30 days, 30 sites, 1 lunar cycle, 1 body across Berlin.

The Insisting Body is a long-durational act of witnessing; 30 days, 30 sites, one lunar cycle, one body.Each day, a body arrives at a different site in Berlin where violence has been erased, denied, or left unmarked.

The work resists capitalist rhythms of production and spectacle, aligning instead with the slow, cyclical time of the moon.

It is both a cartography and a choreography: a living map inscribed through stillness, repetition, and presence.

The gesture; simple, enduring, unadorned, becomes a unit of measurement, registering the weight of historical and contemporary violence in the city’s architecture, streets, and silences.


Language here operates as both marker and refusal: site descriptions and daily updates create an accumulating archive that unsettles the city’s official narratives.

Choreography is not staged movement but the persistence of a body in relation to a place, a durational score unfolding in real time, asking the audience to return, to check, to witness.



The Insisting Body


A Project By Michael(a) Daoud
How to follow the project &
find information about each location:

1.  Google My Map
→ daily updates and site-specific details
2. Instagram
→ live streaming & fragments from each day
3. Performance location list
→ full overview of all 30 sites (TBU)


  • 01
  • 23. August
  • 11 am

  • Treptower Park (Treptow)

  • 52°29'15.3"N 13°28'07.6"E


  • Types of  Violence

  • Colonial (human zoo),
  • Wartime (memorialization),
  • Symbolic (ideological distortion)



  • 02
  • 24. August
  • 12 pm

  • Bus Stop – Oberlandstraße

  • 52°27'52.3"N 13°24'54.5"E


  • Types of  Violence

  • Gendered, 
  • Honor killing,
  • Intimate partner violence



  • 03
  • 25. August
  • 11 am

  • Moabiter Statgarten - ZK/U

  • 52°32'01.4"N 13°20'12.8"E


  • Types of  Violence

    Deportation



  • 04
  • 26. August
  • 11 am

  • Tempelhofer Feld (Tempelhof)

  • 52°28'31.2"N 13°24'36.8"E


  • Types of  Violence

Historical forced labor
Spatial exclusion


  • 05
  • 27. August
  • 1 pm

  • Zitadelle Spandau

  • 52°32'24.0"N 13°12'45.0"E


  • Types of  Violence

Militarism, 
Authoritarian legacy,
Aestheticization of war

  • 06
  • 28. August
  • 1 pm

  • Siegessäule (Victory Column)

  • 52°30'52.1"N 13°20'58.5"E


  • Types of  Violence

National symbol with imperial legacy

  • 07
  • 29. August
  • 1 pm

  • KINDL - Center for Contemporary Art

  • 52°28'45.1"N 13°25'51.5"E



  • Types of  Violence

Gentrification,
Cultural erasure,
Aestheticized displacement

  • 08
  • 30. August
  • 1 pm

  • Haus der Kulturen der Welt

  • 52°31'06.0"N 13°21'52.8"E



  • Types of  Violence

Structural,
Epistemic,
Symbolic

  • 09
  • 31. August
  • 1 pm

  • Neues Museum

  • 52°31'13.4"N 13°23'53.7"E



  • Types of  Violence

Colonial theft,
Aestheticized imprisonment

  • 10
  • 1. September
  • 7 pm

  • Oberbaum Bridge

  • 52°30'06.0"N 13°26'44.8"E




  • Types of  Violence

Divisional


  • 11
  • 2. September
  • 1 pm

  • Oranienplatz

  • 52°30'08.3"N 13°24'56.8"E





  • Types of  Violence

Displacement


  • 12
  • 3. September
  • 10 am

  • U-Bahnhof Hermannstraße

  • 52°28'03.1"N 13°25'51.7"E





  • Types of  Violence

Homophobic assault


  • 13
  • 4. September
  • 9 am

  • Kottbusser Tor

  • 52°29'58.6"N 13°25'04.2"E





  • Types of  Violence

Surveillance