Midas --- 2024
Midas is an intimate one-on-one performance series exploring trans and queer shame. It is a call not to fall into the traps of shame, secrecy, and self-concealment, but to meet shame with openness. By speaking openly about characteristics that are unchangeable and harmless, we can resist the mechanisms that make us feel ashamed of them.
The project takes inspiration from activist and performer Mario Mieli:
“I keep my treasure in my arse, but then my arse is open for everyone...” (Towards a Gay Communism, 1977)
The paintings accompanying Midas are both visualisations of the performance and sources of inspiration for it. Body hair, shells, and fragments of personal writing recur throughout the work. During the performance, I write my secrets onto shells and bury them in the dunes among the marram grass. As the grass grows and moves with the wind, it becomes a carrier of these secrets, echoing the ancient Greek myth of King Midas and his donkey ears.
The myth tells of King Midas, who is punished with long, hairy donkey ears because of his foolishness. He hides his ears beneath a traditional Phrygian hat, allowing only his barber to know his secret. Unable to carry the secret any longer, the barber digs a hole and whispers it into the earth. He immediately feels relieved. Soon, however, grass grows from the place where the secret was buried. When the wind moves through it, the grass whispers: King Midas has donkey ears. King Midas has donkey ears.
In Midas, I turn this story around. Rather than allowing shame to consume us in secrecy, I use the act of sharing as a form of resistance. I bury my secrets, but I also give them the possibility of spreading. Only I decide what I reveal and when. The secrets may remain mine, but once spoken, they can also become collective. They might be heard, recognised, or allow someone else to become conscious of their own shame.
What is shame, and how do we learn it? Why do we keep secrets, and when do we need them? Can shame become a compass rather than a burden
Photo’s by 
Ron Mandos Best of Graduates 2024:
