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  • MEAT: The brutality on your doorstep

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MEAT: The brutality on your doorstep

Using 'cannibal killer' Luka Magnotta (caught in a Neukölln internet cafe in in 2012) as inspiration, Thomas Bo Nilsson created a large-scale installation running for the duration of the F.I.N.D. fest. Catch it Apr 3-13.

Image for MEAT: The brutality on your doorstep
Photo by Matt Lambert

It happened next door. Luka Magnotta, the Canadian pornographic actor/model and alleged ‘cannibal killer’, was apprehended in an internet café in Neukölln in June 2012, a couple of streets from where Thomas Bo Nilsson lives. That’s how he became familiar with the case.

“Several of my friends had a connection to him in one way or another. It turned out I had spent the night in the same club where Magnotta was supposed to have spent his last evening before being recognised reading material about himself,” explains Bo Nilsson, a former member of legendary performance collective SIGNA. “I suppose having brutality on your doorstep and being starstruck by evil made me read more about him and his partly self-created universe on the internet.”

The perfect starting point for a new performance installation, MEAT, running for the entire duration of the F.I.N.D. festival. Bo Nilsson researched Magnotta’s many identities – escort, model, porn star, internet celebrity – and dug up pictures taken while cleaning out the so-called “Apartment 208”, a small Montreal flat where Magnotta lived for four months.

“Those pictures became the point of departure for developing the entire installation as well as the concept for the piece.” In addition to a replica of Apartment 208, the set includes several other locations that won’t be revealed beforehand. All we know is that it was constructed from scratch within the neutral 600sqm space provided by the Schaubühne Studio, with the help of an enormous amount of artefacts collected with difficulty by the team in the last months.

So what to expect? To enter a parallel word inhabited by 60 performers, in continuous development over 240 hours. You are invited to stay a while (tickets allow you a four-hour slot) and dedicate time to actually exploring. And come again. For a first impression, check out the video teaser by Matt Lambert on the Schaubühne’s website.

MEAT April 3-13 | Schaubühne