CLEANLINESS
Berit Hummel

GLORIETA SAN VICTOR
Saturday 24, 17:30h
c/ CIRCONITA
Sunday 25, 14:30h

CLEANLINESS

I am interested in a research of strategies of visibility in public space and in questioning how society valuates different forms of work. I would like to stage a kind of working process that is present in every city but is not usually in the center of attention.
I plan to stage a scene with workers in street-cleaner uniforms. A group of 5 to 10 workers will carry out simple, repetitive acts, such as sweeping the ground or collecting rubbish. My aim is to create a model-situation where labour plays a symbolic role in a never-ending cycle of activity. The 'cleanliness' from the title could refer to individual cleanliness as homework as well as to the cleanliness of a cityscape (private and public cleanliness).

Berit Hummel (1975, Leipzig). A big part of my work is connected to an interest in specific situations in urban environment. My projects often start with a research on a site I am interested in and the selection of some aspects in a kind of a “conquering process”. In relation to this research I develop certain actions to be performed on this site, which make up the material for the video works or series of photographs. These appearances often take a longer period of preparation, like choreography, drawings or producing some kind of costume or uniform.
One focus of my work is a staging of acts seemingly incidental and without purpose, like leading towards nothing but a blank space behind the action. As to working with public space I am interested in the relation between the private and the public as well as the strategies of the private within the public. Another point of my research is the gap between desire and reality and the void generated by persistence.

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