One hundred twenty people in a circle, backed against cold, damp concrete walls. Between us lie one hundred discarded objects—considered trash by most: sticks and stones, old plastic bags, a broken phone. Surrounding us is a noisy, repetitive soundscape. We are about to orchestrate a ceremony of collective suffering. The rules are simple: kneel down, submit yourself if you want to suffer. You’ll be placed inside the circle as a human statue, frozen in time, balancing objects upon your flesh. You stay as long as you want, as long as you can, as long as it remains meaningful to suffer.

You are lifted gently when your forehead touches the floor, slowly guided into the circle. Deciding where someone fits is not easy—it’s their fate, indirectly. It’s hard to know how long they’ll last, how strong, how willing they are to suffer. What always surprises me is how strong people are—physically and mentally—when part of a collective. This says something about our age of isolation. Aren’t we always connected? With the Turkish bakery owner where I eat breakfast, the woman working beside me, or the neighbours sorting trash outside? Yet most suffer alone, ashamed. Or they suffer remotely, far away, where doors can’t be locked because homes are bombed to rubble.

There is power in sharing suffering. It makes people incredibly strong—or at least that’s what I’ve observed balancing objects on frozen bodies. Over an hour and a half, about half the circle kneeled, stepped in, chose to suffer. That choice is powerful. There’s a big difference between experiencing life as something that happens to you—being a victim—and making informed decisions about your life. In tragedies, we often are victims, unfairly so. But choice is a mindfuck. Knowing it can end at any moment by dropping the stone makes the present suffering harder. But when I let go of past and future comparisons, the present is always perfect.

One striking feedback was that watchers felt apprehensive (and touched, and more), while those who suffered felt exhilarated (and touched, and more). Maybe it’s because watching without participating or helping is a kind of suffering itself. And it happens all the time. Walking home late one night, passing homeless people, scrolling through endless news of war and brutality, my instinct was to doomscroll and forget. Instead, I played Nick Cave’s Bright Horses and let my tears fall. I remembered what made people strong in that cold basement: trembling fingers on delicate skin, a flower held between two mouths, eyes resting in another’s—the human contact.

I often think about my sadomasochistic sessions, where people want to suffer for me inside our tiny fantasy world, maybe because it gives meaning, maybe because it’s easier to suffer by choice. Maybe that’s the point about mortality: to sacrifice it for something worth suffering for. I felt honored people chose to suffer collectively in that underworld. I felt scared, unsure if they made that choice consciously—really, really wanting it.

But it was beautiful. The trembling bodies. The crying. The singing. The screams. The commitment to embodied research—really the best word I can find—of what’s usually shunned away from. Thank you for collectively suffering with me at Xplore Berlin 2025.