In 1991, Europe’s oldest known human mummy was found frozen in the mountains of Northern Bolzano in Italy. Named Ötzi, after the Ötztal Alps where he was retrieved, the mummy is estimated to have lived between 3350 and 3105 BC—placing him in the Neolithic age, more than 5000 years ago. Ever since he was found his corpse has been subjected to extensive examinations by the scientific community, who have measured, X-rayed, dissected and speculated on what this early example of human life might tell us about ourselves today. Since 2019, artist Levi van Gelder has similarly been fixated by the spectacle and attention surrounding Ötzi. But contrary to efforts that seek to define the mummy by scientific and historical means, van Gelder has been writing an alternative story of Ötzi, one that removes him from his museum cooling cell and brings him back into the present with a view to restoring his agency.

Having begun writing fan fiction as a teenager, van Gelder is interested in the ways you can create and access worlds through the appropriation of different viral media and mainstream cultural references, extending and even replacing original stories with new narratives. During the Covid-19 pandemic van Gelder began writing fan fiction around Ötzi, imagining him as a character in The L Word. It is here that Ötzi became Ötza—someone no longer a subject in the story of her life, but her own writer and narrator. Unbounded by the logics of space and time (she is after all technically dead), Ötza, through van Gelder, writes herself into worlds and situations in hundreds of chapters of fan fiction. The stories are usually short but quite intricate, with a smart and playful comedic undertone running throughout and a medley of citations that Ötza at times seems to get, and at others not. From a prehistoric hut where she’s a tourist guide wearing funky T-shirts featuring saucy puns to distract visitors from looking at her, to being the moody and demanding mastermind of the Ötzy Lee Dance Company berating a group of girls for coming second at a dance competition, Ötza imagines herself as both a victim and a tyrant, smart and dumb, desirable and disgusting—often pushing against the ways that others see her. 

Aside from distributing her fan fiction online and in print, Van Gelder has been using drag as a means of embodying Ötza for the creation of videos and performances where we get to experience Ötza firsthand. Dressed in a cropped faux-J.W. Anderson hoodie and fossilized kitten heels, and with a head of long platinum hair, Ötza struts her way through situations with glamour and poise. Whether at a reading of her own fan fiction or a tour of the blockbuster Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Ötza reclaims her position and visibility, at times providing clarifications, corrections and answering questions about herself when she feels it’s needed. Through her universe of self-making, Ötza hopes to transcend the scientific “truths” and understandings that were forced onto her body and self, finding in drag and fan fiction not only a means of escape but of inventing other possible realities.

— Written by Eliel Jones for Offspring 2025 at De Ateliers.