The regime of couples is omnipresent: going through life as a duo is still considered the ultimate relationship goal. While this form of coexistence brings affection and trust, it also contains potential for competition and anxiety. It can feel great and awful at the same time. It can make you both co-dependent and free. In “Couples Are Hostile Islands”, Janna Pinsker and Wicki Bernhardt attempt to navigate the ideological map of desire. For this, they transform the object of their desire into … an actual object. “Do you think she fancies me?” they ask as they leer at a vacuum cleaner. With its animistic approach to objects, “Couples Are Hostile Islands” is the great white shark in an ocean of love.

“If the whole world tells you that the meaning of life lies in finding that with one special person and then spending your entire life together, what else is there to say?” (Christiane Rösinger)