Les Reines Prochaines (Muda Mathis (1959), Sus Zwick (1950), Fränzi Madörin (*1963))
Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, and Fränzi Madörin work across various media such as video, installation (video, sound, light, photography), performance, and music. The different fields of these media and themes are interconnected and influence one another. They work as a duo, a group, or individually, in changing formations, and with Les Reines Prochaines (The Next Queens, a feminist music band and performers). They draw their inspiration from the physical and philosophical, the everyday, the mythological, the absurd, and cultural history.
At the opening of the exhibition at Bioskop Balkan, The Next Queens will perform, sing, and proclaim their beliefs about equality, freedom, and awareness in our contemporary society. A small book of songs with their lyrics in German and English will be published for the exhibition.
On Levels 1 and 2, we enter a space of unconsciousness, dreams, and laziness. Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, and Fränzi Madörin invite us into their lullaby with their three-channel video installation Our Own Sleep. We discover the individual anarchy of sleep.
“Sleep comes from ‘the clap’ and is connected to the word ‘relaxation.’ Sleep means not being productive in a material sense. To sleep means to do nothing. The idiom ‘hit the sack’ also means to sleep. Sleep is like a sheep; to sleep is to behave like sheep. Sleep is individual anarchy.
There is something strange about the calmness of those who sleep. In sleep, we are vulnerable and alone, ultimately alone. Sleep is a mysterious state. It smells of the body, of basic human needs, it is so old-fashioned, irrational, and out of control. Sleep is individual anarchy.
Sleep is more than rest for the brain. Sleep is more than the transition from short-term to long-term memory. Sleep is a condition for awakening. And what does the body know that the mind does not? We sleep, we sleep for a better world.
I think of sleep as a revolutionary practice. And I say that money should sleep. I say that control should sleep. I say that fear, cowardice, and hiccups should sleep, and I say that habits should sleep.”
Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, Fränzi Madörin. Our Own Sleep, 3-channel Video Installation, 2014
Photographs The Golden Landscape of Feminism: Equality, Dignity, and Connection, 2012, in which Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, and Fränzi Madörin show us the necessity of equality and give us hope that we will one day live in this golden landscape in our societies.
Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, Fränzi Madörin. The Golden Landscape of Feminism. Bond, 2012
