BE A NINJA
Paloma Sanchez-Palencia

performance documentation, concertina wire, 2019

Originally created for the first installment of Imaginary Bauhaus Museum at Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, the artist reflects on notions of migration through a four week-long performance. Deconstructing 10 meters of a so-called concertina wire, a barbed wire with 22 mm blades used at border barriers all over the world, she turned it into individual blades which were then used to design different shuriken (literally: “sword hidden in the hand”), a type of traditional Japanese concealed weapon used for throwing, stabbing or slashing. Taking a means to prevent irregular immigration and turning it into a medium of individual attack or protection, the artist comments on global streams of migration and the possibilities of the individual affected by them.