On December 16, 2015, I conducted the “Missplaced Women?” workshop, on performance art, migration, public space and surveillance, with the participation of students and teachers of the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Aix-en-Provence, France.
During the morning session of the workshop each participant shared with others her/ his own family and their own history of migration. Issues of identity, social structures, historical and contemporary roles and positions of art in society were discussed among others, along with the introduction to the “Misplaced Women?” project and the workshop goals. We talked as well about our motivations and expectations regarding the workshop.
Each participant has suggested and has chosen one location in the city that is significant for migration, and we all made together a 2,5-hour-long performance tour, doing, witnessing and discussing at each of the locations one individual performance.
The choice of locations was very diverse, as well as each of our own histories, like wise the diversity of contents of our own pockets and of each of our luggage that we brought along in order to unpack them during the performances.
The quality of every of the performances was very high thanks to the strong motivation and strong presence of each of the individuals, as well as the numerous interventions and responses from security personal and passing buyers who witnessed our interventions. It was one of the most intimate and one of the most intense one-day workshops I had an opportunity to lead so far.
Workshop participants:
– Lise Godard
– Tanja Ostojic (see below)
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Tanja Ostojic:
Gare Routière d´Aix-en-Provence, the city bus station, has been the location of my choice. Each time I arrived to Aix, weather I came from Nice airport or from a day trip to Marseille, this was at this station. I had with me my obligatory purse with portmonee and tabac, a cotton bag with few necessities, including a plastic bag with 5 mandarines. I have chosen one of the first available stone benches placing my bags on it. I started with undressing my coat (made out of up-cycled military blanket), turning it inside out. Then I took off my belt. I took out of my purse and my bags and my wallet each single item, turning them inside out. Mandarines I opened one by one, then I distributed them to people around, to calm down security guy who was shouting on Sigrid as she was taking pictures of my intervention. Mandarines are very helpful when one is on the road. Good for thirst and energy, practical to open and to share. A group of local youngsters gathered around and most of us engaged in conversation with them after the performance. It came up that actually none of them was really local thanks to the very rich family migration histories.
As soon as we left the station we came by a women who has discovered some nice clothes for two of her kids in plastic bags next to the container. She took each piece of clothes out of the bag, looked if it was proper, nice, in the right size, and ones she decided for it, she arranged it temporarily on near by railing. I observed attentively the way she was doing it and took discretely one picture of her from behind. She turned to me and as I confirmed to speak Italian, she explained her migration and family story, and asked for mine. She asked me as well for a change and I asked her to take another snap-shot of her. And so we had a friendly and positive exchange.
Photos: Sigrid Pawelke / Tanja Ostojic
Video: Sigrid Pawelke
Misplaced Women? 