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Tenderlymilitant.exe A weapon armoury for the queer-feminist counter apocalypse

Activation Performance
Kazerne, Eindhoven, 2025

This broom armoury is inspired by the defence mechanisms of the plant kingdom, which AZH studied in botanical gardens and the archive of the natural history museum in Vienna. It draws a parallel between historical conceptions of dominion over plants and the broom’s association with female labour—reclaiming both from their weaponisation during the witch hunts.

The accompanying website catalogue documents how plants, often seen as passive, have evolved to enforce boundaries against predators that dismiss them. It reinterprets their militant physiologies as defensive strategies, which can become tools in resisting
the patriarchy.

When activated, the armoury plays with the intersection of tenderness and militancy. It explores a relation between weapon and wielder that de-sterilises the conception of weapons as objects only to be used for harm. Instead, it treats them as alive, highlighting their dual potential to be both subversive and nurturing.

Photo by Adele Visser

The work comprises of three main elements:

The Broom Armoury
The Catalogue of Militant Physiology
The Activation (Performance)

The Armoury includes five brooms (two forming a set), suspended on custom hooks designed for both 360° viewing and activation tool during performances.

The Catalogue is accessed via a suspended computer using the same structural system, to communicate the ongoing dialogue between the archive and object.

The activation interprets the symbolic and physical properties of plants into choreographic gestures that envision a queer-feminist resistance. It explores the alliance between humans and plants in resistance to the patriarchy and a symbiotic learning process.

Screen Capture of the Website Catalogue for Tender Militancy

The accompanying catalogue is part of a larger body of work called Fairywar, in which individual works explore different methods of developing a tender militancy that is able to counter the emotional impact of patriarchy. It is conceptualised to be a growing, sharable research document that remains flexible as its strength.

Turkeywing horsehair Broom

The Armoury

Photo by Femke Reijerman

Photo by Anna Zoe Hamm

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2025Tenderlymilitant.exe Poltergeister of Activist Borderland 2024CyberFastnachtFairywar MagazineThe Coven of SpicesFrogs you icons of love2023 Protectors of the EdgeZaertlichAtlas to the GruselwaldCirrocirronimbus2000 FruitboneLove, Death and the Lake

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2025
Tenderlymilitant.exe
Poltergeister of Activist Borderland

2024
CyberFastnacht
Fairywar Magazine
The Coven of Spices
Frogs you icons of love

2023

Protectors of the Edge
Zaertlich
Atlas to the Gruselwald
Cirrocirronimbus2000
Fruitbone
Love, Death and the Lake

About
Press
Contact