Lijiang Studio:
What’s the purpose of this performance?

Sylvia Winkler / Stephan Köperl:
This intervention arose from two impressive observations:
We have seen this pig on a very short rope and although
we know, that the pigs here in the country side are having
a much better life than the pigs in the “meat-factories” all
over the world, we took pity on it.

The other day we saw a man sitting on the street with
some writing in front of him. This way of putting one´s
own story into public space has attracted us.
At a certain point we had the idea to combine these two
observations: to bring the pig´s story into public space.
It was challenging to make this idea become real, because
it was so unpredictable how the whole process would turn
out in the end.
The purpose, like in most of our interventions, is to create
an unusual and complex situation that can not be easily
classified and that raises many different questions.
To create a surprising moment by the unusual combination
of rather usual components.



There´s always some political thinking behind
your work. Why did you choose the pig to join your
performance this time? And it happened in the urban
space but not in the countryside, what do you think
about that?

In the German language there are two terms which can be
related to this intervention. Someone who is in a pityful
situation can be called a "poor pig" (ein armes Schwein).
And "to keep someone on a short leash" (jemanden an der
kurzen Leine halten) means to deprive sombody of his or
her freedom.
Displaying the pig together with the writing only makes
sense in the urban space, where lots of people gather to
see it.



Many people don’t understand your work and they
laughed at you. What do you prefer to explain to the
people about your work?

To us the reactions of the audience were quite different.
Some were laughing, others put money into the box or
were asking us questions.
Isn´t it the nature of art that there is no final interpretation?
If each single person rose his/her own questions and had
to find an individual interpretation, the intervention has
been successful for us.