Domestic Performance For One Visitor

Excerpt from Antoniadou (2023). Performance Art and Feminism: Bodies of Care and Patience, May 2023, Proceedings of the Global Conference Women’s Studies, 1 (1): 74-84

“The burden of being a mother and care provider is also addressed in Fotini Kalle’s Domestic Performance for One Visitor in 2020. As the artist explains, her day as a mother of a toddler and a baby seemed condensed at this table: “All the activities taking place during the day passed over this table and stayed on it until dark. Every day would start and finish there. I’d keep spreading things over it, and before I could pick something up, something else would be laid on it. The body of the table as my own body was constantly loaded and absorbed the actions and tensions of the daily time until everything was quiet. Then it could be cleaned so that it is ready to get refilled the next day. A continuous loop and a continuous addition on a table-body that must bear everything patiently no matter how demanding its occupants are”. The artist’s body becomes an extension of this table and of this new life whereas whatever knowledge she has acquired in the past, degrees, artistic work, participations and initiatives, everything fades, almost disappears to turn into baby food, jars and toys. (…) The physical, mental and emotional abilities required in biological and social reproduction are considered to be in the feminine nature and are usually attributed to women’s maternal instincts instead of being considered valuable skills..”

In this work, the artist uses everything on the table after a full day at home to create her own individual portrait.