
… so she could, so alive, take a distance to herself.
She was standing there, looking at Her from that Time some whiles ago when she was lying fully covered, her candle burning.
Then she spoke.
I want to thank everyone who came to my funeral (…)
I listened, I witnessed.
Then when She finished the speech …
… I took three breaths and started to write what I had heard.
Sister’s symbolic Testament was donated to Sisters Hope Home Archive on 23 November 2021 by Iwona Rejmus
as part of her art project
Life ~ Death ~ Testament
Now.
wherever you are, stop and press play, close your eyes and then close this page
…when you feel it’s time
Queering Paths and Phenomenology of Becoming
The most intriguing of all in this Queer Mermaids project is not the question of ‘am I queer?‘, but rather ‘how this process shapes the way I orientate myself in time and space: both alone and when extending myself through Others‘. Phenomenology of becoming.
Recently I got fascinated by a Polish philosopher Anna Teresa Tymieniecka, my new discovery, my homeland phenomenologist.
She writes spot-on about the power of an experiencing individual – which is specially interesting in the context of workshops and exploratory rituals I’ve been creating…
the horizons of experience are movable and infinitely extendable, depending on viewpoint, situation in space and time, and on the powers of the experiencing subject, his/her reception and appreciation. (*1
You might have experienced that too?… imagine you are given a “gift”, possibly an inspiring lecture or a mesmerizing concert or a love gesture from somebody. Sometimes your body and mind are so receptive that the experience becomes profound. Other times you do not notice, you do not feel much, while exactly the same gift is lying in front of you. It’s suddenly less accessible, as if your ‘horizon of experience’ is (temporarily) limited.
Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life revolves around an intriguing notion ontopoiesis.
Viewed as a “mechanism” of consciousness operating within the individual psyche, ontopoiesis underlies the human development, and serves not only as the foundation for development after the deep spiritual experience, but also as the basis for life transitions, transformations of meaning, and reconstruction of the human self affected by trauma. (*2
Significant life- and meaning-transitions are constantly (re)shaping ‘human self’ (one’s ‘overall’ identity). Those triggering moments of transformation – and this is a core addition to my Master Thesis – happen so often when experiencing something for the first time …or in States of Disorientation. Queering moments.
I have met a lot of ‘queer’ people on my recent path, I have however never really identified myself as ‘queer’. But my fascination for the concept started again when reading ‘Queer Phenomenology’ (*3. If queer as a spatial concept is a deviation from a straight line, I thought that I am maybe not queer, but my lifestyle and life path I chose (or was thrown on?) is quite queer. And there is more people living differently. Artistic research started. Here is a little film from our last project ‘Mermaid Oracles are walking the Line’ – together extending the notion of QUEER…
(*1 ‘The New Enlightenment:
Cosmo-Transcendental Positioning of the Living Being in the Universe’ by ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
(*2
(*3 by Sarah Ahmed
Interview ¤3
On the 13th of November it was, 2019, that I came to Erhard’s home for an interview.
People around me are my personal celebrities. It’s an honour to be let in. It’s a sublime passion to leave a trace. It’s always an exchange.
I am the one that interviews, but I am being asked questions, too.
long for that kind of love
When I ask people that question, what I really dig is this mental act of feeling and imagining to the core of one’s deepest dream around love, translated into words and/or images. It can be a very vulnerable dream. It can be a love scenario one has experienced or has never experienced. Or a scenario one is never going to experience. I think it’s a very important exercise.
His love longing is portrayed by love that already manifested. In the past…
You never stop kissing. Small kisses.
Unity in singularity without many words
(…)
Keep all academics out of love life. All reflections out of love life
my (unexpected) question for him
The very moment I entered his door, I was drawn to the interiors. So I gave him a spontaneous task. He accepted.
I like spaces. I like objects. How gorgeous to be exploring corners through someone else’s eyes!
what is sexy to you…
Then he found this…
… an object that was not only already filled with history and symbolic value, but also unexpectedly carried the answer to one of the core questions in the interview. Yes, rumpy bees and pumpy blooms… is what make Him tick.
his (unexpected) mission for me
I continued walking around His apartment’s corners. Slowly. My buzzing attraction towards aesthetics of objects with yet no name led me somewhere. I stopped. And He filmed…
This animal opened a new dimension to my understanding of a proverb that I’ve used quite often… when spotting life events and dynamics between people.
The animal apparently served as meaningful free association to a film/story/philosophy. That’s part of the contract I made with myself throughout all the 7 interviews I have and yet will do: I will link to a bigger intertextual whole… and extend a symbolic meaning.
rzucać perły przed wieprze { pl }
(cast pearls before swine { eng }
his picture of an old friend, my roots re-found
Our wandering through His apartment led us in the end to His ‘memoirs’ box.
And the last picture…
He got excited to show it to me and for me it was like a time machine ! When you associate something , actually its very beginning, with a particular person… Yes, I could put Momo in my personal museum: My Journey with Performance Art
Momo. Genesis. The Roots.
The story goes…
In 2005, there was a huge building destined to be turned down, the end of Island Brygge: A-Huset.
Here I took part in my first interactive performance ever. ‘In my face’ the name was. Here I met a significant handful of amazing people and inspiring artist. That’s how it started for me. 15 years ago. With many of the same people I have been journeying in parallel universes first with SIGNA, then our own art performance collective Club de la Faye. Together writing a movement manifesto, together shaping this new form of performance art.
Think, if I had not met Momo that autumn wednesday evening in Statens Museum for Kunst, if he had not invited me to take part in ‘In my face’ performance, who and where would I be right now in the world? I wonder sometimes…
This interview series revolves around two core questions: ‘what is sexy?’ and ‘deepest love dream’, as in unique life scripts of a human being,
7 interviews. 7 encounters. Experience them here.
Interview ¤2
Seks i miłość po polsku…
I will not translate this interview. She’s brilliant just like that and it’s almost as much honour as pleasure to do one of these 7 interviews in our mother tongue.
Some chambers are only to be entered by a few with the key…
what is sexy to you…
‘Animal tenderness’ she said. I understood. Yet, only much later I realized that it means ‘zwierzęca czułość’ …and that extended my world even more. “Language creates reality” wrote Sapir & Worf and that – I remember – was one of sociological hypotheses that influenced me the most during and after my studies.
I long deepest for …that kind of love
Musi być “obłąkany, obdarzony i hojny”
that must mean ‘obsessed, skilled and generous”?
… until death tears us apart.
her (unexpected) question to me
Then she sat ME on the hot seat. And I told her about Virgilia.
Virgilia is a character in ‘North and South’ (1985) film. If I was ‘carte blanche’ with freshest eyes, I might have chosen another female figure. But years ago I was asked (or asked myself) which character I’d play in that film … and I got surprised by my choice. And I think today that exactly that past feeling of self-surprise, a sudden realization that I am actually different or more than I used yo think of myself…made me answer: Virgilia. Maybe significant inceptions unmanifested just need to manifest! Maybe it’s in their nature.
my (unexpected) question to her
It’s neither a question nor it was unexpected. And it happened one day before the interview happened – and I even started recording before I asked. But it was ok.
It was a confession. I’ve been carrying this intention for 2 years to tell her…that she was one of these women I would look up to because they’d reached a level of advancement, where they are so confident and so trusting a man and so seeing a bigger picture, that they are not jealous. One day her husband told me a story though: that summer where she sent us two to Norway, she was jealous! I suddenly felt both naive and affectionate towards her and her side I’ve never known before. And my perception of “advancement” in love relationships – it has changed forever.
The final harvest
Following a tradition, each interview brings some intertextuality. This time my free association to a film/philosophy/phenomenon {inspired by meeting with her} is…
OWCE
I can’t think of anything other that SHEEP now. How they smell and how they are tenderly in love…
This interview series revolves around two core questions: ‘what is sexy?’ and ‘deepest love dream’, as in unique life scripts of a human being,
7 interviews. 7 encounters. Experience them here.
‘Spy in the House of Love’
I am close to – and very alert… on the event of finishing the last pages of “Spy in the house of love” by Anaïs Nin.
She’s just confronted the spy man, ready for exposure, for truth. Maybe. That’s what is cooking. I just started to share this “oops anticipation-alertness” in a message to E. {who gave me the book} … so that he knows how this book shapes me, understands me, crystalizes my self-confidence and refreshed trust in the ‘epic’ that lies in shaky grounds, chaos, anchorlessness, magic. Also to express to him my appreciation for this gift. And reminder that I’m here and he’s indirectly part of it. And to let him know – did he realize what this book is gonna do to me?
Did he know? Did he do it on purpose?
Anyway I feed on magic. And I long for some let-go of illusion. At the same time I could consciously (wisely) stop this book now, cause that book has given me confirmation, validation of my journey (which can be anyway – and even more powerfully – be followed by the opposite of it, stability – that could also be an organic continuation of the “chaos-temporariness-magic surf” chapter dragging power instead of consequence from it.
So I need to be aware. Should I stop now and let the book do the magic working in me in completing what I’ve started and NOW it’s the momentum, peak, harvest, some leap? What kind of art act I want to do in the end of this chapter? I am not ready for stability before I turn this chaos into self-power and art!!!!
So focus. Feel. Patience. Intuition. And you will, cause you can. You have to. Courage.
One of the inability, stuckness is related to the contraction I’m also experiencing here now: how to share this, so it’s useful in a way it inspires others, potency? I cannot publish it unpolished, Polishing takes time I don’t wanna give it. Like with sexual-asexual post: that’s what I am mainly here for. Then I felt uninspired.
New places, contexts and people make me feel alive, but also frustrate me because “starting from scratch”. Single, short-time projects. I want a safe anticipation of and relaxation in longer journey. Spreading wings. Can somebody commit and hold me?
What and who do I want to commit to? Invest time and attention and passion to?
That’s it.
That’s what you need to figure our tonight, girl.
All the rest…you cut off.
It’s practical and “fits” (I’ve been wanting all to fit with time, and space and sequence and gaps).
Interview ¤1
this is not a beginning
but that day we’ve landed in this room to manifest something concrete.
sexy to you…
I asked the first question.
I learned about micro-sex and the truth lying in energy…
I long deepest for …that kind of love
I asked the second question.
I heard what really matters…
his (unexpected) question to me
then he asked me something.
It was a personal trip backwards and back in the now: through dynamic images and narratives.
between the lines
a reminder to-the-core came out-of-the-blue.
…and?
my (unexpected) question to him
…and then suddenly I knew how we proceed
In the very end
,,,he asked me about the objects.
He: “what are these?“
Me: “this one here is a n authentic wooden “nail” for building traditional boats. It’s like a core to design, to stability, robustness. But there’s always “more” to traditions than we know… historically. Cause every object is deeply rooted in a rich context it belonged to.
And that one is a stick of joy. Used for BDSM and sexual rituals.“
He: “wait. so these two… it’s actually the other way around to what I had thought?
Interesting!!“
this is not a conclusion
… rather my free association to a film//story/philosophy {inspired by my meeting with him}
I have been processing, editing, living this interview during my bus trip to Berlin.
The image came. Heart()Ego. Light()Shadow. Endless overlaps in the shape of an almond. The almond is the core. I first heard of the word in a book by Robert A. Johnson ‘Owning your own shadow‘.
In Berlin I was going to Xplore… and meet my beloved friend that once gave me the book… and stay with a friend I’ve been creating immersive performances with. Overlaps of Gold. Berlin made an imprint that rooted itself deep under my skin.
MANDORLA
“(…) they can both be there at the same time.” – he said.
And that’s what I’ll take with me… – to the next interview.
This interview series revolves around two core questions: ‘what is sexy?’ and ‘deepest love dream’, as in unique life scripts of a human being,
7 interviews. 7 encounters. Experience them here.