Berlin Contribution by Татьяна Bogacheva

#misplacedwomen, Berlin, domestic violence, Home, homeless, performance art, Performance Workshop, Tanya Bogacheva, visibility, women

Berlin Contribution by Татьяна Bogacheva

In Berlin, Performances, Workshops on January 30, 2019 at 4:08 pm

I am pleased to share Татьяна Bogacheva’s contribution to the January 2018, „Misplaced Women?“ Workshop in the Public Space in Berlin — hosted by Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin Weißensee — and her attempts to innerly process and express in performative ways her concerns, fears and experiences around the gendered perspective of homelessness. (Tanja Ostojic)

“Home is a human right”: (Home is the most dangerous place for women worldwide, domestic violence competing only with car accidents as the main cause of death of women; and, non-European perspective on the institutes of human rights reveals their essentially colonial nature.)

A Contribution by Татьяна, Tatiana Bogacheva

Tatiana Bogacheva: “Home is a human right”, January 2018, „Misplaced Women?“ Workshop. Intervention Berlin, Alexanderplatz. Photo: Sajan Mani

Cosmopolitan is the preferred self-description of affluent dwellers of global cities reaping the fruits of the centuries of colonialism and its aftermath, globalisation, international division of labour, justice of transnational institutions and ‘illegal’ migration. Either an explorer or an expat, it is more likely to be a man who abandons one place for another or refuses to be associated with one nation, while women’s migration is a public secret. Study-mamas, oil-wives, domestic helpers, those involved in affective labour and care—neither their individual motivation for migration nor their role in shaping the world are given sufficient recognition—they are modernity’s roadies, not its driving force.

Tatiana Bogacheva: “Home is a human right”, January 2018, „Misplaced Women?“ Workshop. Intervention at Berlin Alexanderplatz. Photo: Sajan Mani

When crossing borders alone for work, women are detained on the suspicion of being trafficked due to the persisting victim-centred approach of international human rights and humanitarian organisations which feed into moralistic and patronising narratives. What is primal, the hysteria about endemic sex trafficking or capitalism’s dependency on the surplus of unpaid domestic work? Constraining migration of women through the narratives of danger, human trafficking being its extreme, legitimises restrictions on the freedoms of women and effaces their political agency and grievances connected with their class, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation.

Tatiana Bogacheva: “Home is a human right”, January 2018, „Misplaced Women?“ Workshop. Intervention at Berlin, Alexanderplatz. Photo: Sajan Mani

Finally, women are barred from the ultimate dropping-out from the societal demands and refusal to do cartwheels to carve oneself a place in the globalised world. You don’t see many female rough sleepers on the streets of Berlin. They sleep in the airports and the sitting couches of overnight trains; on the spare beds in hospitals; at libraries and offices; and at the friends’ sofas and even at their own risk at home with their partners; but they don’t sleep on the street because they—our dutiful daughters, immaculate mothers, virtuous wives and selfless partners—are our only hope on this beautiful,

bright

cosmopolitan

creative

meaningful

modern

peaceful

fair

blue perlaceous planet Earth.

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Tanya Bogacheva worked in human rights, media and education before commencing her graduate studies in critical cultural studies in Berlin.

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Text written by Tanya Bogacheva