Daniel Hellmann, born in 1985, is a dancer, actor, and performer. He studied philosophy at the University of Zurich, singing at HEMU Lausanne, and theatre at HKB Bern. Since 2018, he has performed with his character Soya the Cow, a vegan drag queen cow. His performances received the June Johnson Dance Prize in 2015 and were presented in the Swiss Selection at the Avignon Festival (2015) and at the Edinburgh Festival (2019).

Uhura Bqueer, born in 1992 in Belém, Brazil, is a visual artist and performer. A graduate of UFPA, their transdisciplinary work addresses racial and LGBTQIA+ issues through performance. They have exhibited at the MAK Center (Los Angeles), the Museu de Arte do Rio, and MASP.

Dédomestication

Dédomestication is a performance that examines the dynamics of domination at play in the relationships between humans, animals, and the environment. Through their alter egos Soya the Cow and Uhura, Daniel Hellmann and Rafa Bqueer offer a critical reinterpretation of models inherited from colonialism and industrial exploitation, imagining a queer, fluid, and unruly nature.

In a context marked by the climate crisis : wildfires, droughts, and the collapse of biodiversity, the work contrasts the extractivist vision of the world with an approach grounded in transformation, hybridization, and the imagination. The performance employs powerful imagery, blending drag aesthetics, rituals, music, and storytelling, to open up spaces for reflection on the domestication of bodies, territories, and species.

The project emerged from the artists’ meeting during a residency in Brazil, where Daniel Hellmann was conducting research on the links between soy monocultures, the animal industry, and the destruction of ecosystems. Rafa Bqueer, rooted in Afro-indigenous and queer struggles, brings a situated perspective, informed by experiences in the Amazon and the colonial violence still at work there.

Their collaboration thus blends art, activism, and performance, addressing issues of environmental, social, and identity justice. Through their characters, they explore forms of resistance that involve the body, transformation, and staging.

Dédomestication does not offer a single solution, but opens up a field of possibilities. By blurring the boundaries between human and non-human, between fiction and reality, the work invites us to rethink our modes of existence and to envision other forms of coexistence, based on attentiveness, solidarity, and the regeneration of life.