Selin Davasse
She Pigeon

A performance on the occasion of Performing Celebration,
a weekend of activities dedicated to celebrating the final opening days of
Retinal Rivalry by Cyprien Gaillard and Cold As You Are by Rebecca Moccia

Friday 31 January 2025 | 9-9.30 PM

Duomo | OGR Torino

Free admission until capacity is reached

She’s dirty. She’s grimy. She‘s the nature of the city. Ignored and unloved, she’s always hungry. Currently she may be pretty low in the pecking order of species, but once upon a time she was no different than a white dove. Color matters to humans, and it was humans who domesticated her. She’s feral. She‘s thriving. Humans hate her for not dying.

Contemplating on the politics of disgust, exclusion, and pollutability, Selin Davasse in her performance She Pigeon (30 minutes) plays a she-pigeon who looks at human beings in a mix of revulsion and anger. With the bird's pesky voice, a libidinous leaky narrative in vivid and vulgar vulviform verse rains down like pigeon droppings. You might feel slightly dirty after this performance. A pigeon could love you no matter how dirty. Do you think you could love her back?

SELIN DAVASSE
Selin Davasse (1992, Ankara) lives and works in Berlin. Her performances repurpose disparate literary and performative techniques to enact and enforce a speculative ethics of hospitality between a bestial feminine stranger and a heterogeneous public. Embodying various narrative selves with distinct syntactical, vocal and gestural characteristics, she transmutes systems of thought into intimate and playful utterances oscillating between speech and song, in a permeable and unpredictable relationship to the viewer. Recent presentation settings include Art Asia Now, Paris (2023); steirischer herbst, Graz (2023); Institute for Contemporary Arts, London (2023); Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2023); Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara (2023); Kunsthalle Bratislava, Bratislava (2022); Wiener Festwochen, Vienna (2022); BJCEM - Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, Procida (2022); School of Waters, MEDITERRANEA19 Young Artists Biennale, San Marino (2021); Volksbühne, Berlin (2021); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, (2021).