The video above is a short trailer. The full video “The Q of Sappho” is 5:44 long and is shown in screenings and exhibitions, or upon request.
The Q of Sappho takes its starting point from Sappho’s famous Ode to Aphrodite, in which the legendary poet from Lesbos calls upon the goddess for help with an unrequited and passionate love.
Sappho is renowned for her love of women, and her poetry has become closely associated with female same-sex desire. Yet for centuries, this aspect of her work was obscured, reinterpreted and suppressed. Even the gender of the people she addressed in her poems was sometimes altered by translators, with “she” becoming “he”. The project explores this history and the persistent assumptions behind it — ultimately confronting the notion that female sexuality does not exist.
The video combines an experimental animation of Sappho’s poem with sequences from Eadweard Muybridge’s The Human Figure in Motion. Among these are images of the same pair of women moving and interacting intimately, culminating in a passionate kiss. Muybridge did not intend these photographs to depict eroticism between women. His assumption was that a kiss between a man and a woman would be erotic, while two women could not experience such feelings for each other.
Seen from the present, however, these images may evoke different meanings. Their movements appear tender, intimate and deeply poetic — resonating with the longing and desire expressed in Sappho’s poem.
title: The Q of Sappho
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 5’44”
year: 2026
music: “Sappho” by Andreas Nordheim – https://www.andreas-nordheim.de/ – https://soundcloud.com/andreas-nordheim
poem: „Ode to Aphrodite“ by Sappho, translated by Edwin Marion Cox (public domain)
sequences: from „The Human Figure in Motion“ by Eadweard Muybridge (public domain)
concept, images, drawings, animations, effects: Maria Korporal
© Maria Korporal 2026
The video will be shown as part of a larger installation with augmented reality in the exhibition Spieglein Spieglein an der Wand, wer ist M/W/D in diesem Land?, October 9 – November 1, 2026, Galerie VBK Berlin.
Exhibitions and presentations:
• October 9 – November 1, 2026: Spieglein Spieglein an der Wand, wer ist M/W/D in diesem Land? Galerie VBK Berlin.