1.

Andy: How does one prepare to die? And what is the different between living and dying?

Steve: To surrender is to fall. To fall in trust that we will be caught by another or by life. We arch our spine out of balance to where we loose control. Backwards into the unknown. To the place that we can’t see.

2.

Elnaz: Something in the air of that place gave permission. Not with words. Words where useless there. But with glances. With Gestures. With rules. Unspoken yet deeply understood.

Lewerentz: A court is made out of rules. Far from pragmatic. Old rules with forgotten reasons. A court is there to disarm the nobility. It is order. It is observing. It has it’s own aesthetic and artistic expression.

Andy: Narcissistically, every generation claims that they are the ones living at the end of time. That they will be the last of us. But maybe, just maybe That is more true right now then ever

.

3.

Nasty: Hold the rock over their head and pray that your muscles won’t fail you. Forced love story in the making. Locked into each others eyes. Lavender flower bridging your mouths.

Elnaz: Then it began. Eyes scanning. Feet moving. Hands reaching. I kept looking at the floor. No fear. No shame. Something else. Maybe stillness before the eruption.

Tobi: I’m hesitant to offer up my mind to any prying eyes. To lay it bare to judgement. Still I choose to obey him.

4.

Steve: Surrender to your mortality. Instinctively you know it. Witnessing it is beautiful. The beauty of sacrifice.

Nasty: Clench your first on the spikes connecting you to the one with a plastic bag over their head. Is intimacy what you are after?

Tobi: I obey because I’m intrigued by his dedication to honesty. To not pass on an opportunity to expose the devious visions that recur to us. I enjoy how he appear rarely to be rushed. Observing details that flicker by as slowly as patience requires of him.

5.

Lewerentz: We decided to bury ourselves in written bureaucracy and etiquette. A self-imposed extreme bondage. Faceless, a black silhouette, almost voiceless, painlessly restricted, just our bare arms. If you looked long enough at the black silk perhaps you started to look within you.

Andy: Dark fraud waters lie ahead as empires and ecosystems crumbles. There are political and practical things that we can do. That we ought to do in the preparation and resistance but how do we prepare spiritually when we can’t resist the inevitable?

Steve: We expose our heart, our neck and our belly as symbols of trust. We are vulnerable but yet strong. We are suspended in time. Forever falling.

6.

Elnaz: Like a theatre of control, surrender and timing. I hated it and I loved it. The ritual of space. The air felt slower, thicker. We weren’t people any more. We were roles, offerings, tests. The gods sat above faceless, wordless, watching like mirror with no reflection.

Lewerentz: And after the faith came rupture.

Nasty: Eye closed. Mouth open. Saliva dripping on the floor. What puddle you have created. Messy drooling thing shaking from exhaustion.

Lewerentz: We inflicted our repetitive rituals. Slow. We imposed handicaps. We did nothing. Again and again. But there were frames. Not instructions. We were just waiting for you.

7.

Andy: Do we turn to nihilism when nothing matters anymore? Or hedonism and celebration to fall in love one last time? Or grief and nostalgia to honor that what meant something? Or meditation and surrender to experience every second as if it was the last.

Tobi: I obey him because I want to wander around in this world of his. Where we play a game of measured distance which gives me infinite pleasure and reassures me.

Nasty: Those watching are left with guilt for not surrendering. Too weak to join?

1.

Mini: You have your own freedom, you own your own freedom. So instead of feeling that someone is taking your freedom from you, you are feeling that you are giving your freedom to someone. And then taking it back again.

Candice: I gazed into a sunflower for 25 minutes and cried at how many times I had seen a sunflower but how little I had ever noticed.

Isabella: And then I run through life, carrying this. And that is what trauma is. It is not a thought. It’s a reaction that keeps repeating.

2.

Hajni: I take in the room full of people waiting for death. There is a soft calmness and serenity.

Virgine: You can stand and walk in the circle in absolute silence.

Hajni: I want love before I die.

Virgine: People ravish each other, people give love to each other. There is a lot of beauty and violence at once. There is immense love and trust.

Valentina: I quickly took such rare images away to be repressed or forgotten because they seemed to me vulgar and unethical. What a mistake.

3.

Hajni: Then, a profound moment of quietness. An infinite second of certainty. It is going to be me. It is my turn. Now, it is my turn, and there is nothing I can do. I sit at that moment as it stretches into endlessness, and I feel everything. I feel at peace. I feel happy. I feel excited. I feel sad, curious and hopeful.

Valentina: The delight of obeying. Trembling with so much pleasure. His pleasure is almost a form of sweet hallucination. Hot and aromatic like an oriental tea. Learning how to please by not rushing. Just being.

4.

Isabella: It’s an agreement to be able to be close to someone, but you have agreed that there is not going to be any sexuality. I can explore this ocean of feelings and reactions, I can be safe.

Virgine: And everyone will watch in absolute silence.

Candice: So I left the moment with no goodbye. And this is how it is. And how death can be. Of any kind. Your lover has kissed you for the last time. Your story is over. No more sunflowers. To appreciate or not appreciate, however you choose it.

Virgine: And I told him, you bring out the worst of human beings in the most beautiful way.