Biography

WEEF.collective is a Rotterdam-based performance and textile duo by Lieve Fikkers (Rotterdam, NL, 1998) and Hélène Vrijdag (Rennes, FR, 1996). They graduated in 2020 from the Performance-program at the Maastricht Institute of Performative Arts. They create time-specific and site-specific weaving performances with an ecofeminist agenda. Weaving is a disruptive and feminist act; it forces them and their audience to soften and slow down. It is their way to resist patriarchy, fast fashion and the capitalist rat race.

A performance by WEEF.collective is a durational work where the audience is encouraged to move in the space and relate their bodies to the textile. The process is elevated as the art work; and the meticulous and slow hand craft is the driving force of the performance. Light, music, text and movement give thematic context to the act of weaving.

The tapestries that they weave during their performances become tangible memories of the hand-made process, and are exhibited as independent art works. WEEF.collective uses ecofeminist and posthuman methodologies to embody durability as a performance and textile organization. They always work with second-hand, recycled or organic materials, learn about composting and queer ecology, and interview home weavers.

Artistic project

KILL YOUR DARLING (KYD) is a durational weaving and composting performance exploring the connection between ecocide and femicide in European contexts. KYD is a travelling soil-specific concept that invites death and decomposition into an uncanny feminist meditation on gender-based violence. WEEF weaves a tapestry named DARLING, and later composts it underground in a burial named KILL.

‘Kill your darlings’ refers to deleting good ideas in theatre that don’t contribute to the desired end-result. We relate this to attachments to our own artworks in a consumerist/ecocidal world, and to the responsibility of textile-artists to antagonize fast fashion, capitalism, overproduction and exhaustion. What if instead of producing new objects, we created ghost tapestries: 100% compostable works destined to die after conception? What does it mean to create something to unexist?

Stacking numbers of femicides in Europe gives the phrase a gruesome meaning. These deaths haunt us and call us to action: how can our artworks disappear into the soil, while the ghosts of these women demand visibility, justice and life?

Guided by compost politics and ecofeminism, KYD unfolds in two acts: DARLING, a durational weaving performance with text and song; and KILL, a collective burial ritual connecting body, soil and death.

Format: durational weaving performance and collective burial

Size of audience: 50 to 150 persons

Specific location: indoor urban space and outdoor green space with accessible soil

Timing/duration: multiple-day installation/performance