Queer Balcony
Thormøhlens gate 18, Bergen
Hanna Pherson 2021
Rules of Queer Balcony:
1. It's always okay to take a break
2. It's not a contest Nina
3. My bench is your bench
4. Don't let the landlord bring you down
5. Eat the strawberries before the birds do
Polaroid 1:
First workshop with queer artist Nina Eriksson
Painting balcony to activate the space
Colors: turquoise, yellow, sky-blue, purple
Polaroid 2:
Construction worker accidentally stepping on newly painted bench
Polaroid 3:
Workshop part 2 moved into my bedroom due to renovation of balcony by the landlord
Sofie Gustafsson Markinhuhta resting and drinking tea on the balcony
22.05.2021
21 pots made for the balcony
2&3.06.2021
First hanging of sculptures at the balcony!
6.06.2021
Polariod 4&5:
Pearl workshop with Marte Dahl and Margrethe Kühle
Tablecloth in pearls
Made by Margrethe Kühle
Prideflags in pearls
Made by Margrethe Kühle
Birthday party with friends at the balcony
Taken with disposable camera, a gift from Iris Bengtsson and Erik Aronsson
01.07.2021
About
Queer Balcony is an ongoing project started by Hanna Pherson in April 2021.
Here, I'm planting tomatoes, strawberries and herbs, meeting and collaborating with friends and artists.
Inspired my the supreme court’s decision to classify tomatoes as vegetables and no longer holding the status as a fruit, due to tax avoidance and making a tax loophole, this poem by Oliver Bendorf redefines the tomato as a queer vegetable in solidarity:
”Queer Facts About Vegetables
In 1893, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the tomato is a vegetable.
I’m as small
as a thumbnail, no,
I’m as big as the harvest
fucking sun”
Through the tomato he makes a point that the change of language and the right to classify exists within power structures, that resides outside tomatoes and queers. Linking the two together, both in value and voice.
To be queer for me is to claim my own space and identity, to accept the exhaustion and euphoria that comes with that. It’s about the discomfort in social gatherings and public spaces that are built around heteronormativity in function and expression, the music playing, the commercials running, the rituals performed. This is something that I will always live in between.
Public spaces are always peeking in to private spaces. I’m renting a room in a collective, which makes my owner rights limited. I feel the need to claim my own comfort in the place where my belongings are, where I sleep, eat and shower. As a renter I’m building a temporary home with the constant fear of having to move or being thrown out to a public space and losing my comfort that I put time and energy into building.
Like the queer tomato, and queerness itself, my balcony is situated between two spaces, between ”outside” and ”inside” blurring the line between public and private. A shield in front of my home, to stop the public space from seeping inn.
I’m claiming the outside space in my rented collective as a queer space, a space that I have claimed the right to define.
Scuptures in jesmonite
Made by Hanna Pherson