Performance by Cibelle Cavalli Bastos
Sonja Khalecallon’s Products for a Better Life, Their Story News from the Retrofuture
Sonja Khalecallon performs femininity to the point of short-circuit, breakage, and collapse in durational dystopian performances. Years in the future, Earth’s orbital path collided with another planet causing the wealthy to leave earth in search of new planets to colonise. Minorities and people from lower class were left behind on the ecologically deteriorating planet. With no option of escape, Khalecallon uses her feminine mystique to build up a hotel empire. Doing anything she can to keep herself afloat with limited resources, she builds the hotel in order to survive. The hostess embodies the female trait of ‘multitasking’ by offering herself as cook, cleaner, aestheticist, entertainer, and manager. Viewers become guests in her mystical empire and the site becomes a destination within the exhibition itself.