Against Myself, Repeatedly

Against Myself, Repeatedly begins with a gesture associated with care.

A bar of olive oil soap moves slowly across the body, tracing repetitive movements that resemble acts of cleansing, comfort, and maintenance. At first, the gesture appears gentle, almost intimate.

But repetition begins to shift its meaning.

The movement gradually hardens. Pressure builds through rhythm and persistence. What begins as care slowly transforms into discipline and punishment.

The gesture intensifies.

The soap moves from stroking the body to striking it. Repeated impacts leave visible marks on the skin; traces of endurance carried through the body over time.

Within the performance, there is no clear moment where care ends and violence begins. One slips into the other through repetition. The same gesture that once soothed starts to wound.

Rooted in the artist’s ongoing research into domestic labour, inherited gesture, and the body as archive, the work reflects on how repetitive actions settle into the body until they begin to feel instinctive. Gestures associated with care, maintenance, and self-discipline repeat to the point where they become inseparable from control.

The body exists both as the performer of the action and as the surface that receives it.

Breath changes.
Skin reddens.
Rhythm persists.

Rather than reaching resolution, the performance remains suspended within a cycle where the body continuously negotiates between care, control, exhaustion, and resistance.

A gesture repeated until it turns against the self.