NATTAN DOBKIN

is based in Berlin. He/they works as a performance artist, dramaturg, teacher, and adjunct professor in the department of gender studies at Ben Gurion University, and is an activist member of the Palestinian and anti-zionist jewish cooperative "this is not an ulpan". He/they teach a performance-art course at the college 'The Garage' for students facing mental health challenges, as well as regularly facilitating independent workshops in Europe dealing with the performer’s identity in sexual and political contexts on stage.

SARA LEGHISSA

is an independent, Italian based, artist. Her work embraces performing, making and curation; her practice arises from a need of connection and transformation with contexts and people. Through a principle of ecology of resources, she uses as much as possible of what is already available in the space outside. She co-organises Nobodys Indiscipline, NESSUNO and Una Sauna, spaces for gathering, partying, community building and interdisciplinary practice exchanges. She has presented her artistic work in various contexts such as Santarcangelo Festival (IT), ShortTheatre (IT), Sareyett (PS), Festival ParallÃ¨le (FR), Saal Biennal (EE), Mir Festival (GR), and Beursschouwburg (BE).

www.saraleghissa.com

RONI KATZ

works in Berlin as a choreographer, performer, dramaturge and curator. Through a steady practice of expanded choreography Roni is looking for the apt medium to manifest personal-political matters, often finding the stage elsewhere, when choreographing events, installations and conversations. As an artistic collaborator Roni worked with Philipp Gehmacher and Isabelle Schad a.o and as a dramaturge with Juliana Piquero and Johanna Ackva a.o. In 2014 Roni completed her BA studies at HZT Berlin.

GUT MATTERS

You are a donut. The hole inside you
is the world.

The exhibition GUT MATTERS @ Kunsthal Gent icw VIERNULVIER brings together key elements from a five-year research cycle of artist Dani Bershan. It includes an installation and sound piece, as well as an immersive performative sculpture. The sculpture is brought to life by three performers - Sara Leghissa, Roni Katz and Nattan Dobkin - and will be activated six times during the exhibition. Alongside these, there’s also a publication, a reading group, a symposium and public conversations.

GUT MATTERS invites you to tune into your guts. The project starts from the idea that our collective struggles—amid the ongoing global eco-bio-psycho-social crisis—reflect a lack of metabolic capacities and understanding, rather than a lack of information. As guardians of our intuition, immune systems, moods, and even personalities, guts are manifestations of interconnectedness in an exhausted world.

What happens in a political environment where conventional ambitions for amelioration or repair lie gutted, where we cannot stomach the status quo anymore? What can we learn by looking at the excrements of our civilization together? Through paying attention to the complex ecologies and processes of the gut? What do they reveal about our relationships with Earth, with evolution, with uncertainty, love, and responsibility? Can the gut help us access, remember and invent choreographies of connection? The gut biome, with its diversity and complexity, offers a tangible example of what happens inside holes. These aren’t empty spaces—they are full of aliveness and transformation, conversion and new growth.

GUT MATTERS explores the invisible microbial connections linking us to everything we coexist with. It’s an invitation to be moved by and through the world, to practice listening and paying attention to the holes in our lives. In these times of extinction, the project asks us to reflect on how we break down mass into energy and engage with the web of relations that sustain or sabotage these processes.

Our metabolic capacities mirror how we live, love, kill, and connect with one another and all beings on this planet. They remind us that everything matters—through and beyond us. They challenge illusions of separateness and invite us to embrace complexity, humility and collaboration.

Visitors are invited into a timeless, immersive space to resonate with the materials and reflect on these questions.

GUT MATTERS is co-produced and co-presented by Kunsthal Gent and VIERNULVIER

METABOLIC
LITERACIES

I wonder what a commitment to finetune and co-sense with the complex metabolic ecologies and processes that the gut offers to us can reveal about our relationships with Earths and humanities evolution, about holes and uncertainties, about love, multitudes, responsibilities and agencies and our infinite entanglements with the beautiful, the broken, the ugly and the fucked up?

I am interested in the vastness, diversity and unmanageable complexity of the gut biome, amongst other things as a non-metaphorical example of what can and does happen inside holes. Holes are full of aliveness, full of - causal and acausal - awe-inspiring complexity, full of constant conversion of one thing into another, leading to inexorable new growth and constant transformation.

They are an appeal to be what we inquire. They are an invitation to humble (and/or blow-up) our minds and co-speciate with our guts, our intuition, our wisdom, instead. And to co-sense and listen into the complexity of millions of microbial tongues and languages that each co-create the immense web of entangled multitudes in erotic relation with one another we call life.

Metabolic literacies are literacies that embrace-, make- and consist of holes. Metabolisms and holes are infinitely entangled.

Dani Bershan, 2024

SETUP

site specific, scaleable
minimum diameter installation: 7,5m
minimum dimensions space: 10 x 10m

durational, length variable: 3-8h

your are a donut, the hole inside you is the world

PREMIERE / DATES /PROGRAM

7 February 2025 - Premiere @ Kunsthal Gent co-presented with VIERNULVIER

7 February - 1 April 2025 Exhibition @ Kunsthal Gent

7/8/9 February 2025 Performances @ Kunsthal Gent Kunsthal Gent co-presented with VIERNULVIER

15 March 2025 GUT MATTERS symposium
@ Woman & Children First Festival VIERNULVIER icw. Kunsthal Gent

15/16 March 2025 Performances @ Woman & Children First Festival VIERNULVIER icw. Kunsthal Gent

CREDITS

research, concept
Dani Bershan 2021-2025

performance by and with
Sara Leghissa, Roni Katz, Nattan Dobkin

set and objects
Dani Bershan

sound
Dani Bershan

costume advise
Sabrina Seifried

choreographic advise
Catalina Insignares

A huge thank you to Sara Leghissa who was there from the first material tests to the finish line and whose qualities as a performer served as an inspiration for the entire development. A huge thank you also to Roni Katz and Nattan Dobkin - your performative intelligences and willingness to experiment brings GUT MATTERS to life.
I am so grateful for the trust that the three of you give me and am honoured to be working with you. Many thanks also to Sabrina Seifried for advising on the costumes and to Catalina Insignares for your insightful choreographic translations.

Thank you
Danielle van Zuilen and the entire team of Kunsthal Gent; Marieke de Munk and the team at Viernulvier; Christophe Farret, Eric Remba, Tristan Bonvier, Damien Rudd and the entire PAF team, Lúri Am, Noï, Frida Laux, Red Vaughan Tremmel, Adva Zakai, Anna Rispoli, Azahra Ubera, Ellen Antoni and everyone giving us valuable feedback, Marko Gutić Mižimakov for editing the first trailer and documenting, workspace Brussels and Ultima Vez Studios, Anouk Focquier and the team at werktank Leuven for providing studio space and advise in the early stages, Berno Odo Polzer for continuous listening.

Thank you Sara Amsler, Dani d’Emilia and Red Vaughan Tremmel for your gutful contributions and co-sensing with GUT MATTERS for the symposium.