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Shovelling earth from one place to another

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Duration: Daily programmed activity  for 7 days.

2016 

Grölle pass:projects, Wuppertal, Germany​

 

In the space of Raum 2 at Bolle Pass Project Gallery for a period of seven days, every day, I shovel a mound of earth from one place to another.

The space that the random mound of earth occupies each time on the ground floor, is marked with chalk. When the earth is shovelled and moved to another place on the floor of the room, the space is again marked.

Throughout the week, the floor of the gallery is occupied by these marks or ‘visual signifiers’ of the most archetypal gesture/activity of manual labour –shovelling earth from one place to another

Each time this repetitive act is completed, in the space of the art gallery, I stand, tired and exhausted, having felt the physical and emotional experience of this repetitive act of physical labour; it is an act which dignifies the hardship of the ’unseen’ worker by attributing performative aspects to his manual activity, transforming his moveable mound of earth into a public sculptural and visual presence.

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 *This performance was part of my project The Documentation of the elemental

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