The Honey Project performance installation 2018

Baustellenfest, Haus am Waldsee, Sculpture Park, Berlin 25.8.2018

“Honey Project” explores the intersection of language, culture, and religion. In this collaborative performance, artists Nezaket Ekici (Turkey/Germany) and Shahar Marcus (Israel) aim to integrate the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity. The goal is not to create a superficial ‘mosaic’ of voices, but to go a step further: to internalize difference, to envision the peace that arises when people truly understand one another. Thirteen languages and cultural spheres are represented in the performance. From a global linguistic perspective, ten major language areas dominate: Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, and Punjabi/Lahnda. To these, the artists add their own native tongues—German, Turkish, and Hebrew. Each performer in the piece speaks or writes in one of these thirteen languages. Working together with the artists, the performers randomly select words from thirteen dictionaries. In the live performance, each participant writes 13 words—one from each language—on a glass pane using honey, a gesture both delicate and visceral. Each word is first spoken aloud, then inscribed in the performer’s native script using their finger dipped in honey. Afterward, the performers rotate positions and lick a word—written in a different language by someone else—from another pane of glass. This exchange is repeated until all participants have shifted thirteen times, symbolically achieving a “perfect mixture” of cultures and languages. The physical act of licking and ingesting honey transforms the abstract into the embodied: language becomes flavor, culture becomes nourishment, and understanding becomes tangible. The sensual and the symbolic merge—internalizing the other in the most intimate way. The performance also draws on Jewish-Moroccan ritual. In Yehoshua Sobol’s song At Our Village Tudra in the Atlas Mountains, a custom is described in which five-year-old children, dressed in their finest clothing, enter the synagogue to begin learning the Bible. Letters are written in honey on a blackboard, then licked off—so the sweetness of scripture is quite literally tasted, and the sacred words are absorbed by the body. This tradition echoes the Song of Solomon, where it is written: "milk and honey are under your tongue" (4:11). “Honey Project” is a poetic and political gesture: linguistic, cultural, and religious differences are not just acknowledged—they are symbolically digested. Through repeated acts of writing, speaking, tasting, and absorbing, the performers enact a ritual of mutual understanding. The work imagines a world in which peace is possible—when difference is not feared, but internalized and embraced. (Text Edited: Jono Wang Chu)

Honey, 13 glass plates, 13 bowls, 13 pedestals, 13 wine glasses, 13 dictionaries, 13 music stands

4 hours

Performers: Nezaket Ekici and Shahar Marcus; Jérémie Pujau, Ok-Hee Jeong, Seow Yi Qing, Gabriela Madeira, Haruka Tomatsu, Michael Stephenson, Meve Avdic, Ahmed Said, Silvia Camagni, Mica Figueiredo, Svetlana Lenichko

Production: Shay. T Govhary Assistants: Natalie Wieland, Natalia Blanco Camera : Julian David Bolivar Editing: Branka Pavlovic Photo: Andreas Dammertz

Curator: Dr Katja Blomberg

Thanks to the Berlin Senate and Haus am Waldsee Berlin and the whole team