Mémé is a solo performance by Sarah Vanhee, featuring guest appearances of puppets, spirits, and a child. It is an intergenerational, layered, and multilingual work exploring the relationship with ancestors, with the (birth)land, and with the female body. At its center is the spirit of Vanhee's West Flemish grandmothers, who, like many women of their time, devoted most of their lives to 'labor' in both senses of the word: bearing and raising children, as well as working in the house and 'on the land,' always in service to others.
How does today's world relate to these forgotten women from the past and the land they cultivated? And how do we see them reflected in today's forgotten women whose labor is still exploited?
It is a tribute to those invisible women, to the earth, to life itself, both emotionally and intellectually, to work and pleasure. Mémé is a ritual attempt by Vanhee to bring her grandmothers back to life, reconnect with them, restore, and then, in a different way, bid farewell within an endless time.
In Dutch, West Flemish & English, with Dutch & English subtitles