So, for me it's pretty obvious, but that's because I was raised in a Catholic home and I survived 11 years of Catholic school, church, religious education, and all of the dogma and doctrine that told me that I was going to hell and that there was no chance for redemption for my soul.
I was very young when I first heard this and then it was reconfirmed again and again and again until the point where I said, well, "Fuck it," if I'm going to go to hell anyways, then why not have fun on the way there.
You see, in the Catholic faith, there are the deadly sins, the "fun" sins for us sinners: greed, envy, sloth, gluttony, pride, wrath, and lust, and there are the mortal sins, such as sex before marriage and eating communion without having confessed your sins. The deadly sins will lead you to the mortal sins or to complete demoralization. The mortal sins leave a mark on your soul that prohibits you from entering heaven.
You can pray and pray and pray and pray and repent and pray and hope that God will be forgiving (which if as a young child you look up to these strict people telling you that you are horrible and punishing you mercilessly for your sins on earth, you begin to believe that he's not...) in order to get into purgatory, where you can wait to go to heaven...but if not, you go to hell. Do not pass Go, Do not collect 200$. Go directly to hell. Game over.
This disturbed me, tormented me, and ultimately left me suicidal at the age of 16, feeling like how could it be so possible that I was just a bad person inside and out? Didn't I love animals? Didn't I want to help people? Wasn't it I that collected a whole pillowcase of Halloween candy to give out the school bus window to the homeless guy panhandling on the bridge?
So, two years ago a photographer in New Jersey, Evan Criscuolo of Evolution Images decided to make a series, photographing each of the sins, and asked me to model. I got to be wrath. It was so cool, and fun, and the photos were spectacular.
This intrigued me. I said you know, I'm living in Berlin and it would be the perfect place to do an exhibition with these photos. I could write some poems and we could make a thing out if it. It took some time, but here we are. This Friday and Saturday at Gelegenheiten, 7x7 will arrive. And it's even better than all that. We have photos, poetry, music, dance, ritual, confessions, cleaning, penis sculptures, and a big bad gluttonous vegan buffet.
I can't wait. If this isn't heaven, well then I don't know what is. I must've done a pretty good job of repenting, because God have I arrived.