August 2019
That is where the question of hospitality begins: must we ask the foreigner to understand us, to speak our language, in all the senses of this term, in all its possible extensions, before being able and so as to be able to welcome him into our country?
Jacques Derrida
During a little more than two weeks Thiago Antunes and Esteban Donoso shared the Penthouse Artistic Residency of the NH Bloom Hotel Brussels. Thiago developed a score for one-on-one sessions mixing interview, story-telling and rope-bondage. He had 15 sessions with guests, lasting from 45 to 3 hours long each.
Embracing the fact that the residency was taking place in a hotel room, he delved into the interdependency of the roles of the guest and the host, investigating with the visitors their beliefs and experiences around hospitality. Some Brazilian stories about cannibalism would trigger the conversation towards hospitality. Bondage was an option proposed at some point. The guests had some options to choose from, about where and how they would be tied up, while they continued the discussion. At the end, they could also experiment the role of the rigger, tying Thiago up.
A final performance, with an audience, took place on the 21st of August. The host and the guest, interpreted by Esteban and Thiago, would talk in two different languages: Portuguese and English, as it follows.
Thiago − A primeira pergunta que eu sempre faço é: por que você se interessou de vir? Por que você está aqui?
Esteban − (Sucking a caramel) I was curious. To see what you connected. Because it seems it was a very intense experience, and I wanted to understand the terms of that experience.
− Você acha que a bala está te ajudando a falar melhor?
− Yes, better.
− Então, tem sempre essa história que eu sempre conto, que é a história de um mestiço. A mãe dele era indígena e o pai era branco, e as pessoas falavam que o tio dele era um jaguar. E ele não sabia muito bem por que, mas ele podia chegar perto dos jaguares sem que eles sentissem medo, e ele também não sentia medo dos jaguares. Por conta disso um dia, ele foi contratado por um fazendeiro para que ele fosse para o meio da floresta matar todos os jaguares que ele encontrasse. Mas ao invés de matá-los, ele começa a seguir os jaguares e a ficar perto deles. E, de tanto acompanhá-los ele acaba se apaixonando por uma jaguar fêmea, e acabada dormindo com ela. Um dia ele se acorda, e se transformou num jaguar. A partir dessa experiência, ele passa a matar os seres−humanos para alimentar os jaguares. Por conta disso, vários seres −humanos começam a desaparecer. O fazendeiro contrata um outro caçador para ir até a casa dele para descobrir o que está acontecendo. A história na verdade começa quando esse caçador chega na casa do homem-jaguar. Eles discutem, e aos poucos ele se transforma em onça na frente do seu visitante. E então, eles finalmente eles tem um embate.
− Hum. But what happens in the end?
− É difícil de dizer, porque quem escreve o conto é o homem-jaguar. E como no final ele vai escrevendo numa linguagem de jaguar, a gente não sabe direito o que ele escreveu. Você conhece alguma história parecida com essa?
− Yes. There is this movie that they eat people. There is this guy who is in a relationship, but he is a bit tortured. And one time, they are in a hotel and he starts hitting on one of the maids who cleans the rooms, and then they go to a corner. Then they are having intercourse it gets more and more violent. You see that he is biting her. She is screaming. And after that you see that he is getting into the room, and he is completely covered in blood. He takes a shower, and the wife comes in.
− Acho que tem alguém chegando.
− Yes. (Somebody arrives.) And then later in the movie he finds a woman who was his ex−lover, they go to a house to make love, but I don’t know what happens.
− O que acontece no fm?
− They eat each other, I think.
Artist and PhD student Juan Duque wrote an article about this performance.
The dialogue above was published at Bramble, a printed magazine organised by curators Eric Peter, Zach Schoenhut and Vincent Surmont in January 2020.
thiago antunes 