THREE-PART PERFORMANCE CYCLE
Hell / Purgatory / Heaven, 2026
- TYPE
- Live performance cycle in three acts
- VENUE
- DeNode Foundation, Ghent, Belgium
- YEAR
- 2026
- PRESENTED WITH
- People Ruin Paintings
The trilogy ascended the DeNode Foundation’s three floors from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven, turning the building into a vertical model of Dante’s afterlife and carrying the cosmology of lo corpo dentro al quale io facea ombra into live space. The performance grew from Robinson’s attempt to imagine the dead trying to reach the living.
Hell
- TYPE
- Live performance
- DURATION
- 6 min 57 sec
- DATE
- 13 February 2026
- OCCASION
- Presented at the opening of People Ruin Paintings
Hell occupied the ground floor of DeNode Foundation, forming the first stage in the trilogy’s ascent through the building. A collective Ouija structure was assembled from twenty-six letter cards and two additional cards marked “Yes” and “No”. Participants placed rolled paintings over their heads, transforming the canvases into provisional masks that concealed their faces and made their bodies part of the apparatus. Questions were directed towards unseen presences while Robinson transcribed the resulting letters and responses onto a whiteboard.
The ritual borrowed the form and expectation of a séance, but repeatedly failed to produce a coherent reply. Language emerged only in fragments, while meaning was anticipated and continually deferred.


Photographs document Hell, performed at DeNode Foundation, Ghent, 13 February 2026. Photographs courtesy DeNode Foundation.
Purgatory
- TYPE
- Live performance
- DURATION
- 17 min 57 sec
- DATE
- 13 February 2026
- OCCASION
- Presented at the opening of People Ruin Paintings
Purgatory occupied the first floor of DeNode Foundation, forming the middle stage in the trilogy’s ascent through the building. A monumental table draped in black cloth filled the space. The cloth also became Robinson’s robe, extending across the table’s surface as he emerged through an opening at its centre. His body appeared to issue from the structure itself, collapsing the distinction between performer, garment, stage and ceremonial object.
Visitors selected tarot cards corresponding to past, present and future, which Robinson interpreted aloud before the assembled audience. By turning a conventionally private reading into a public procedure, the performance made anticipation, uncertainty and exposure part of its material. Divination offered no secure prediction. Authority remained divided between the participant, the cards, Robinson’s ritualised voice and the apparatus that enclosed him.



Photographs document Purgatory, performed at DeNode Foundation, Ghent, 13 February 2026. Photographs courtesy DeNode Foundation.
Heaven
- TYPE
- Live performance with artist-composed sound
- DURATION
- 7 min 50 sec
- DATE
- 13 February 2026
- OCCASION
- Presented at the opening of People Ruin Paintings
In Heaven, one participant wearing a mask of Robinson’s face coats him in strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, eggs and flour. Coded as blood or wine, excrement and semen, this tarring-and-feathering precedes baptism in the pool among masked doubles. She later removes the mask. Robinson composed the score using synthesisers and a loop pedal.



All three photographs document Heaven, the third and final performance in the trilogy. Photographs courtesy DeNode Foundation.
SOUND
Score composed by the artist, using synthesisers and a loop pedal.
RELATED PAINTINGS
Heaven I, 2026
Heaven II, 2026
Heaven III, 2026
lo corpo dentro al quale io facea ombra, 2026