Performing (on) Permeable Layers of Dwelling: B.O.D.Y. The Bureau of Domestic Yearning
Dr. Angela Viora: Monash University (AUS)
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/Abstract
The migration crisis and the anxieties brought about by the global COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated the instability and unpredictability of how we dwell in places. These phenomena force us to rethink “space,” our relationship with it, and thus, ourselves as in-placed subjects. This article reflects on my performance of B.O.D.Y. The Bureau of Domestic Yearning. It is a personal response to living in lockdown in a country that is both domestic and foreign to me because I am an expat. Performing at home has led me to question where home is in relation to my resident status (visa) and my body as two dimensions that often do not match. The borders determining physical environments and bureaucratic landscapes overlap imperfectly, revealing cracks and divergencies, in which my expat sōma dwells by performing multiple identities, none of which is exhaustive of myself. I yearn for belonging to what surrounds me at the point of vanishing—or have I finally become one with the land on which I stand? My paper shows how I get acquainted with my domestic space by using my body as measurement. This helped me find out, eventually, that it is not a tool but my very first domestic space, which I always inhabit and through which I perform on various visas and frontiers, on the ground upon which I stand, as well as in the atmospheric pressure of bureaucracy. My migrant body is a horizon: a mobile point of contact between dimensions.
Keywords
Body, dwelling home, migration, pandemic, performance artPlease login first to access subscription form of article
Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University
The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) declares Kritika Kultura as a CHED-recognized journal under the Journal Challenge Category of its Journal Incentive Program.
An open-access semi-annual peer-reviewed international electronic journal of literary, language, and cultural studies of the Department of English of the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.
© 2024 All Rights Reserved
Contact Us
- kk@ateneo.edu
- Kritika Kultura Department of English School of Humanities Ateneo de Manila University Loyola Heights 1108 Quezon City, Philippines