The performance durch und durch (“through and through”), which was conceived for the festival called WAS IST DAS WERT in Hellerau, plays with tensions between remembering & forgetting, between private & public space, as well as between strong emotions & formally conceived actions.
Over the course of two weeks, we made our way through the city of Dresden (i.e. with public transportation), lingered in public spaces (i.e. tram stops, parks, museums, shopping malls) and continually devoted ourselves to two activities: we embroidered, and we carried on a conversation. We stitched images that had to do with personal losses, and we spoke about private thoughts and experiences.
Before the public performance began, we each chose images that represented “loss” for us, and we transformed them into the patterns we would stitch. Thus, this “loss” – whether already endured or simply dreaded – became the raw material of a social, manual, and artistic process, which in effect enriched it. This enrichment was already accomplished by virtue of the time and work invested – an effort that, considering this painstaking method of reproducing images, was immense.
Typically private actions were not only performed publicly, but were obviously – and unconventionally – staged as well. Thus, this performance was a way of ironically testing the efficacy of a traditionally female model of community building and communication through collective work.
MORE about the artists and institutions involved:
