Toupée (2023)
Performance, 12 hours

“On January 28th 2023 I shaved off my mustache, and then spent 4 hours gluing it back on. For the following 8 hours I wandered around Stockholm with a ‘real’ fake-mustache, being photographed as the artist ‘Neil Bhat’. It’s about the absurd task of trying to be a ‘real artist’. Paranoid and followed by a camera, waiting for someone to notice that the mustache was fake and call me out on it. Feelings of imposter syndrome while attempting to interact with friends and coworkers. Constructing an identity one hair at a time, trying to keep it from falling off as it froze in the winter air.

Met some friends for drinks at a cocktail bar later in the evening, went to the bathroom and came back without a mustache. They didn’t know what to do.

The replacement (the poem) came later. That was more about being a ‘real’ person.”

Toupée was documented with 45 photos on film. A selection of the resulting photos were exhibited for the first time at Ebelingmuseet in the group exhibition Ruptur. At the opening of the exhibition the original poem The replacement (2023) was performed for the audience, finishing in a grand reveal; removing yet another “real” fake mustache, this time on stage.