Mara Ittel ~ Keywords: performance, audioplay, podcast, fashion, pop culture, dykes, femmes, drag kings, sexy kesser vater, barbie, the green m&m, queer fandom, obsession, admiration
Mara Ittel is a visual, performance, and sound artist. They are also a multi-media craftsman, a pop culture connoisseur, and a social media lover. In their work this pops up through meme references, it inspires the characters in their performances, influences the sounds in their audio plays, and intersects with their visuals and costumes. It is also present in their humor which comes from reading fan forums, comment sections, and watching video tutorials. Their work is a wink that hints at queer identities and their secret code languages through fashions, fandoms, obsessions, and other commonalities.
Ittel lives and works in Belgium and Germany, they studied media art at the HfG Karlsruhe and HFBK Hamburg, did a semester abroad at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou (China) in the field of textile art, and graduated with a Master's in Art Praxis at the Dutch Art Institute. They are the co-founder of the website BAD.brussels (Brussels Almanack Dykes), which is about mapping and archiving queer and feminist spaces and organizations in Brussels. Now and then they are also releasing a new episode of the podcast Catch a Fan Feeling on Radio Vacarme, where they ask people that they are a fan of, about their fandoms and obsession.
Mara@DAI:
*Learn more about Mara Ittel's 20 minute performance Gagarmani, surfing on the lesbian eyeliner for WHERE THE MOON IS UP ~ DAI's Aeroponic Acts, July 2023 at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy.
*Learn more about Mara Ittel's written MA thesis (DAI, 2023): Meet Me Where the Lesbian Femmes and Drag Kings Meet
*During their journey with DAI, Mara made significant contributions to: COOP Summit 2022 ~ Watering, Wandering: An Anthology of Echoes as well as COOP Summit 2023 ~ My mother composed me as I now compose her