Men/ding

Men/ding
(2026)

Men/ding is a durational performance-installation centred on physical and emotional labour. The work unfolds as a live training environment inside the exhibition space, sustained over the full course of the exhibition. Changing rooms and bathroom structures frame the setting—spaces that are both intimate and public, where bodies prepare, recover, and perform. Wrestling, rooted in my family history, becomes a vehicle to explore intimacy, care, and power. I invited my siblings to participate in an ongoing training camp, where repetition, touch, and proximity challenge fixed perceptions surrounding Black bodies and masculinity.
The work resists spectacle: performers train rather than entertain. Audiences move freely through the space, encountering moments of contact, rest, and negotiation. Through duration and proximity, Men/ding creates conditions where intimacy emerges through physical engagement, and where violence is reoriented as a site of relation rather than display. 

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Solo degree exhibition, Galleri Mejan Royal Institute of Art — Durational performance installation

Created and performed by Freddy Houndekindo in collaboration with the artist siblings
Jock, Rhys and Ronnie Houndekindo

Photo by Jean-Baptiste Beranger Galleri Mejan - Royal institute of Art