In 2022, visual artists Stan Weessies and Kai Tiedtke collaborated on a 30-minute film as part of their graduation show, The Hungry Don't Play. The film presents an intimate, primitive, and sensual exploration of play, blurring the lines between childhood and adulthood. Through rough yet tender interactions, it depicts two figures—who could be perceived as either two men or two children—engaging in a dynamic exchange that oscillates between affection and intensity, with a constant, penetrative clicking sound in the background.

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Kai Tiedtke and Stan Weessies primarily consider themselves painters, but they frequently diverge into projects that fall within the realm of performance art and film. Their painting practices are separate, yet in their performances and acts, there is a notable overlap — resulting in collaborations that carry an absurdist, intimate, and raw character.

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From his painting practice, Stan builds a bridge to the "holy fools" (often monks) and cynical philosophers from the time of the Byzantine Empire. In particular, the monks and philosophers who rejected any association with norms, morals, or values by shamelessly displaying erratic behavior in public, either for or in the name of Christ. Stan, too, surrenders himself to something greater — in his case, the urge to paint — but unlike the monks and philosophers, he does so in the solitude and determination of his studio. He seems to be searching for an irrational, almost evangelical purpose, though he is unsure whether he is deluded or consciously playing the fool. A place or realm, perhaps despised by many and undoubtedly unreachable, where fiction and non-fiction blend together and where no form of context can be relied upon — something like that, says Stan.

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Kai seeks to release beauty and experience filth in a new way. His approach is investigative, confronting not only his own existence but also that of his work. He is in search of what lies hidden between the object and the subject. And it is precisely this realization, which occurs between phenomena, that supports Kai in his quest to refine the raw. The aim is to detach from the world of human ideas and to create an image that speaks to the unformed remnants of human consciousness. The fascinations of both artists, and the subjects they touch upon in their painting practices, come together in their collaborations, which can be seen in The Dirty and the Darling.