a project by
Danai Giannoglou, Ersi Varveri, Paky Vlassopoulou, Gijs Waterschoot

release of the PHp 1 magazine, contributions by:
Gregor Andzelm, Machteld Bernaert, Jo Kmo, Valentin Cernat, Camille Cluzan, Lynn Depreeuw, Voebe de Gruyter, Michaella Del Brollo, Nico Dockx, Fabio Ramirez Enrique, Casper Fitzhue, Adam Galach, J.Krissis, Erik Hagoort, Erin Helsen, Rien Schellemans, Idris Sevenans, Sorry Future Proof, Vasilis Papageorgiou, Zena Van den Block, Bram Van Meervelde, Amber Vanluffelen, Danielle Van Zuijlen

The hostess as a hostage
I am in an empty house which is full of people, I do not know what to do with my hands nor my mouth. When I wake up I pretend to sleep for a little longer and every time I need to use the bathroom I do the same thing.

I feel like a mother who thought she wanted children, because she thought they were something else than what they actually are. I feel like a mother who doesn’t like her kids.

This summer I woke up from a terrible nightmare. The nightmare was that the people living in my guest house had drunk water from the tap which I forgot to tell them that wasn’t potable.

In French the same noun is used to describe the host and the guest. This noun is masculine. When the noun is used in feminine it only evokes the hostess.

My mother used to say to my father "what would you like to do for your birthday honey?" and she would go on "just do not tell me you want to invite people over"

I wonder if we spend all of our lives being either hosts or guests. What do you do better?

Yesterday night I googled: Ideas on how to be a good hostess when at the same time you feel like a stranger.

A hot host held a hostess hostage, the hostage hostess shot the host, it was hot.

text by Danai Giannoglou

** title is borrowed from The Anti-Angelic host - On Virginia Woolf and the politics of hosting by Jan Verwoert

** picture from The Juliet of the spirits, Federico Felini