magicians in bed is about interpreting bed creases. During the Unrenewable Energies festival (15 September – 17 October 2025, Uferstudios), Jeanne Eschert introduced a practice that is otherwise relegated to our homes and mostly to people who rarely leave their beds.
How would it feel to have your bed on a stage, illuminated by a spotlight and positioned in such a way that everyone could have a look? What if they all flocked around you and you, from your horizontal position, perhaps only saw their faces? Presenting yourself this way, in the ultimate space of retreat, would have to be something you really want.
It’s not that this has never been done before. Tracey Emin’s reconstruction of her own bed in the Tate Gallery comes to mind, or the even more famous Bed-Ins by Yoko Ono and John Lennon. However, Jeanne Eschert’s intention with her work magicians in bed does not appear to be to make public something private. Instead of a bed, a huge white sheet hangs in the middle of the space from the ceiling. Today, we use our hands or other parts of our bodies to deliberately create the creases that would otherwise come from lying in bed on the fabric, which is simultaneously the backdrop and a focal object for the performance.
Eschert will later explain that bed creases can be roughly separated into three categories: folds, which are the result of extended exposure, arising from lying down for a long time; fluid wrinkle waves, which unfurl when moving the fabric; and finally the small, not all too deep, “rustling” wrinkles, which criss-cross through the fabric. A categorization that elicits a number of chuckles from the audience. Although anyone who is forced to spend a really long time in bed due to limited mobility, exhaustion, and/or pain, will eventually pay close attention to the creases in the sheets. And then it makes sense to search for their hidden meaning.
Unfortunately my curiosity about bed creases and what Eschert might have discovered in one or another special crease during her bedroom visits is not nearly satisfied. I would have liked to hear a lot more. And I would have also liked an answer to the question I asked my own bed creases in preparation for the performance, which I had written down on a piece of paper. But the magic trick that Eschert had us perform with this very paper was impressive enough to ease my disappointment.
And yet. On the way home, a number of things not addressed this evening went through my head. For example, the dangerous creases, the ones that cause bedsores if someone is no longer able to move themselves. Anyone who has ever done or still does care work knows what I’m talking about. Many others may not. I feel like Eschert knows a lot more about creases than she revealed to her audience. Although perhaps anything more would have been sharing too much private insight with the public. Or maybe the evening itself was envisioned as a sort of crease whose hidden meaning I should learn to interpret myself.
The Unrenewable Energies festival runs through 17 October 2025 and includes a number of workshops, bed audiences, and a party at Uferstudios as well as a symposium On Crip Technique, Knowledge and Expertise (10-12 October 2025) at HAU2.
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
*Quote from magicians in bed.
magicians in bed, by Jeanne Eschert was shown at the Uferstudios as part of the Unrenewable Energies festival (15 September – 17 October 2025).
