Harpirexia: Study of a Predator
audiovisual installation (8-channel sound, video), performance
(2025)
performer: Bojana (S) Knežević
costume: Ferhat Kartal
headpiece/mask: Sada Leigh Sherrin
photo/video: Miroslav Dajč / Janis Binder / Bojana (S) Knežević
hair/assistance: Juliette Brasseur
overall assistance/support: Bojan Bajazetov
special thanks: Ingo Schulz, Rita Macedo and Rolf Pilarsky, Dima Strapchev
Harpirexia: Study of a Predator embodies a hybrid bird-woman predator who navigates survival through sonic, bodily, and spatial gestures. Inspired by mythology, the natural world, female superheroes, and speculative fables, the work responds to the systemic silencing and violence directed toward female, queer, non-human, and othered bodies within patriarchal structures.
Using the artist's own body and voice as its primary medium, the work takes shape as a series of bodily and vocal micro-choreographies, influenced by the study of the harpy eagle, one of the world's most powerful birds of prey. Each gesture and vocalization contributes to an evolving repertoire of survival strategies and imagined superpowers. Emerging from primal sounds and embodied expression, these choreographies generate a multitude of birds—a collective voice that resists erasure—proposing a mode of storytelling beyond control, censorship, and fixed language.
Through the lenses of ecofeminism and feminist speculative fiction, Harpirexia channels the surreal and disorienting conditions of contemporary reality. In the face of global crises, intersecting forms of oppression, and existential uncertainty, the work embodies resilience, adaptability, and the courage to persist within ever-changing worlds.
Exhibitions:
May 1 - June 30, 2026
Gallery Weekend Berlin
+ group exhibition
Gallery Denis Leo Hegic Project, Berlin
November 21, 2025 - January 28, 2026
Open Studio +
H4 Media Museum Berlin
October 3-5 2025
Klang Angst Basel
Sonnenburg, Germany
January 29 – February 21, 2025
CROSSING TALES exhibition (Braunschweig Projects 2024–25)
Montagehalle, HBK Braunschweig
Harpirexia: Study of a Predator , 2025
CROSSING TALES exhibition, Montagehalle, HBK Braunschweig
ph: Ivana Papić
CROSSING TALES exhibition, Montagehalle, HBK Braunschweig
ph: Ivana Papić
film stills