Can you conceive of dying as empowering, perhaps even a form of self-care? This question animates director Ming Poon’s eight-day installation performance, which draws its name from recent developments in science that suggest humans are made of the minerals formed by extinct stars – scientific validation of Joni Mitchell’s lyric “we are stardust”.
Structured around the eight stages of Tibetan Buddhism’s conception of death, Stardust explores this transition into another state of being not as an end but as part of a reconnection with the universe. Poon, who cites Judith Butler’s ethic of vulnerability as a key inspiration, conceived Stardust – composed of seven different performances from seven different artists – to develop a deeper sense of the interconnection among human and non-human life.
The installation will also feature interactive practices dealing with death: collective burial, rituals of letting go, eulogy writing, intense conversations. During the week, the sound, light and video that will turn Uferstudios 1 into a liminal space will themselves transition into something new. Audiences can expect to be active participants moving between worlds, crossing borders and being asked to reflect on the many deaths that they might experience as they take on new forms as humans and as universal elements, as well as the new politics that might develop from such a radical reconception of self and other. We are, after all, all stardust.
- Uferstudios 1, Uferstr. 23, Wedding, Oct 20-28, details.
