how to compost your-self

2023, video installation, 8 minute loop
compost container, television, organic material

Is self-development a conscious process or is it passively imposed? To what extent is your self a commodity? Where does the pursuit of uniqueness lead to if not self-categorization and confinement?

In reality, our identities and experiences are not isolated and not fixed. They are in constant development and entanglement.

We are all compost – Donna Haraway

This work invites you to compost your-self. To let go of your boundaries and join the warmth of the compost, where so-called selves are sloshing around and mixing freely – rotting and evolving.

The installation serves as a portal into the speculative self-compost-pile. Viewers are presented with a video collage – a compost-film – that points towards this concept. Found footage from instructional videos on composting is mixed with documentaries and commercials in order to examine the often unseen forces that shape our sense of self through media.

Created in collaboration with Magalie Herter-Courbon

Exhibited as part of Open Soil Days 2023 at Floating University Berlin

Exhibited as part of the group show More Strange Things 2024 at silent green Berlin