”HUPIA”

 It’s not a HUman not a PIg nor an Ape

This is the hybrid of an interdisciplinary experimental body with mixed DNA

Representing the other – beyond gender?

Read the conversation between Heidi Ilves & Benedikte Esperi

Scientific hypothesis

World premiere  23-25th of July 2015 at Live Art Strömstad 

HUPIA versus HUNT performed at a-venue 11th of March 2016 during the Feminist Strategies week

”During the Feminist Strategies week at a-venue I proposed a duration performance where I re-enacted two former performances: HUPIA(2015) and HUNT(2014). They both problematize and expose issues of gender and power structures where the female body is objectified carrying traces of violence, exoticism and oppression. I performed with a body that is notional, obscene and lewd from the perspective of a Swedish society through its symbols and gestures. l was curious to see how political aims, artistic intentions and performance in public space could be interpreted by the pedestrians at Avenyn in Gothenburg.”

Hermaphrodite(Wiki)
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes. Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both partners can act as the ”female” or ”male”. For example, the great majority of tunicates, pulmonate snails, opisthobranch snails and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites.

A rough estimate of the number of hermaphroditic animal species is 65,000. Since the estimated total number of animal species is 1.2 million, the percentage of animal species that are hermaphroditic is about 5%. Arthropods are the phylum with the largest number of species. If these are excluded, the species in the remaining approximately 33 phyla are about one-third hermaphroditic. Most hermaphroditic species exhibit some degree of self-fertilization with fractional rates ranging from 0 to 1.0. The distribution of self-fertilization rates among animals is similar to that of plants, suggesting that similar processes are operating to direct the evolution of selfing in animals and plants.

Historically, the term hermaphrodite has also been used to describe ambiguous genitalia and gonadal mosaicism in individuals of gonochoristic species, especially human beings. The word intersex has come into preferred usage for humans, since the word hermaphrodite is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing, as well as ”scientifically specious and clinically problematic”.

Artist: Benedikte Esperi
Genre: Performance and video
Duration live Act: 1-3 Hours
Duration video: loop during the venue. Format full HD 16:9