At regular intervals this year, Aline Hémagi Fernande tells us all about the stages of her work leading up to My Sister, My Love (provisional title), her 2021 Curieuse Résidence project. Part 2.
April 2021 at the Bruehel Cultural Centre, Brussels.
With: Aline Hémagi Fernande, and Caroline Stavaux.
Residency 2: The Way of the Cross
What better time than Easter for this residency?! During this Holy week, three sisters joined the team their hands clasped: Mother Kas Pie N, Sister Antinonne, and Sister Nocciolina.
To begin her Way of the Cross, Sister Sardine drew the features of the convent: golden architecture, bright colours, pink and yellow. Then the convent activities came: sport - preferably with a baseball bat, prayers to Saint Rita - the patron saint of impossible causes, a vase of fragrant myrrh, liturgy - songs of lesbian sisters from the old days, mixed in with 80s beats and emotive choreography.
And what if Genesis started with: “When the Virgin Mary disobeyed the law of men”!?
The main influences on this week of creation were:
-
The Convent of the Damned by the mangaka Takeyoshi Minori for its sisterhood, anger, strategy, and disobedience.
-
The documentary God’s Abused Servants: The Church’s Other Scandal (original: Religieuses abusées, l'autre scandale de l'église), for its intense anger and desire to tear down the hierarchical, patriarchal, and rotten structure of the church.
-
The documentary A Secret Love by Chris Bolan, recounts the life of the baseball player Terry Donahue and her partner Pat Henschel, who hid their relationship for almost 65 years. To anchor us in an era that will span the story of Sister Coriander.
And of course: all this with a sense of ritual, disobedience, and jubilation.
