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MOMA. New York City. 2010
Six performance-interventions during Marina Abramovich's:'The Artist Is Present' in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
I sat in front of Marina Abramovich, six consecutive days dressed as six different identities, the last one being a full length black Burqa and Niqāb which covered my entire body and face, except for the eyes. I sat with her for 42 minutes, then continued upstairs where the retrospective of her work was being shown. I stood in front of a re-performer elevated high on a wall, her arms and legs extended in a crucifixion pose. We stared intensely into each others eyes, she began to cry. I was completely covered, she was completely nude.
This same re-performer, later talked about this experience in an interview, mentioning that it was the only moment she truly felt physically naked.
The performance was based on the experience of annulling the individual. I no longer represented myself but a collective identity. I became a symbol. A question. A contrasting figure. The "other".