Created and Performed by Harri Thomas with support from Other Hearts

Nuit Blanche, 2025

​Entwined/Distilled is a live performance work conceived as part of the Hopes and Fears  Assembly with STO-Union. In this work, creator/performer/mixologist Harri Thomas (they/them) engages guests in a ritual of intimacy and memory, played out against the backdrop of a deconstructed living room.

These custom cocktails are created based on conversations with the guest. The conversation focus on a favored memory of the guest, building on their sense memory of the place where it occurred.

The first sip of any drink is offered with an entwined toast. This will be performed either by Harri, or a friend/other guest. The entwined toast involves twisting one’s arm with the other, looking in their eyes and taking the first sip.

Artist Statement

In Entwined/Distilled, Harri draws on deconstructivist theories of hospitality and cosmopolitanism to create an intimate and compelling aesthetic experience. The twin principles of intimacy and care blur the line between the boundaries of mine and yours in ways only community (whether political, social or casual) can. The culturally rarified and near universally recognizable martini becomes an expression of this. Drawing on the ritualized and boutique nature of the drink, a conversation around a personal memory informs the creation of a unique culinary experience. This is offered not as a big-ticket purchase, but a gesture of care. To reflect, to absorb and distill the memory of another is to become entangled with it.

This entanglement is reflected in the entwined toast. This gesture imparts immediate intimacy between the host and guest. It is also, given Harri’s visible Transness, a powerful political gesture, either of solidarity or trust with a multiply gendered other. A preferred toast, offered by the guest, also suffices, as an alternative gesture to the same end. .