SANCTUARY OF LOVE

To what extent can we desire empathy and love as the basis of all human interaction? How can we unlearn discriminatory norms and beliefs that we may have learned consciously or unconsciously in order to live together? Is radical empathy possible?

We want to share our personal and private space with others and welcome people of different cultures, backgrounds, genders, sexualities, ages, sizes, beliefs and faiths to eat together and share stories and feelings.
Through various rituals, the audience will embark on a journey to a new beginning, to a new age: In LOVE SANCTUARY, the audience will wash each other’s hands in one of the initiation rituals, we will be reminded of communal care, intimate healing and how we can meet each other in an act of radical empathy. Afterwards, a communal meal will be served, with different dishes prepared together, either flown in from Ghana or cooked by friends and family.

Despite the temporality to our dinner, we hope to create a daring desire of rebuilding family beyond beyond kinship, ethnicity and social norms, where communities can live together to resist the prejudices and fears propagated by right-wing forces: Fear of foreign cultures and ethnicities. We want to restore family values from the indigenous traditions of the so-called Global South that promote empathy, love, care, solidarity and compassion – values that have been violently diminished, suppressed and in some cases eradicated in these places by colonialism, capitalism, the church and white supremacy. LOVE SANCTUARY is a participatory performance that explores how love, compassion and shared space can be used to initiate change in ourselves and our communities.