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Judith Schoss­böck, 2020
Pho­to: Matthias Mollner

Judy in the Sky forever

August 2025
A lit­tle over three months ago, we cel­e­brat­ed the life and lega­cy of artist and ME/CFS activist Judith Schoss­böck, who passed away in Decem­ber 2024, with the two-day event ‘Judy in the Sky’. It is time to share some impres­sions of the event with you and give you a pre­view of the next oppor­tu­ni­ties to keep Judith’s mem­o­ry alive.

Judy in the Sky on 2 and 3 May 2025

On 2 and 3 May, the premis­es of Aux Gazelles in Vien­na became the venue for ‘Judy in the Sky’ – an event that com­bined an exhi­bi­tion, fundrais­er, par­ty and memo­r­i­al ser­vice into an over­all con­cept cen­tred on the mem­o­ry of Judith Schoss­böck. The artist, sci­en­tist and ME/CFS activist took her own life in Decem­ber 2024 at the age of 44 through assist­ed sui­cide. She had lived with the chron­ic ill­ness ME/CFS and severe comor­bidi­ties for sev­er­al years, and for the last 3.5 years she was unable to leave her bed.

With a memo­r­i­al, the art exhi­bi­tion ‘Art for ME’ and ‘MEta­mor­pho­sis,’ a Burn­ing Man-style par­ty, a space for mourn­ing, art and cel­e­bra­tion of life was cre­at­ed by and for friends, those affect­ed by ME/CFS and all inter­est­ed parties.

There are still posters from the event avail­able. If any­one would like one or two as a sou­venir, please con­tact ladychandos@posteo.de.

Judith her­self want­ed this cel­e­bra­tion. Many of the ideas that were imple­ment­ed came direct­ly from her.

Pho­to 1: Matthias Moll­ner
Pho­to 2: Joan­na Pianka

Dona­tion proceeds

A total of just under €3,500 was col­lect­ed in dona­tions. These will go to the Aus­tri­an Soci­ety for ME/CFS, a self-help organ­i­sa­tion for those affect­ed, and the WE&ME Foun­da­tion, which is com­mit­ted to research into ME/CFS.

Around 250 peo­ple attend­ed the event on site at Aux Gazelles dur­ing the event week­end, with sev­er­al dozen more par­tic­i­pat­ing online. Around 50 vol­un­teers were involved in plan­ning and imple­ment­ing the event, which was organ­ised by Black Ferk Stu­dio in coop­er­a­tion with Aus­tri­an Burn­ers – Kun­st- und Kulturverein.

Thank you to every­one who helped, pro­vid­ed art, con­tri­bu­tions and their time to make this event a reality.

Inclu­sion

The even­t’s inclu­sion con­cept also enabled peo­ple who would oth­er­wise not have been able to attend to par­tic­i­pate in the event. Here are the main points again, in the hope that they will also be adopt­ed at oth­er cel­e­bra­tions and events. All oppor­tu­ni­ties were used by dif­fer­ent people.

The bar­ri­er-free premis­es of Aux Gazelles were also very accommodating.

  • Online par­tic­i­pa­tion: The speech­es at the memo­r­i­al were broad­cast live. In addi­tion, it was pos­si­ble to con­tribute to the speech­es via Zoom.

  • Sub­mis­sion of mes­sages, let­ters and art­work: Both at the memo­r­i­al and for the exhi­bi­tion, it was pos­si­ble to send con­tri­bu­tions that were dis­played or read aloud.

  • Pro­tect­ed peri­od on Sat­ur­day after­noon, dur­ing which the exhi­bi­tion could only be vis­it­ed with a mask.

  • Inter­ac­tive online tour of the exhibition.

  • Rest room in the build­ing where vis­i­tors could take a break.

  • Trans­port ser­vice for attend­ing the event with indi­vid­ual pick-up and return home.

Pho­tos: Matthias Mollner

Memo­r­i­al

The evening of 2 May focused on shared mem­o­ries. A fes­tive meal pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for exchange. This was fol­lowed by a pro­gramme of speech­es by friends, loved ones and com­pan­ions, as well as spon­ta­neous com­ments from those present and par­tic­i­pants con­nect­ed via Zoom from around the world, and mes­sages read aloud from peo­ple who were unable to attend in person.

Sym­bol­ic of the many beau­ti­ful mem­o­ries shared that evening, here is a video with a song by Johan­na Mit­ter­maier in hon­our of Judith:

Art for ME

On 3 May, the exhi­bi­tion ‘Art for ME’ was open to the pub­lic dur­ing the day. The cen­tral exhib­it of the event, which Judith con­ceived dur­ing her life­time, was a bed instal­la­tion – fit­ting for her final years. Togeth­er with a ‘clown-up sta­tion,’ this became an inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence: dressed in a clown cos­tume, lying silent­ly in bed and sur­round­ed by Judith’s stuffed ani­mals, vis­i­tors viewed the exhi­bi­tion space and the events tak­ing place in it from a per­spec­tive that is bit­ter­ly nor­mal for all too many peo­ple affect­ed by the disease.

Artists and cre­atives affect­ed and unaf­fect­ed by ME/CFS con­tributed videos, images, objects and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry instal­la­tions, mak­ing the ill­ness and Judith’s two very dif­fer­ent stages of life (before and after the ill­ness) tan­gi­ble to the pub­lic. On dis­play were works and con­tri­bu­tions by Judith Schoss­böck and Matthias Moll­ner (Black Ferk Stu­dio), Hazel Hugh­es, Judith de Gavarel­li, clumsy­colours, Andrea Vanek, Jana Win­ter, Ernst Mies­gang, Nea Insom­nia, Tra­cy Chen, Noa Ruscheweyh-Stern­berg, Michaela Joch, Birte Vier­mann, The Miss­ing Neigh­bor, Nikoli­na Žunec, Moth­meis­ter, Justin and Annie Stegg Ger­ard, Kat­ri­na Per­a­no, Sal­ly McHugh, Mab Graves and others.

Impres­sions from the exhibition:

The video ‘20 min­utes in bed’, which was cre­at­ed for the exhi­bi­tion ‘Crash’ and which Judith was able to help design her­self, was also shown:

Meta­mor­pho­sis

On the evening of 3 May, a Burn­ing Man-style par­ty was held at Aux Gazelles, where Judith’s most beau­ti­ful par­ty out­fits were auc­tioned off for char­i­ty as part of a fash­ion show. Live acts ‘JoCoAlBe’ and ‘Her­rin der Stürme’ as well as DJs on two dance floors pro­vid­ed musi­cal entertainment.

Schön­burn, 6–10 August 2025

As part of the region­al Burn­ing Man event Schön­burn 2025, the ‘Bed based clown expe­ri­ence’ – the bed that already played a cen­tral role in ‘Judy in the Sky’ – was reac­ti­vat­ed as a trav­el­ling art installation.

A work­shop on tat­too­ing fab­ric piglets with nee­dle and thread took place in it.

The bed was used as a stage dur­ing a live con­cert by Eulalia and dur­ing the per­for­mance of the ‘Judy Cult’ at the ‘No-Tal­ent Show’.

As part of the Com­mu­ni­ty Event, a memo­r­i­al tem­ple for Judith was also erect­ed, which was burned on Sat­ur­day evening. The ‘Tem­ple Burn’ could also be observed from the bed.

Also part of the ‘Tem­ple Burn’ was the burn­ing of the first part of the let­ters to Judith, which were col­lect­ed at Schön­burn in the ‘Burn­ing Ferk’ urn.

Pho­tos: Eulalia

Out­look

This year’s Lindabrunn Sym­po­sium on 20 and 21 Sep­tem­ber 2025 will cel­e­brate the 20th anniver­sary of Mono­chrom’s art project ‘Buried Alive’: https://symposion-lindabrunn.at/event/symposion-20-jahre-buried-alive/ 

As part of the cel­e­bra­tions, there will be a rit­u­al burn­ing of all fur­ther mes­sages to Judith in the ‘Burn­ing Ferk’ – includ­ing those writ­ten at ‘Judy in the Sky’ or sent in advance.

Call for donations

Please con­tin­ue to donate to organ­i­sa­tions that pro­mote research into ME/CFS and sup­port those affect­ed. Every con­tri­bu­tion helps to improve the sit­u­a­tion of suf­fer­ers a lit­tle and enables research to be car­ried out.

https://mecfs.at/

https://www.weandmecfs.org/de/

Matthias Moll­ner is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a book project in which he presents peo­ple affect­ed by ME/CFS and com­plex chron­ic ill­ness­es in inter­views and por­trait pho­tographs. Judith is also por­trayed in this book project. The research has already been com­plet­ed, and the fundrais­er for the pro­duc­tion and print­ing of the book can be found here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fighters-in-the-crash-zone-a-book-about-living-with-me-cfs

Judith very much want­ed research into this dis­ease to be advanced so that there would even­tu­al­ly be hope for suf­fer­ers. The Judy in the Sky organ­i­sa­tion team – and the fol­low­ers of the Judith cult – will there­fore cer­tain­ly plan fur­ther activ­i­ties and keep you up to date.

If you have any ideas for fundrais­ing and events that cel­e­brate Judith’s mem­o­ry and her art, please get in touch with us.