Equilibrium by Veronika Merklein explores the intimate, often painful relationship between body weight and identity. Once public curiosities, Vienna’s city scales began as harmless novelties. But over time, numbers turned into judgments—marking bodies as lazy or disciplined, ugly or beautiful, sick or healthy. In the 1970s weighing shifted from public fascination to private ritual, loaded with shame and expectation.

In Equilibrium, Merklein confronts her personal history of weighing. In a dim cellar—symbol of the subconscious—she carries a bathroom scale like a briefcase, places it under a heavy jute sack suspended from the ceiling, and undresses in silence. As she steps onto the scale, its mechanical click echoes in the space. Ten minutes later, the sack crashes down, shattering the scale.

From the wreckage, Merklein reveals a real pig’s head. Sitting beside it, she caresses it gently—a haunting, intimate gesture of recognition. The performance ends here: weight destroyed, judgment suspended, tenderness reclaimed.