Tenderlymilitant.exe A weapon armoury for the queer-feminist counter apocalypse
Broom armoury & Activation Performance
Eindhoven 2025
Installation 5m x 5m / 5 Brooms: Spruce, Horsehair, Grass, Steel, Silicone
Performance 4x 5 min
Plant Armoury Archive: The Catalogue of Tender Militancy
Upcoming Armoury @ Van Abbe Museum, Edelkoort Collection
Currently Performance Video Trailer @ DDW Kazerne, Eindhoven, October 2025
Past Daily activations of the broom armoury at 2pm @ DDW Graduation Show, Eindhoven, October 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.
The work comprises of three main elements:
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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.
The Catalogue of 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.
visit the digital catalogueA Battle strategy for tender militancy
What is tender militancy? How do we stand up, fight and protect, without replicating the same violent structures that cause us to have to protect? The armoury explores these questions through the activation. The weilder approaches the brooms not with the expectation to use it to inflict their will, but to start a conversation on what can happen when they join together.
The movement research leading up to this work dove into how martial arts are delevoped to give agency to the common public in resisting their abusive governments. In Aikido specifically, the objective is not to become stronger than your opponent but learn to identify and use their center of gravity against them. A similar notion can be approached through the tool of the broom. They act as a catalyst between the weilders senses and the environment, feeling out together their potential for subversive action.
watch the performance trailer
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