SCHURF
21.2.2021 | 11 a.m. – 22.2.2021 | 11 a.m.
24-hour performance in BHROX bauhause reuse auf der Mittelinsel des Ernst-Reuter-Platz in Berlin.
Die Installation kann vom 15.2. – 3.3.2021 rund um die Uhr besichtigt werden.
Es schürften Omar Alshaer | Marwa Younes Almokbel | Shirin Ashkari | Leo Naomi Baur | barbara caveng | Alice Fassina | Nadja Hoppe | Kdindie | Therry Kornath | Jan Markowsky und Flora Tarumim Torres
No idyllic view over peaks and meadows - the familiar surroundings are overformed by dunes of down jackets. No safe tread is possible. 45 m³ of clothing heaps thrown up to form a landscape of anthropozaen.
Bras everywhere - decorative elements like garlands along the glass corridors of the of the BHROX bauhaus reuse, redefined on the performers' bodies as knee pads and butt shapers, their faces hidden under the colourful plague of bumps. Here an arm, there a leg, buried under too much. One breathes heavily in her pit. Nevertheless, despite everything - following the inner commandment to get dressed.
Only what? Hello...... are there no more type advisors, since the commandment of 'everything goes'? How can one make a decision? Futile attempts to classify by colour, material or the geographic indication of where is made in create new maps and announcements leak out: Ernst-Reuter-Platz becomes a bus station for long-distance traffic: Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Cambodia, in between a 'Made in Italy' and a pack of Eterna shirts boasting Swiss Cotton.
The rummage table has been abolished. Yesterday's covetousness is now stockpiled as clothing donations. SCHURF!
Breathlessness, suffocation, disgust. The unbearable heaviness of too much, sweat running down the body. Ascriptions, expectations, appropriations -the pressure of the standard. The performers explore the terrain - crawling over the piles of material in search of identity beyond the predefined patterns: florals and camouflage, safari look, elephant hunt. Experiments. Layer after layer reshaping the body into a structure. Another jumper and the survivors become textile rock. Te very last has to be the T-shirt with the embroidered flowers and birds on a bright yellow background, testifying to the belief in the power of nature. Going blind, drowning in the masses - who lost themselves when, where?
Homo Circularis sits naked on the mountain of stripped clothing and serves as a metaphor for a society that is shedding its skin and searching for other economies and value systems. Consumers and humanists have been buried under the avalanches of the history of textile civilisation. There - a bare foot, a hand.
For 24 hours, the mountain of clothes was dug, stripped and pulled over, folded, ironed in a constant ritual and never-ending repetition.
Dann schliefen wir erschöpft. Eine saß im schwachen Licht der Nähmaschine und vernähte Diskrepanzen.
The astronaut fell into the crater.
The performance was streamed live and additionally documented with video and photography. The three available streams in low resolution provide insights into the 24-hour shift in the clothes chute.
Stuff & Credits
Photographers
Paolo Gallo and Joachim Gern
Video: Oliver Speiser and Nana Rebhan
Technik: Peter Winter | Lorenzo Francesconi | Paolo Gallo | Caroline Speisser
Sound: Hans Böhme – billboard design | Peter Winter
Transport & Sorting
Céline Iffli | Stephan C. Kolb | Ruben Munoz | Ruslan Borzin | Umberto Cunial | Ned Edward Start-Smith | Jules Night | Flora Tarumim | Nadja | Daniela | Sascha Schölbe | Ines Tentscher | Moussa Bakaxoko | Mareen Butter
Best Boy: Oliver Meeden
Pool attendents in a managerial capacity:
barbara caveng | Alice Fassina | Leo Naomi Baur
Location:
of the BHROX bauhaus reuse – Isabelle Kaiser | Peter Winter| Robert K. Huber
SCHURF was made possible by the lending of 45 m³ of clothe donations from HUMANA Kleidersammlung GmbH Berlin. Special thanks to Julia Breidenstein.