Ground Control Many voices one chant. PART I

Ground Control / Many voices one chant. PART I, 2018. Two channel video installation with sound.
In collaboration with Ayşe Orhon (choreographer) and Michaela Callaghan (fashion designer / fiber artist). Together with Silvia R., Roman K. and Achim S. from the Wohnplattform Berlin.

is it not first through the voice that one becomes animal? (Deleuze-Guattari)

Die Sprache ist das Problem nicht wir / The language is the problem not us (Silvia R. from the Wohnplattform Berlin)

I am engaging in this project will full awareness of all of the inherent complexities that are at work when artistic concepts and practices get involved with vulnerable and marginalized people. With this piece, I intend neither to objectify nor to project victimization onto the residents of the homeless shelter, Berliner Wohnplattform. The final presentation of this process is a sound and video installation. The work begins with a dystopian hypothesis: If it is true that we are heading towards a future where every worker will be replaced by a robot, then what if even all of the vulnerable and marginalized individuals, such as the homeless, the drug- and alcohol addicted, and the undocumented people, were also replaced by robots, so that society would be free from all pain, social violence, and exclusion? The work consists of two parts:

First part: story telling: residents of the Berliner Wohnplatform, Silvia R., Roman K. and Achim S. tell stories about their lives, desires and concerns. Second part: Through a workshop with the residents and the choreographer Ayşe Orhon and fashion designer Michaela Callaghan, we have been developing clothing and accessories, from textiles and bottles in order to construct new bodily perceptions.

English translation: Amelia Seymour.

Click here to visit Ground Control / Many voices one chant. PART II