The Nuremburg Judensau: A Haunting (2023)
Through puppetry performance I reinvent the Judensau, a degrading caricature depicting a female pig being suckled by smaller Jews. These depictions were prevalent in public and private spaces throughout Germany from the 13th to 19th centuries. By embodying both elements of the Judensau in the same performance, the Jew and the female pig, I take control of an image created to sediment a hierarchical worldview. Through gestures that mirror each one’s fear and loneliness, I empathize with both the female pig and the Jew, and refuse to be complicit in either of their degradation, calling into question the oppressive lens that uses one life form to denigrate another.
