Cibelle Cavalli Bastos’s temporary installation is a multidimensional sci-fi environment on an apocalyptic theme. It envisions a distant future in which Earth has become uninhabitable after colliding with another planet. While the rich have gone off to colonize other worlds, only the poor are left behind. The artist’s alter ego, Sonja Khalecallon, installs herself in the ruins of an old hotel, doing anything she can to keep herself afloat with limited resources. Inhabiting a retro-futurist interior that intentionally challenges notions of class and taste and that is made up of all things nonbiodegradable, the hostess performs femininity to the point of short circuit. She embodies the supposedly feminine trait of multitasking and offering her services as an entertainer, cook, cleaner, aestheticist, manager, healer, and tarot reader, among other things. Viewers become guests in her mystical empire, drawn into a playful confrontation with not-so-fictional issues such as gentrification, the ecological crisis, and the consequences of femmephobia.

Mediathek

Link

https://2019.steirischerherbst.at/en/program/artists/414/cibelle-cavalli-bastos