07.03.2026

(1) “So my poor Anne-Marie, still as fat as ever! Eh Babar!” My uncle, my mother’s brother-in-law, the surgeon, he laughs and we don’t react, and deep down I know it’s not funny – it’s an insult – and that he is doing it because he can, and we swallow because we’ll always side with the strongest, to be seen, to be protected. A proof of his power. The more he insults, the more we smile, the more he gloats.

(2) “Let’s make them dance!” The shriek of the lobsters alive on the grill. He will turn his head towards us and laugh. “You’re turning him into a faggot with that coddling!” He opens bodies, he puts his hands inside bodies. He saves lives so he knows. His control and power are absolute. [1984]

(3) I don’t know what a ‘faggot’ is but I know it is the worst thing that could happen to me. I know that this thing will define me if can’t prove otherwise. My father’s glare and my mother’s embarrassed smile tell me the truth. I probably am one, and if so, I’m worthless. I have this constant pain and weight on my chest.

(4) I discover I like boys; I don’t know if I desire them or if I just want to be like them, to be them. In my head, these feelings look the same. I’ve learned this is ‘wrong’ and that it casts me out.

(5) Everything seems uncanny, and I know my life will be difficult. I don’t know how my parents will react. I need a strategy to toughen up. [1989–1992]

(6) Clubbing, raving, are the safest places. We dance on Jaydee’s “Plastic Dreams” until total exhaustion. [1992, Queen, Paris]

(7) Dancing as an exorcism for constant stress, fear, and aggression. I learnt sexism and homophobia within the family, through jokes and remarks about our behavior. I feel that, with my sister, we are lab rats.

(8) She wants to be part of my world, to be in it. I have to take care of her, to accommodate her in my life. It was more me educating her and fighting her prejudices than her creating a safe place for me to express myself freely. [My sister, 1993]

(9) With time, I found friends with whom I feel safer than with them (my family).

(10) If we were truly accepted, our identities would cease to matter and they would be erased like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.

[Kunstmuseum Basel]