Screening of Maintenancer (2018) & Baby Jesus (2023) + Response by Sinziana Ravini, followed by a Q&A with the artists

On the occasion of Sidsel Meineche Hansen's exhibition WAX at KIOSK Gent, KASKcinema and KIOSK organized a special screening of two of Meineche Hansens's short films, followed by a talk and Q&A. The evening featured the short films Maintenancer (2018) and Baby Jesus (2023) by Sidsel Meineche Hansen and Therese Henningsen. Maintenancer focuses on the cleaning and disinfection of sex dolls in a German brothel, while Baby Jesus portrays four nuns, committed to their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and the craft involved in making baby Jesus figurines.

Following the screening, Sinziana Ravini - journalist, psychoanalyst, writer, and curator - gave a lecture titled "Madness and the Art of Transforming It into Art." In her lecture, Sinziana reacted to the statement "The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success," which was proposed by Merzedes Sturm-Lie (Public Mediation as an Artistic Practice, KIOSK), while also sharing her insights and reflections on the screened films. The event concluded with a Q&A featuring filmmakers Sidsel Meineche Hansen and Therese Henningsen.

Maintenancer

Sidsel Meineche Hansen and Therese Henningsen, 2018, 13 mins, digital video with sound.

Maintenancer explores sex work and the maintenance of sex dolls in the German brothel Bordoll. Based on interviews with dominatrix, founder and madame, Evelyn Schwarz, and her assistant (annonymous) it documents the initial transitions into post-human sex, where sex work shifts from the physical body of the sex worker onto the sex doll or robot, with the doll as an interlocutor, whose dead weight demands regular lifting, disinfection and repair.
Thank you to Evelyn Schwarz, dominatrix, founder and madame at Bordoll and her assistant (anonymous).

Baby Jesus

Sidsel Meineche Hansen and Therese Henningsen, 2023, 15 min., digital video with sound.

Baby Jesus focuses on four elderly nuns from the congregation Little Sisters of Jesus, who live together in a tower block in Hoxton in London and a shared house in Walsingham, a village for Catholic pilgrimage in the UK. Based on interviews with little sister Catharine Helen, Patricia, Kathleen and Katarzyna Barbara of Jesus, the film is a polyvocal portrait of their life as non-monastic nuns and their personal commitment to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Thank you Little Sister Catharine Helen of Jesus
Thank you Little Sister Patricia of Jesus
Thank you Little Sister Kathleen of Jesus
Thank you Little Sister Katarzyna Barbara of Jesus

Practical information

• Screening on Thursday the 7th of November, at 8.30 p.m.
  
• Free entrance
• KASKcinema: Godshuizenlaan 4, 9000 Ghent
• Organised by Merzedes Sturm-Lie, within her ongoing project Public Mediation as an Artistic Project