Sekret - Eine künstlerische Auseinandersetzung zu Körperflüssigkeiten

Sweat, blood, urine, pus, vaginal secretions, semen, spit, tears... Our bodies consist of approx. 70% fluid, much of which is excreted in a variety of ways. But in our Western society, the “emergence” of these substances is often taboo, subject to clichés, politically charged, or simply rejected. Why are we ashamed of so many of our bodily fluids? Who is allowed to sweat, cry, or bleed, and how? And what does the way we deal with bodily secretions say about social power structures, gender roles, and forms of emotional expression?

The artistic research project “SEKRET” is dedicated to the cultural, political, and aesthetic significance of human bodily fluids. Building on the performative work “Sekret – Eine Tränen-Bar Performance”, in which Wiebke Mueller intensively explored emotional crying, the follow-up project now expands its focus to other bodily fluids such as sweat, blood, urine, etc. The project examines how these bodily fluids are represented or suppressed in pop culture, politics, history, and everyday culture—and how they can simultaneously open up spaces for resistance, intimacy, or identity formation.

Wiebke Mueller works as a freelance scenographer with a focus on stage design, costumes, and performance. Her artistic practice centers on storytelling about and with materials, site-specific contexts, and characters. She is interested in the independent existence of objects as well as their symbolic significance in a social context. Wiebke develops idiosyncratic, multi-layered characters that fall somewhere between character design and costume design and can be at home both on stage and in urban spaces. A central concern of her work is to break down classical theater contexts and open up new spaces for storytelling. In many of her projects, she deals with the “small stages of the city”—places that have an everyday character but hold great narrative potential. Collective forms of work are an important part of her artistic practice. www.wiebkemueller.art 

Photos: Quirin Thalhammer