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#latina, #misplacedwomen, #split, #voids2021, @culturehubcroatia

Misplaced Latina? by Alejandra Robles Sosa

In Performances, Port, Split, Stories on May 14, 2021 at 8:08 pm

Alejandra Robles Sosa performed over 15 minutes long Misplaced Latina? based on Score #1: Unpacking a Bag of Your Own, at the Split Ferry Port, on April 7, 2021, in the frame of Misplaced Women? Workshop led by Tanja Ostojić

[Translation to Croatian is below]

Misplaced Latina?

Contribution by Alejandra Robles Sosa

Who am I?

I am Alejandra Robles Sosa, with two last names, because I was born and raised in Mexico. My mother tongue is Spanish and I grew up at the periphery of a three million inhabitant city, Puebla City. I was backpacking across Latin America, South East Asia, and Europe for three years before I enrolled in 2018 at the Arts Academy in Split, Croatia, where I have been living ever since. My art practice is strongly influenced by critical theories and a decolonial approach. I explore the collective memory of the migration of the human race represented in art, textile patterns, food, and plants.

What were my expectations from the Misplaced Women? workshop?

I was interested in exploring the idea of how my “female” body as a brown Latina is read in different contexts while crossing borders. My body is not read in the same way in a South American country, in the USA or the Balkans. Every place has its expectations from me. Our bodies and our presence are also read according to the objects we carry with us while crossing borders. My body is read differently if I am alone with a hiking backpack or with a fancy suitcase. People perceive things differently when I am on a long trip with bags on my bicycle. Those objects influenced the way I feel, if I am vulnerable or not, that includes my body itself, my clothes, and the things in my bag.

The Misplaced Latina? performance

My emotions: I didn’t cry for a while. The pandemic situation brought to me, as too many people around the world, a desolation feeling. I have been constantly suppressing my feelings in order to stay mentally stable. While carefully choosing my objects, the day before the performance and at the beginning of it, I couldn’t stop crying. It is as if for the last four years I have packed my sorrow and tears in small containers. So, I brought those containers with me.

“Misplaced Latina?” by Alejandra Robles Sosa, *Misplaced Women?* Workshop Split, 2021. Photo: Neli Ružić

My sorrow containers:

Food. I brought along food ingredients that came to Europe after the colonisation of the Americas and nowadays are part of the Croatian daily diet, like homemade tomato sauce, potato and banana. Those represent the sorrow of my colonised and de-indigenised ancestors.

Religion. I included the Holy Rosary I bought for my grandmother on my first visit to Vatican. She died a year before I could give it to her. I am not a religious person, but I love my grandma and I know how important this used to be for her when she was alive. The Catholic Church also has a dark colonial past in the Americas.

Embroidery. Historically, embroidery hasn’t been taken seriously as a medium because it belongs to the sphere of women’s work. And women’s issues are usually related to unpractical data. I decided to embroider the existential themes that inhabited my mind for the last few weeks: Annual living cost for three different categories of people (that are considered physical persons) from third world countries required to obtain Croatian visa. Those are my personal options, since I have a remote job outside Croatia:

Studentica / student: 53,368 HRK,
Digital nomad: 217,718 HRK,
Kao supruga / as a wife: 44,742 HRK.

*Those are amounts needed to be present on ones bank account (at the moment of application) required by the Croatian immigration office. They refer to the sum of an average monthly rent, insurance, and in case of a student, fee per semester.

Final reflections

Regarding my initial expectations, I ended up reflecting upon how our sorrow and tears are read when our body is seen as a female foreigner. What is a woman supposed to cry about? How do I express my feelings, and how people validate our feelings according to our gender, race, and social status?

Each of the performances realised in the frame of Misplaced Women? workshop was full of those feelings and reflections that as women we experience in our day-to-day life. Sexual harassment, the church imposition of values over our bodies, the precariousness of artistic life, self-exploitation at work. Being seen as an accessory, and not being taken seriously when we argue against structural problems. Which feelings and in which way are allowed to be expressed in the public spaces? Tanja Ostojić has done silence braking performance in which Mia and I took part. She spoke in the public square of Peristil about attempts of sexual violence that she experienced in the past, about the subject that has been encapsulated into the private space, thus denying its social and structural nature. On her right side, Mia Bradić was appropriating every part of her own body with her contemporary dance improvisation, while my accompaniment included embroidering seemed more passive and therefore within the category of the feminine. Embroidering allowed me to listen, meditate and reflect.

As a foreign woman in a city where there is no Latino community, during a pandemic I have experienced a feeling of loneliness that I did not know before. Meeting with women from different backgrounds who responded to a feminist call was a hug to the heart. Thanks, everyone!

Alejandra Robles Sosa (born 1988) is currently Split based artist and designer of Mexican origin. She graduated from the Arts Academy in Split.

Text written by: Alejandra Robles Sosa

Edited and First Published by Tanja Ostojić on the Misplaced Women? Project Blog, May 2021.

Copy-editing: Cultural Hub Croatia (CHC) and Tanja Ostojić

Translation from English to Croatian: CHC

Photos: Tanja Ostojić and Neli Ružić

Video recording & editing: Andrea Resner

This performance has been developed and performed for the first time in the frame of Misplaced Women? Workshop led by Tanja Ostojić, in Split, April 6-8, 2021.

Hosted and organised by CHC in the frame of Voids2021

Production: Misplaced Women? Project, ongoing since 2009

———————————————————

Please see other posts from Split and this workshop:

Feminism Forgives by Ines Borovac

Misplaced Women? Misplaced Organization? by Culture Hub Croatia

#NismoSamoUkras by Lissette Nicole Josseau

Routine by Mia Bradić

Misplaced Women? Split Station

Routine by Mia Bradić

Self-exploitation by Katarina Duplančić

“On Rape Attempts” by Tanja Ostojić

“Misplaced Organization?” by Culture Hub Croatia

Please see as well videos of the performances published on the Mis(s)placed Women? video channel:

Embroidery by Alejandra Robles Sosa, Workshop Split, 2021. Photo: Alejandra Robles Sosa

HR PRIJEVOD

Tko sam ja?

Ja sam Alejandra Robles Sosa. Imam dva prezimena jer sam rođena u Meksiku (1988.). Moj materinji jezik je španjolski i odrasla sam na periferiji grada s tri milijuna stanovnika.

Alejandra Robles Sosa (born 1988) is currently Split based artist and designer of Mexican origin. She graduated from the Arts Academy in Split.

Tri godine sam putovala po Latinskoj Americi, jugoistočnoj Aziji i Europi, a 2018. godine sam upisala Umjetničku akademiju u Splitu u Hrvatskoj, gdje živim od tada.

Na moju umjetničku praksu snažno utječu kritičke teorije i dekolonijalni pristup. Istražujem kolektivno sjećanje migracija ljudske rase zastupljeno u umjetnosti, tekstilnim uzorcima, hrani i biljkama.

Što sam očekivala?

Zanimalo me istražiti ideju kako se moje “žensko” tijelo Latinoamerikanke tamnije puti čita u različitim kontekstima tijekom prelaska granica. Moje se tijelo ne čita na isti način u južnoameričkoj zemlji, u SAD-u ili na Balkanu. Svako mjesto ima svoja očekivanja od mene.

Naša tijela i naša prisutnost također se očitavaju u skladu sa stvarima koje nosimo dok prelazimo granice. Moje se tijelo drugačije čita ako sam sama s planinarskim ruksakom ili s otmjenim koferom. Ljudi različito percipiraju stvari kad sam na dugom putu s torbama na biciklu. Ti su “rekviziti” utjecali na to da se osjećam ranjivo ili ne, što uključuje i samo moje tijelo, ali i odjeću i stvari u torbi.

Performans

Moje emocije:

Neko vrijeme nisam plakala. Situacija s pandemijom donijela mi je, kao i mnogim ljudima širom svijeta, osjećaj pustoši. Neprestano sam prisiljavala svoje osjećaje da budu posve stabilni. Dok sam birala rekvizite, dan prije nastupa (i na početku), nisam mogla prestati plakati. Kao da sam posljednje četiri godine pakirala tugu i suze u te malene posude. Pa sam te posude ponijela sa sobom.

Moji kontejneri za tugu

Hrana. Sa sobom sam ponijela hranu koja je u Europu došla nakon kolonizacije Amerike. I ona je danas dio hrvatske svakodnevne prehrane,oput domaćeg umaka od rajčice, krumpira i banane. To predstavlja tugu mojih koloniziranih i neo-indiginiziranih predaka.

Religija. Uključila sam i „svetu krunicu“ koju sam kupila svojoj baki prilikom prvog posjeta Vatikanu. Baka je preminula godinu dana prije negó sam joj uspjela dati krunicu. Nisam religiozna osoba. Ali volim svoju baku i znam koliko joj je ovo bilo važno. Katolička crkva također ima mračnu kolonijalnu prošlost u Amerikama.

Vez. Povijesno gledano, vez nije shvaćen ozbiljno kao medij, jer se radi o ženskom djelu. A ženska su pitanja obično povezana s nepraktičnim podacima. Odlučila sam izvesti teme koje su mi okupirale um u posljednjih nekoliko tjedana: troškovi života na tri načina (od mnogih) za dobivanje vize u Hrvatskoj kao osoba iz treće zemlje.

Ovo su moje osobne mogućnosti, budući da obavljam posao na daljinu za poslodavce izvan Hrvatske:

– studentica: 53,368 HRK,

– digitalni nomad: 217,718 HRK,

– kao supruga: 44,742 HRK.

* To su potrebni iznosi na bankovnom računu (u trenutku prijave) koji zahtijeva Hrvatski imigracijski ured. Odnose se na zbroj prosječne mjesečne stanarine, osiguranja, a u slučaju studenta, školarine po semestru.

Završni osvrt

Što se tiče mojih očekivanja, završila sam razmišljajući o tome kako se čitaju naše tuge i suze kada se na naše tijelo gleda kao na žensku strankinju. Zbog čega bi žena trebala plakati? Kako mogu izraziti svoje osjećaje i kako ljudi potvrđuju naše osjećaje prema našem spolu, rasi i socijalnom statusu?

Svaka izvedba bila je puna onih osjećaja i razmišljanja koja kao žene doživljavamo u svakodnevnom životu. Seksualno uznemiravanje, crkveno nametanje vrijednosti nad našim tijelima, nesigurnost umjetničkog života, samo-eksploatacija na poslu. Na nas se gleda kao na dodatak i ne shvaća ozbiljno kad propitujemo strukturne probleme. Koji se osjećaji i na koji način smiju izražavati u javnim prostorima?

Svaki od performansa realiziranih u okviru radionice Misplaced Women? bio je pun onih osjećaja i razmišljanja koje kao žene doživljavamo u svakodnevnom životu. Seksualno uznemiravanje, crkveno nametanje vlastitih vrijednosti našim tijelima, nesigurnost umjetničkog života, samoeksploatacija na poslu. Na nas se gleda kao na dodatke i ne shvaća nas se ozbiljno kad se pobunimo protiv strukturnih problema. Koji se osjećaji i na koji način smiju izražavati u javnom prostoru? Tanja Ostojić izvela je performans koji prekida tišinu, a u kojem smo sudjelovale i Mia i ja. Tanja je na Peristilu govorila o pokušajima seksualnog nasilja koje je doživjela u prošlosti, o temi koja je inkapsulirana u privatni prostor, negirajući tako njegovu društvenu i strukturnu prirodu. S Tanjine desne strane, Mia Bradić prisvajala je svaki dio vlastitog tijela svojom suvremenom plesnom improvizacijom, dok je moja pratnja s vezenjem djelovala pasivnije i, samim time, unutar kategorije ženskog. Vezenje mi je omogućilo da slušam, meditiram i razmišljam.

Kao strankinja u gradu u kojem ne postoji latino zajednica, tijekom pandemije doživjela sam osjećaj usamljenosti koji prije nisam poznavala. Sastanak sa ženama iz različitih sredina koje su se odazvale feminističkom pozivu bio je zagrljaj srca. Hvala svima.

Pogledajte i druge priloge iz ove radionice/ this workshop:

Feminism Forgives by Ines Borovac

Misplaced Women? Misplaced Organization? by Culture Hub Croatia

#NismoSamoUkras by Lissette Nicole Josseau

Routine by Mia Bradić

Misplaced Women? Split Station

Routine by Mia Bradić

“On Rape Attempts” by Tanja Ostojić

“Misplaced Organization?” by Culture Hub Croatia

Self-exploitation by Katarina Duplančić

Mis(s)placed Women? video channel:

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#artinpublicspace, #AzadColemêrg, #Kurdish, #misplacedwomen, #refugee, performance art, Switzerland

A day with Tanja Ostojić

In Performances, Stories, Train Station, Workshops, Zürich on March 6, 2021 at 9:09 pm

[Please read the original text in Sorani Kurdish language below]

[Translation to English]

A day with Tanja Ostojić

My name is Azad. I am a political refugee. I had to come to Switzerland from Kurdistan, with everything left behind. The land where I was born is a prohibited geography. Our language, culture, literature and art are forbidden.

Azad Colemêrg: Misplaced Women? performance intervention. Main train station Zurich, April 2019, Misplaced Women? workshop by Tanja Ostojić. Videostill: contact zone

As someone who lived through all these bans, I met Tanja Ostojić one day. My view of art and performance has changed because of the experience with her Misplaced Woman? performance project. Ostojić broke all the narrow moulds on which women were placed, taking them out of an object position and giving them a completely different breath. It had revealed an important contradiction. She sent a message to the male dominated society which misplaces women in every sphere of life.

We all opened our bags and suitcases that day. Because capitalism first chains people with a bag. Then it squeezes our lives into it. It’s like we can’t live without that bag. All of our belongings are in it. This created awareness of humanity’s dependence on material things.

There are taboos in all societies. Why is there a fountain in the main train station of Zurich, decorated with blue light, which resembles a waterfall? The fountain is a taboo. Nobody should touch it. But there are no taboos for Ostojić. She stood under the water with her umbrella. She looked at shoe brands in the store and inspected them.

That day we made a performance under the blue waterfall. I felt very free. I stood under the pouring water with my umbrella. I was very excited. I loved to be able to stand below the water because it was a socially forbidden place and therefore it seemed attractive to me. I was wet but it felt good.

We went to a shoe store. I even looked at the brands of shoes in the shop there. Together with the others of the group I was reading aloud where the shoes had been produced. We lifted the bottom of each shoe and read their place of production and mostly they were made in China, China, China. Then Ostojić gave the shoe seller an advertisement for a family poster. Me and some others followed her lead.

We unpacked our suitcases. All our luggage was gone.

With Misplaced Woman? Ostojić creates different images of women by opening up new possibilities, new spaces. It is not a woman in a kitchen, not a woman in the bedroom, but a woman imagining a blue sky.
A woman is not an item, which would fit in a suitcase.

Finally, I would like to conclude with the words of Simon de Beauvoir: “Suddenly in the kitchen, where her mother is washing dishes, the little girl realises that over the years, every afternoon at the same time, these hands have plunged into greasy water and wiped the china with a rough dish towel. And until death they will be subjected to these rites. Eat, sleep, clean … the years no longer reach toward the sky, they spread out identical and grey as a horizontal tablecloth; every day looks like the previous one; the present is eternal, useless, and hopeless.” Beauvoir asked herself if she will be able to live like that while placing the plates in the closet, and she said to herself, ‘no’.

Tanja Ostojić taught us to say “No” to the male dominated, capitalist world.

Yours truly,

Azad Colemêrg

July 11, 2019.

Azad Colemêrg is currently studying cinematography at the University of Zurich. He was born in 1988 in Kurdistan, near Colemêrg, in the very east of Turkey. Azad Colemêrg has been based in Switzerland since 2018 where he received a status of a political refugee in 2019. Before he had to flee the country, he had been working as a school teacher in Kurdistan and in Turkey.

Score#1, Raspakivanje osobne torbe na Muzilu

In Performances, Pula, Stories on November 23, 2020 at 6:35 pm

Misplaced Women?, delegirani performans Tanje Ostojić

Score #1/Raspakivanje lične torbe/ Performans Solidarnosti: kontribucija Roberte Weissman Nagy uz Partituru za izvođenje performansa br.1

Izvela: Roberta Weissman Nagy

Lokacija: Muzil, napušteni vojni kompleks, vojna zona bez dozvole prilaska, Pula, Istra, Hrvatska

Datum: 21.11.2020. Vreme: 11–14 h, u trajanju od tri sata

_{Misplaced Women?, delegirani performans Tanje Ostojić, Score #1, izvela: Roberta Weissman Nagy, Muzil, Pula, 2020. Fotografija: Zoltan Nagy}

Opis i refleksije:

Ja sam dijete vojnog lica. Dijete nekog drugog svijeta. Priključila sam se Misplaced Women? performans-projektu u želji da preispitam spoznaje o sebi kao ženi, upravo kroz ogoljavanje i prezentiranje sadržaja svoje „torbe“, odnosno, intimnog, skrivenog i erotičnog svijeta osobnosti. Na prvi pogled bezazleno istresanje sadržaja osobne torbe, uprizoreno na lokaciji za koju sam smatrala da je jedna od onih koje su me trajno oblikovale kao ženu, postalo je duboko emotivno iskustvo proživljavanja vlastite fragilnosti i ženskosti, te vrtlog emotivnih i uznemirujućih reakcija koje me povezuju sa lokacijom i prošlošću.

_{“Misplaced Women?”, delegated performance by Tanja Ostojić, “Score 1/ Unpacking a Bag of Your Own”, Performed by: Roberta Weissman Nagy, 21.11.2020, Muzil, Pula, Istria. Video-still: Zoltan Nagy}

Trajno napušten sablasni prostor vojnog kompleksa, koji je JNA mirno i bez razaranja napustila tokom rata, 15. Decembra 1991. u 17 sati, i u koji je i danas nemoguće ući bez dozvole Ministarstva obrane, posjetila sam pre nekih 50-tak godina, jednog ranog hladnog jutra sa svojim ocem, kapetanom bojnog broda, koji je imao ured u zgradi ispred koje je snimljen performans. Sećam se da je danas zaraslo dvorište tada bilo čisto i uredno. U njemu je stajalo nekoliko stotina mladih mornara iz cijele Jugoslavije pod punom spremom, koji su čekali prekomandu. Razgovarali su i pušili.

Sjećam se zvukova, mirisa i osjećaja, a posebno njihovih pogleda, dok sam kao petogodišnja djevojčica prolazila u mimohodu i pela se potom stepenicama, ulazeći u zgradu. Neki su bili ljubazni, osmjehnuli se, a neki su me sa vidljivim prijezirom ružno gledali, čak i psovali.

Osjećaje bespomoćnosti i nejasnog straha koji su usledili odmah nakon nesvesnog prepoznavanja da sam poslatala meta kolektivne emocije, koje su mi tada izazvali, došla sam sada istresti pred njih, kao odrasla žena. Stajala sam sama pred tisuću ljudi kojih nije bilo. Strahovita je energija i dalje prisutna na tom trgu.

Strah, suze, inat, ponos i snaga prepliću se kroz pokret dizanja ruku i čin izvrtanja torbe. Intenzivno sam doživela ovaj performans, kao veliku snagu i kao usud. Doneo mi je osećaj pomirenja, da konačno mogu biti to što jesam, što sam postala, sa skinutim cipelama, bosa, bez rezerve prisutna, baš tu na javnom platou u zabranjenoj zoni gdje odavna nikog više nema.

Orkanska bura koja je kao neminovnost toga dana bila sveprisutna, dotakla se i predmeta iz moje torbe, pomno odabranih da simboliziraju svaki segment mog života, uključuju i oktobarski broj časpisa Cosmopolitan, koji je tek izašao, i u njemu, članak o meni — da žene čitaju tko sam. Tek sam prazneći torbu saznala koliko još imam nesvesnih delova sebe. Istresajući sebstvo, sagledavši akt ove izjave, plakala sam čitavih sat vremena.

O Muzilu:

Iako se nalazi unutar grada, Muzil je oduvijek predstavljao zagonetku za većinu Puljana i Puležanki. Od 1859 godine kada Austrougarska određuje Pulu za svoju glavnu ratnu luku, pa sve do 2007. godine ova ogormna zona, površine od 180 hektara, bila je zatvorena za javnost. Tu su se smjenjivale razne vojske: Austrougarska, Italijanska, vojska Kraljevine Jugoslavije, SFR Jugoslavije, i Hrvatske. Vojni kompleks Muzil je do raspada Jugoslavije koristila Jugoslovenska ratna mornarica (JRM). Po uspostavi Rrepublike Hrvatske, kompleks je kao i cjelokupna vojna imovina prešao u korištenje Hrvatske vojske. Danas je napušten i u statusu iščekivanja novog vlasnika, i prenamjene, jer je nejasan odnos vlasništva između Republike Hrvatske, Ministarstva obrane te samog Grada Pule na čijem je teritoriju kompleks, a za koji građani pokazuju interes u smislu prenamjene u javni prostor za kulturne i druge urbane sadržaje.

O autorki:

Roberta Weissman Nagy je umjetnica koja u svom radu kroz različite medije otvara pitanja o objektivnoj i subjektivnoj korelacij i realnosti. Ova puležanka je diplomirala na FLU u Beogradu 1988. godine, međunarodno je aktivna na preko 80 izložbi, te je nagrađivana za svoj umjetnički i pedagoški rad.

Fotografije: Zoltan Nagy / Roberta Weissman Nagy

Videast: Zoltan Nagy

Tekst napisala: Roberta Weissman Nagy

Tekst uredila i prvi put objavila na Misplaced Women? blogu: Tanja Ostojić

Molim Vas pogledajte priloge i članke koji se direktno nadovezuju na ovaj:

Partitura za izvođenje performansa, br.1: Raspakivanje lične torbe

Partitura za izvodjenje performansa, br.2: Držanje natpisa

_{Jesenja izložba Udruženja Likovnih Umetnika Srbije u Paviljonu Cvijeta Zuzorić na Kalemegdanu Beograd}

Prethodne kontribucije: Perfromans Solidarnosti

Score#1: (in English)

Score#2: (in ENglish)

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Aberdeen, BrankoMiliskovic, entryclearence, misplaced man?, MisplacedWomen, UKvisa

ENTRY CLEARANCE

In Aberdeen, Stories on August 30, 2020 at 1:45 pm

Contribution by Branko Milisković

July 2015

Branko Milisković, *Misplaced Man?* performance, Aberdeen Airport, UK, October 29, 2015. “Misplaced Man?” sign, and the photo: Amy Bryzgel

Two months ago I received an e-mail from Dr Amy Bryzgel, an US-American art historian and researcher, living and working in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, whom I met in Belgrade, Serbia in July 2013, and gave an interview about my performance practice for her upcoming book Performing East. Since then, we were in occasional e-mail contacts and I have also included part of her text about my work in a catalogue for my solo exhibition ATTENTION! HERE I AM (Nov/Dec 2014, G12HUB). Amy’s invitation to participate in a conference about performance art at the University of Aberdeen in October 2015 made me surprised and flattered since I’ve never been to UK before. The entire arrangement sounded almost perfect. My travel, lodging and artist wage would be provided, so what more an artist could ask for?

I knew there would be some obstacles regarding my UK visa, therefor instead of negotiating about the conference and performance, we had to start working through the entry clearance procedure for UK visa straight away. Amy told me that she is going to write a letter of invitation, stating the exact reason for my travel. The very first issue we faced was, what kind of visa I would need to apply for? Since I was invited to give a performance/talk and get payed for that job, I would need to choose between the variety of possible visas, and after a short period of time, we both confirmed it would definitely be so called Permitted Engagement Visa. The entire negotiation with Amy turned into an administration, passing through all possible bureaucratic requirements, constantly doubting and guessing weather some requirement would mean exactly and strictly as stated or would there be any way to avoid it and make the entire process less stressful. The main problem was not the fact that I have to apply strictly online. I am internet maniac and have no issues filling in the forms and answering even the most hideous questions. My biggest concern was how to obtain some of the paper work. I’ve already done various visa procedures and numerous applications in the past and eventually survived all of them. I used to live in the Netherlands for three years and in Germany for four and have been travelling across Europe, to Russia and Israel and have never violated any immigration rules. My passport is full of different visas and border control stamps and I never received any penalty nor restriction. While I was waiting to receive an official letter of invitation from the University of Aberdeen there was one major issue causing my anxiety to grow bigger and bigger. It was the money issue. Now everybody would think, ok what’s the problem if all expenses would be covered by the organiser, in this case, by the University of Aberdeen, right? According to the list of important requirements and documents that should be obtained, there was a requirement that each applicant should provide the bank statements for the period of last six months. My problem was the fact that being a freelance artist, I don’t have regular monthly income that could be proven via bank statements. Therefore I immediately failed to fulfil this main visa requirement, to show that I am professional artist. I also failed to show that I would have enough money on my bank account to support my trip and daily costs in Aberdeen, even though all my expenses would be covered. I would consider myself being professional artist with various engagements, but in other hand, underemployed with no regular income, no valuable possessions, no long term bank credits to insure that I will definitely return to the country of origin, no driver licence nor car, no real estate on my name, no fixed employment. I am not married and have no children. Clearly enough I am so free, like a bloody sparrow, and therefore the most suspicious applicant. Their biggest fear is that I might use this opportunity and immigrate, sucking on UK public money, residing illegally somewhere in the countryside. In order to ask for some support, Amy and I separately contacted Serbian Embassy in London and nobody ever responded to our inquiries. We didn’t ask for any particular help, just a written letter of support from the embassy, which should be supporting and representing its people, culture and politics abroad, right? I have also contacted British Council in Belgrade and asked the same question. Nobody ever responded.

August 19, 2015

Two days ago I finally received the official letter of invitation from the University of Aberdeen, and as soon as I saw it in my post box, I went immediately to print out my application form and to finish the rest. I thought it would be no big deal just to print it out, pay an application fee by debit card and book an appointment. But it was all very confusing since the beginning. I filed in my application form, and the next step was the payment. On the official webpage of UKVI it was stated that the fee would be €121,00, but once I started my payment procedure it turned out to be €126,00. I was not sure how much money I was holding on my debit card. Once I submitted my application form online I was informed by a server that I have only three hours to complete the payment, otherwise everything will be lost and I would have to start the application procedure all over again. I rushed to the local bank to put some extra cash on my bank account, to make sure there is enough. I was cuing over an hour in the bank and returned to the office to finally complete the payment. It was so frustrating, I just couldn’t believe that UKVI was counting my time.

On August 19, I had my UKVI appointment at Teleperformance agency at the Airport City in New Belgrade. I arrived well in advance caring with me a bag full of art books, catalogues and press material as well as the entire application documents including my passport. I got inside and there was nobody except me and some employees at the time. Soon, I was invited to come in, expecting that they are going to interview me, asking all possible questions. However, they only collected my documents, checked if everything is in order, and when I asked what am I going to do with all the books and catalogues I was advised to bring for consideration, they just told me that their job is only to collect my paperwork including my passport, take my fingerprints, scan my eyries and send everything to Warsaw where UK visa hub is based. They told me that I will be waiting for 15 working days or 21 days in total, but that period also can’t be guaranteed. It means it can take even longer depending on each case individually. I left the office totally squashed and puzzled.

September 2, 2015

Today is the 10th business day since my UK visa application has been submitted. I just can’t explain how terrible and frustrating the entire process is. One of the most irritant things is that awful feeling that you are unable to get information regarding your visa status. Nobody knows for sure, or nobody wants to tell you. My passport has been literary confiscated since August 19 and still I don’t have any precise information when the entire process will be done and how long it will take for my passport to be delivered back. In the meantime I was invited to come to Berlin for a festival and I already booked my flight for September 12.

This is how an automatic answer by UKVI looks like:

Dear Branko Miliskovic,

Thank you for contacting the UK Visas and Immigration International Enquiry Service. With regard to your query, please be advised, we can only provide general information as well as updates on the status of an application. We act in a non advisory capacity. We understand that you would like to know about the status of your application to come to the UK.

I have tracked the status of your application and found that it is waiting to be assessed by an Entry Clearance Officer. We will contact you once a decision has been made or, if necessary, during the consideration of your application.

Each application is subject to an individual assessment and processing times may vary, hence applicants are requested to be patient and wait for the processing to be completed.

You can check how long you will have to wait for a decision on your visa application in your country (if you applied from outside the UK) by entering your details at the following link: ttps://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-visas-and-immigration/about/about-our-services However, please note that actual processing times may vary depending on a range of factors.

We have service level standards for processing UK visa applications. We will process 90% of non-settlement applications within 3 weeks, 98% within 6 weeks and 100% within 12 weeks of the application (biometric taken) date; and 95% of settlement applications within 12 weeks of the biometric taken date and 100% within 24 weeks of the application (biometric taken) date.

Please note that we define 1 week as 5 working days. For any further details, or should you need to contact us again please refer to our website at https://ukvi-international.faq-help.com/, select appropriate country, click next and then select “E-Mail form” and complete as instructed. We will aim to come back to you within 1 day.

Kind regards,

Scott

UK Visas and Immigration International Enquiry Service

September 5, 2015

There is one thing that makes me very upset. It’s a completely impersonal system, dealing via third part agencies, such as Teleperformance, so if you go to the UK embassy they will tell you that they are not dealing with visas so you have to go through the agency to submit your documents including a passport, pay the fee in advance and hope it will be ready within three weeks time. The problem is that they give you a period of three weeks only as a statistic information but that also DOESN’T mean that your documents and passport will be returned during that period of time. All means of communication are incredibly obscure and automatically generated, even the calls. You are going to talk with an automat for as long as possible and you will be charged a fortune. I mean, to be completely honest, even if you commit a crime, you are allowed to engage a lawyer and have presumably a fair trial, right? Here, you are not allowed to complain, you can’t talk to anybody except the person working at the entrance of Teleperformance agency and that person knows nothing, or is it just a part of the game. So whatever you are going to ask, you are not going to get any precise and concrete informations. If you ask how long it will take for a passport to be delivered, she/he will tell you, it MAY take about three days. But no, that clearly doesn’t mean it will be there even the forth day. They always say, you will be contacted by your local Teleperformance office.

My passport is out of my hands and I terribly depend on their mercy. It blows my mind! It’s my passport, my only travel document! I might be able to understand that I have to give my passport away if I am already in UK applying to extend my residence permit, but since I am not even there and I am not applying for any settlement or study visa, I DON’T WANT TO BE DETAINED IN MY OWN COUNTRY BY SOME OTHER COUNTRY!

In the last three months I went through a number of very stressful moments. I became very anxious and now I am even facing the approaching moment which may reveal that I won’t be able to travel to Berlin because they won’t be able to return my passport back in time.

It can’t be sure whether the visa will be granted to me or not.

It can’t be sure how long it will take to process my visa request.

It can’t be sure when my passport will be returned.

I am afraid it can’t be even sure if the passport will be returned, at all.

The entire procedure is shameful and humiliating. It’s like a computer game. Several levels and you never know what you may expect when you finish one level. To make the entire situation even more stupid, they have stated that if for any reason one would like to request his/her passport urgently back, it would mean that the entire process will be terminated and application fee will not be refunded. But anyone is encouraged to re-apply at any time. Of course, to pay every time €126,00 or more and to wait endlessly with passport being confiscated.

I really don’t know what to do if I don’t get my passport before Saturday…

September 8, 2015

Today, surprisingly enough, I received an e-mail stating that my visa request has been accessed giving no information whether I have been rejected or granted.

Reference: GWFXXXXXXX

Dear MILISKOVIC BRANKO,

UK Visas & Immigration has now assessed your UK visa application and made a decision. Your documents and the decision will be sent back to the either the UK Visa Application Centre where you applied, where we will contact you by e-mail over the next few days to collect them, or if you are using the courier return service, will be sent directly back to the address you provided.

Please note that TLScontact does not know the outcome of the assessment and has played no role in the decision-making process.

Kind regards,

TLScontact

UK Visas & Immigration

September 9, 2015

Today I received another e-mail from UKVI stating:

Dear MILISKOVIC BRANKO,

Your passport and any returned supporting documentation have now arrived back at the TLScontact UK.

Visa Application Centre.

Collection in Person

I immediately went there to collect my passport as if it was the most important thing in my entire life and it was sealed in a plastic DHL bag. They asked me to sign paper that I have collected my document and they didn’t say anything else. I got out, took my keys, ripped off a plastic bag and opened my passport.

UK visa sticker was finally in my passport !

August 19, 2020

Post Scriptum: Going through this administrative diary, five years later, made me realise how much I was worried about some completely ridiculous details. However, this harsh experience eventually gave me a courage to apply for other visas, such as Canadian and US.

__________________________________________________________

Branko Milisković (b.1982, Belgrade, Serbia), Serbian performance artist, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade; graduated BFA from Royal Academy of Art, The Hague and MFA from Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg. His works have been shown at prestigious performance festivals, theatres, galleries, museums and residences in Italy, France, Serbia, Poland, Israel, Croatia, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Russia, Bulgaria, UK, Canada and USA.

__________________________________________________________

ENTRY CLEARANCE by Branko Milisković is a contribution by invitation, to Tanja Ostojić’s Misplaced Women? project.

Edited (2015/2020) and first published by: Tanja Ostojić at the Misplaced Women? Project blog, August 30, 2020.

Photos: Branko Milisković, Blazej Marczak and Amy Bryzgel

Please see directly related — Misplaced Man? Performance in Aberdeen Airport – Contribution by Amy Bryzgel to the Misplaced Women? project, October 29, 2015.

__________________________________________________________

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#COVID19, #Poetry, Cologne, concretepoem, corona, illness, isolation, love, LoveinTheTimeOfCorona, Márquez, misplacement, olderage, PaulCelan, TanyaUry, time

love in the time of corona

In Cologne, Home, Stories on June 6, 2020 at 2:20 pm

Gabriel said

The words I am about to express:
They now have their own crowned goddess.⁽²⁾

naked soft long wheat germ tone limbs crawling over sun white bed clothes brilliant light earnestly she came over me no trace her radiance left something she must yet be under layers reverberation envisionment I’d failed to recall will have scraped deeply into body marked inside and over to find this former combined cell life replication what instinct brought me to brought her me limpid to my feet creeping on like anaesthesia energised to the centre when I why had let the juice seep out narkotisierend oder belebend beliebig oder geliebt

Hélène said

Give birth to yourself! How I’d love to! No body here for me to live in. If you are outside of the body where the blood flows, where the heart is struggling in the grasp of clutching hands, how do you get back to yourself? And all that was left of me was skin and bones. Fingers clutching at the heart as if they were clutching the breast, the wheel, the arms of your lover. Give birth to me! Pick up the pieces! Stick me together with your glue.⁽³⁾

last night awake weak nearly all night bowel cramp exhausted not as bad as spell weeks before spell curse spell words peeled to essence speed translated hurtling hurt to the absence in between when breathing without sleeping cramps stamping a clamp around standing under can’t think around about or in the gaps

rare routine repeat in day moment live no pain the feeding self cleaning regulate breath intensiveness no motion clean with reason re memorise only the moment no ail till next time inhale failn’t baled out pale indoors in rooms surround the old run of saving round the sofa and books read or embleming wood and glass shelves brought over from England ova shrunk should remove bed cover patch worked patches coming apart the quilt chloroquine the TV says will ease the disease don’t have yet will it will away the maybe words the man in the no use uses to excuse his dislocated elocution swirls of dust still from winter under table turquoise green colour from the hairy blanket on the pulled-out couch stained ripped quickly from over-use

plant life company decades dance spot in earth wear behind doors and on the balcony my share air and bird virtue half out of ear distance measure in every bit precious motion water and seed exchange cry corona like killer on insight crone’s disease monotone introspection

detritus film unmoving debasing long before clock down inside dragging dust bag heavy wrist ache alert windows keening their smear abandoned day sleep chimera quietly hallucinating why fear china removing face no death mask nothing beneath but pale skin effacement yet self-love preserve holding me in place like a sandbag masking wonder

Gabriel said

She dreamed that she was seeing Florentino Ariza again, and that he took off the face that she had always seen on him because in fact it was a mask, but his real face was identical to the false one.⁽⁴⁾

misplaced former maker me isolation space long before covid avoid by ill will intimates and culture cliques cast beyond id need light ID others schicksäl⁽⁵⁾ displaced caste away me unfit no help no desire social accept distance leaving idio soliloquy strip back narrow lands no ire now nil by mind forgotten wiled life refusing malaise-ism real

effusion balcony comfort flutter wings gesture stroking ear bone sparrow spatz namesake pecking at the dish ceramic clap clap rhythmic breaking up flap jack baked in march raisins and cashew nuts a cached symposium retrieving hard facts steeped in sugar fat oat and maple syrup vibrato warbler pleasure über den tellerrand blicken

behind the curtain curtail the disbelief believe not in the structure you block built for herself or was it given killed for the sake of renewal no traces over the edge prolonged alone time age-old before corona covert when shelves of books and works and pictures moving transported 5 years ages no more gathering parting departed post distance propensity dispose sore concentration lapse where was I heading friends ended time intended no play and away a way that was an active now ineluctably unthink

Russell said

I stil aint qwite said how it wer. Not like a diffrent country. It wer mor like I wer behynt the back clof in a show. Thats how it wer. Thru the clof I cud see the other figgers moving I cud see the peopl watching only no 1 cud see me. If I wer a figger in a show what hand wer moving me then? I cudnt be bothert to think on that right then. Theres all ways some thingwl be moving you if it aint 1 thing its a nother you cant help that.⁽⁶⁾

let the mask of room scenery of one’s own fall self-sealed lone like immurement joint pain relief safe coven inside insidious too old to walk socially near distorted by your distance hazy memory like dirty windows left for dead before time lines taking different roads didn’t believe the covid void on air masked in aerated knows in separate the wall barrier no photo no imagined image hanging about am I an anti a gone a deep night out of nothing comes some where libidinal in the abyss miss coming from know where absence and cramp puke cramp puke and affluent effluence spurting running crap diluvial evaluations excremental utteringly vile bile episode stop breathe breath between wretched retching bile galling gaining breath breathe stupor stupid gone going solace waking in affluence alone one no one mediation inhale to hale no inner life food abyss body abscess excess puking pus swellings in awkward places own the multiple clit cunt effrontery dethroning the crowning sedentary sediments settling sitting in influence shit gold alchemy rise to risk the hospitable shift to shift the fluid ancient danaé aching so solitaire insolence

Hélène said

I wanted to run away. Before, there was a way out. No eyes. No doubt. With hesitation. I had made up my mind. Pretend you were at the door; the door opens, you step forward, you are saved! – that’s obvious – and you can’t go through. What’s stopping you? Isn’t there a door? Haven’t you got legs? Aren’t you awake? Didn’t you make the decision? Exactly. I must get out of that door. It’s a matter of life and death. I lift one foot, put out my arm, only to find that I am beside myself once again. Failed! You are doing it wrong. It’s a question of orientation. I go back. The door is there. You think. You measure yourself. It is not impossible. Physically, and from the human point of view it is necessary.⁽⁷⁾

verfall falle gefallen from the dead raise to an I con seclusion hermetic prisoner of crutch auto immune tedium beyond murals covid liv id fear of fury a free sun day next out door grill smell weltering dead weight under pane no assist what has become of the nonentity beast I suppose crohn not corona? kron und gedächtnis⁽⁸⁾ the choler solitude colognial mohn memory poppy burn with propensity to forget congenial grief mildernd the hand that reached to ne me touche pas time in motion feeling words like K and Jesenská entranced when entrenched you send unbended message electronic intellect escaping in the cloud around your site in why land quiet unrequited not quite

Gabriel said

But when he began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhea and green vomit, he became disoriented and suffered from sudden fainting spells, and his mother was terrified because his condition did not resemble the turmoil of love so much as the devastation of cholera.⁽⁹⁾

riteing I am receptive to exchange fluidity e shuttling cocked and return fired a generated parallelism excess collecting beyond the corners of frame sharing delayed enthusiasm firming the con of reconnoitre aligned in unbound electro light liquid sheaves melting captured initials oh and ah body dis mesmerise arise back forth no score pendulum pendeln from wired to land

embroider the front of your lobe function h ear the tiara diadem half crown umbrella of head with sound hieroglyph safe in letter survival not yet lately in vital vials though untouched inviolate moving aleph bet etiquette

etikett für unfehlbare lebensquantität satz ersatz gestreichelt durch unausgeprochenen speichel platz gespeichert für die rundungen der wörter verlesen durch den virus nicht verhaftet an den rand der krankheit noch nicht erkannt

Paul said

Cologne, Am Hof
Heart-time
The dreamt ones stand for
The midnight numeral

Some things spoke in the silence, some things were silent,
Some things went their way
Banished and Lost
were at home

You cathedrals,
You cathedrals unseen,
you waters unlistened to
you clocks deep in us.⁽¹⁰⁾

dreamed separate by lateness because Franz and the dear one’s hand-written letters only hers in flamed type face twin beds joined at the lip emit words vomit wo mit half heart half dead poppy tears image Inge burning for Paul waiting for eau god they were young you jew oui jah veh word direction embodied dressed in internment sentences weeping letters

hermesaid

light caught

high thin

stream web

filament

free-flying

uncoiled

jolt in

wind line

spun

no catch

water short

in february

on the bone

dry island

at the

portico

entrance a

same dust

tripwire

shine

between

post

pillars

garotte

for low

intruders

skin at

inner elbow

lover’s

trap was

silk to

touch now

desiccate

pretty

folding

crushed

cotton

or miyake

pleats a

lone goal ⁽¹¹⁾

timed travel since so wrong long unconstructed cycles becoming lines no check progress the being here denial registration dimension meaning uncontrolled when was it no more light-footed music the world breathing a staged clock away writing returning not saying saying keeping alive carrier pigeoning speaking in myth mouthing non-exemplary repeating repetition of soundless echo electric fencing keeping good faith jeux avec frontières

Russell said

Nor I wernt dreaming nor I hadnt ben smoaking I wernt acturely seeing Eusas head it wer jus there for me I cant say plainer nor that. Which it wunt stop getting bigger I cud smel the wood and the paint of it and the finger hoal so big it were over all of us as big as the roof. Such a blackness. Not jus over us and all roun it wer coming up inside me as wel. Not jus wood and paint I smelt the blood and boan the redness in the black. The thot come to me: EUSAS HEAD IS DREAMING US.⁽¹²⁾

take the time wave sweeping generation some tumbled in the bubbling rush on forget shore moved till next wave trippled and left you suspicious objection on shore scene by those still part landed but kindness of neighbour no longer strange assists sit in car from hospitable bringing to move the love thy self her and me the breath light sound the tickling electric harp at your meditative centre and 10 hazel seedlings growing from nutshells from the year before last clay pot balcony tryst each week strong appearing sapling plus what pistachio plant found thrown or sparrow dropped tree today in May a cherry stone like slow knowing of the plush blackbird fledged thick feathers brown speckle puffed resting among green horse chestnut leaves raised in England 30 years ago the open cage drama species disarray

how and ever now then unfolding emerging growths in colonised time association wager risk institution emergency expectation patience for sedierung sedition room kilt time sit in midday moon full seduction close enough to smell sad breath he crossed the demaskation line inpatient grab at half gone breast removing mask to osculate ich bin berührt betrayal kiss you too the dram of grazing voice breath neck tickle uncalled for ache impossible to uncanny react ever the body knowledge reminder even in evolved age a risible bait cologne colon garment for easy abscess preps for semi see the inside growths ripe infirm wrench ulceration information confirmed no commitment sedate sated irresistible for double up pain culpability refrain semi-conscious operators espied half heard conversationing until it’s time to go which home to many-walled stalling to remain strained in reputation and the theatre interval ended

reading write in lap repeat the haze of days interior

_________________________________________________________

Footnotes:

love in the time of corona, concrete poem, Tanya Ury, 31.03.2020, play on the book title “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel García Márquez
Introductory quotation Leandro Díaz, “Love in the Time of Cholera”, Gabriel García Márquez, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman, 1985, Penguin Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-141-18920-8
P. 19, Angst, Hélène Cixous, 1977, translated from French by Jo Levy. John Calder Riverrun Press 1985 ISBN 0 7145 3905 8
P 115, ibid 2
Word play on ‘Schicksal’ German for fate “Schäl Sick (Rhenish for „suspicious/wrong side“), in Cologne rarely written as Schälsick, is still today in the Rhineland a common expression for, from the viewpoint of the other, that is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ side of the Rhine, Wikipedia.org Translation from German Tanya Ury
P. 173, Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban, 1980, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002 ISBN 978 1 4088 3224 0
P. 23, ibid 3
Paul Celan dedicated poems, such as Corona in his volume of poetry Mohn und Gedächtnis (Poppy and Memory) to Ingeborg Bachmann; kron here, meaning crown/corona, being a wordplay on Mohn.
P 71, ibid 2
Köln, Am Hof, Paul Celan poem, 1957. Cologne, Am Hof, in Paul Celan’s letter to Ingeborg Bachmann, 20^th October 1957, p.92, Ingeborg Bachmann Paul Celan Correspondence; and see also Celan’s letter of 31 October-1 November 1957 “Is ‘Köln, Am Hof’ not a beautiful poem? Höllerer, whom I recently gave it to print in Akzente (was I allowed to?), called it one of my most beautiful ones. Through you, Ingeborg, through you. Would it ever have happened if you had not spoken of the ‘dreamt ones’? A single word from you-and I can live. And to think that I now have your voice in my ear again!” P 103, Ingeborg Bachmann Paul Celan Correspondence, translated from German by Wieland Hoban, Seagull Books 2010 ISBN 978-0857426420
pleats, poem by Tanya Ury, written in Deià, Mallorca, 4.2.2020
P. 61 Ibid 5

_________________________________________________________

love in the time of corona by Tanya Ury is a contribution by invitation, to Tanja Ostojić’s Misplaced Women? project. This poetic narrative, including poetry – being about isolation, but also feelings of misplacement because of age and illness even before the time of corona – incorporates quotations from Gabriel García Márquez, Hélène Cixous, Russell Hoban and Paul Celan. First published by: Tanja Ostojić at the Misplaced Women? Project blog, June 6, 2020.

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Tanya Ury (1951* London) is an artist, activist and author. Since 1993 she has lived in Cologne, which is where many of her family members, including German-Jewish authors, came from. Her video, photographic and performance output deal with Jewish history in general, frequently with a more specific focus on her own Jewish familial provenance. Other themes cover such controversial matters as the Shoah, racism, sexuality and pornography.

1988 BA HONS in Fine Art, Exeter College of Art and Design (GB)

1990 Masters in Fine Art, Distinction, Reading University (GB)

2014-2018 Jury member for the Hans and Lea Grundig Prize, with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Berlin (D)

Tanya Ury’s Homepage

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Please see Tanya Ury’s performance contribution to the Misplaced Women? project, Fury, October 3, 2009

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#precarity, exposure, homeless, housing, Misplaced Women?, photostory, visibility

Our Lady of Auguststraße

In Berlin, Homes, Photos, Signs, Stories on May 1, 2020 at 5:13 pm

Our Lady of Auguststraße: A Misplaced Women? May Day 2020 Photo-Story from Berlin

Documented and first published by Tanja Ostojić on the Misplaced Women? Blog, May 1, 2020

___________________________________________________________________________

Please visit as well archive of earlier contributions and posts from Berlin, from workshops, individual and group performances: 2009-2019:

Contribution by Nati Canto

Contribution by Rhea Ramjohn

Contribution by Mad Kate

Mapping around Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz

Contribution by Katja Vaghi

Contribution by LADY GABY

Contribution by: Susan Merrick

Contribution by Hoang Tran Hieu Hanh

Contribution by Jiachen Xu and Evdoxia Stafylaraki

Contribution by Ola Kozioł

Contribution by Татьяна Bogacheva

Contribution by: Luciana Damiani

Contribution by Tanja Ostojić: Berlin, TXL Airport

and Valentina Medda: Misplaced Women?, Performa New York, 2009. Simultanious delegated perfromance with the one by Tanja Ostojic, at Berlin TXL airport.

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#Coronavirus, #COVID19, #lockdown, #Misplaced, #misplacedwomen, #pandemic, #quarantine, #racialdiscrimination, #racism, #Redemption, #Wuhan, photostory, Wuhan

Misplaced Self in the Misplaced City

In Homes, Photos, Stories, Wuhan on April 5, 2020 at 7:47 pm

Tan Tan is performance and video artist of younger generation who went to visit her parents in Wuhan early this year and got accidentally under the total lockdown as of January 23, due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Before she is going to be hopefully finally released after two-and-half-moths, on April 8, 2020, she gives us an inside into her Diary under Wuhan Lockdown, shares with us six of the predominant feelings she lived those days, and some of the daily photos from the window of her parents home. Panic. Anxiety. Anger. Sadness. Depression. Redemption.

(Tanja Ostojić)

From Tan Tan’s online diary: View to the *Central South Hospital of Wuhan University* from Tan Tan’s home during the total lockdown in Wuhan. Photo / Copyright: Tan Tan, 2020

Misplaced Self in the Misplaced City

By Tan Tan

April 2, 2020.

I am in Wuhan, central China, where I was born and raised. This was not a famous city for most of people around the world, as it is one of the second-tier Chinese cities (recently upgraded to ‘the new first-tire’), not like Beijing, Shanghai, which are of the traditional first-tier mage cities. But from the mid-January, Wuhan was globally exposed, accidentally, due to a newly discovered virus that invaded this city, and threatened millions of human lives with mind blowing speed. Right now, this virus, already known as Coronavirus (COVID-19), has become a crazy international pandemic. When I first heard the shocking news of the lockdown of Wuhan, I did not imagine that the whole world can be trapped today. Everyone is living a precarious life despite nationalities, identities, positions, and classes.

Until today, it is still not scientifically proven if Wuhan was the place of origin for the virus, yet due to the broadcasting of the international mass media, many people prefer to believe that. Thus, a ‘misplaced’ accusation has been brought to this city, turned it into a ‘place of the virus.’ As we know, every stereotype, prejudice, racial discrimination among human beings could last for centuries, so I don’t know for how long Wuhan needs to carry this ‘reputation’.

Since the beginning of the lockdown on January 23, every day before midnight, I posted a short diary on the ‘WeChat friends circle’ (a popular mobile-based social networking platform in China) with a photo. The composition is a framed view of each day from the same window at my home. In the picture, the building complex across the lake is Central South Hospital of Wuhan University, which is one of the most prestigious hospitals treating the Coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan. I decided to wrap this daily log on March 28, because from that day on, the people from outside have been permitted to enter Wuhan conditionally. After 66-day-long total lockdown, Wuhan finally has started to open its border gradually, and the lockdown will be totally withdrawn on April 8, according to official announcement. At this moment, I would like to share my personal experience during the hard times, by extracting six principal emotions out of my diary, as a potential reference to some of you who are still struggling with the quarantine.

Panic. I guess everyone in the world had more or less the same panic when we realised that COVID-19 is much more contagious than SARS, MERS, or any other known infectious disease in human history, and worldwide experts have no idea of the cure for this disease. In other words, it seems that this disease could lead us to the end of the world. But in the first half month of the lockdown in Wuhan, the panic was even tougher, because before the disease spread rapidly to other cities, we were rather alone to face this unknown catastrophe. Approximately, shortly after January 21, my cellphone became a container of the hell, as every hour, some scary news or rumour popped up on its screen, including the hospitals begging for support, the doctors and nurses crying, and the increasing number of patients that had no way to be saved. From January 24 to 31, I spent the worst Chinese New Year I could remember, with panic rising day by day.

Anxiety. Since the medical supplies such as masks and protective clothing were in a massive lack during the first month, anxiety was a prevailing and dominating mood shared by all the people in Wuhan. As an artist, I felt so useless when confronting this kind of crisis, which was an even worse feeling than panic. Fortunately, an exit from such negative state opened its door for me. From January 26 on, I joined a volunteer’s team Lumo Road Rescue Group to do some online work for donating the supplies to the hospitals. Lumo Road is the landmark of live-houses and hippy culture in Wuhan and this collective was mainly composed of rock fans, artists, musicians, university students, and other night life grassroots. I am one of them in a way. Surprisingly, these party-goers did a very serious and effective teamwork, connecting the donors and the ones in need, and have arranged for thousands of products per day to be sent to the hospitals, one-week-long. Perhaps our biggest advantage is that we are all the type of people that want to skip the bureaucratic (sometimes ridiculous) administration, and directly put the things in hands of those in need. Nevertheless, after one week, I found that my anxiety was not decreasing, but quite in contrary, it was growing. It is because I realised that even if I gave up sleep, I could not fill up the gap between the supply and the demand, as always more and more patients and hospitals cried out for help. Like many other voluntary communities, Lumo Road Rescue Group decided to cease our work after this busy week, because we could not solve this endless anxiety, and several members of the group got infected while delivering the supplies.

Anger. Anger comes and goes in my diary. I think there are different reasons for being furious in every distinct nation under such epidemic situation. In China, especially in Wuhan, in the beginning, I was so angry about our political system that was always trying to cover the bad news, which caused about ten days delay in dealing with this virus. Li Wenliang, as one of the ‘whistleblowers’ to warn people of the suspicious virus, became internationally acclaimed as a Chinese hero oppressed by the ‘Big Brother,’ and killed by Coronavirus. After being a volunteer, I became even angrier day by day over many inefficient and inhuman measures from certain authorities, like the Chinese Committee of the Red Cross, which controlled the biggest storage of the supplies but was not competent for distributing them timely. This feeling was also provoked by various discrimination present among the people. Some of international media (outside China) insists on the stigma of ‘Wuhan Pneumonia’ although it has got the scientific name (COVID-19) already in January; there are some Westerners who like to shout at Chinese people (or even Asian looking people) on the street as ‘Coronavirus’; inside China, people from Wuhan and Hubei (the province of Wuhan) are discriminated by those from other areas; even in my own building, my neighbours didn’t allow a tenement to live here anymore when he came back in Wuhan from another city, for he might be a threat to bring the virus to this ‘zero infected building’…

Sadness. Sadness never leaves. Besides Wuhan people, this mood is among people all over the world. Because we all know that in addition to the official data of death, there are much more ‘grey areas’ in the statistics. In Wuhan, except say that there are 2.567 casualties* on the list so far, but we don’t know how many people have left the world before the two new hospitals and the mobile cabin hospitals were built. What’s more, how many people were killed by other diseases in the situation of no access to ordinary treatment in the hospitals? How many people became homeless because of the sudden lockdown? How many people lost their jobs or are facing bankruptcy? Last but not least, how many pets have been abandoned and killed by vicious rumours and cold hearts?

Depression. All the emotions listed above often drove me into a deep depression during those days. I guess many of you who are reading this text might feel the same. Because we are all vulnerable, useless, uninformed/over-informed, and under a quarantine with an unpredictable end. We are all isolated and ‘misplaced’ in an incredible situation. Personally, I have coincidentally stayed with my parents for more than two months under the same roof, without seeing anyone else. This is rather a big challenge than a happy family reunion to me, as the generational gaps in China are specially huge. My parents and I have opposite life styles, and opposite opinions on values, and politics most of the time. On the other hand, as an artist engaged in performance art and other edge-cutting art forms, I don’t want to shock my parents with my ‘crazy’ behaviours at their home. Thus, I was not able to do many of my artistic actions normally and had to disguise myself as their ‘good girl.’ In this sense, I have lost my integrity, my real world and space, and have been living with a ‘misplaced self.’

Redemption. Hopefully, in parallel with all these negative emotions, there is also a force that supports each of us, that is, the rescue and self-rescue. Other than joining the volunteers to serve the hospitals, many people chose to implement immaterial redemption. Artistically, there are countless online exhibitions and live music performances; spiritually, there are various psychological assistance and religious group blessings. I myself have participated in two exhibitions and three publications linked with the epidemic situation. Moreover, I submitted an art project to an institution on the theme of animal protection, because this human crisis makes me feel more the call of rebalancing the energies of the earth, and even the entire universe. In ancient times, humans used to respect all plants and animals, and followed the steps of God and nature. Today, because of ‘capitalism,’ ‘overconsumption,’ and the ‘society of spectacle,’ we become more and more reckless to the natural principles. As an evident result, the world becomes as it was in Revelation of the Bible overnight. At this moment, not only Wuhan and China, this wild animal-derived virus has conquered the anthropocentrism terrain; meanwhile, locust plagues, mountain fires, hurricanes, and floods are also emerging one after another in every corner of the world. Therefore, I think it is time for us to go back to the sources of our world, then reshape the reciprocity between humans and animals and what humans are doing to the earth. This is more fundamental salvation than any vaccine. May it be written on the plan of the redemption from the Universe.

Eventually, after so many traumas, with the strong spirit and contribution by ordinary Chinese people, and the zigzag endeavours from the position of power (governament), Wuhan has survived this war. There are many more issues that should be addressed in order to tell the whole story of this ‘misplaced’ city, but I could only write down a diary from a personal view. On the April 8, we will be hopefully finally ‘freed’ from the lockdown as announced, but the obstacles for true mobility must still stay, so when will my days of ‘misplaced self’ come to an end? When I look at the world and the universe, I feel as I am still a prisoner, as I don’t know where else I can go and how to board on Noah’s Ark…

At the end, I would like to make a quote from my diary, ‘This troubled world would no longer allow us to wait, we shall start the process of healing.’

Tan Tan: A Diary under Wuhan Lockdown, video, 2020.

Tan Tan is an intermedia artist who currently lives and works in China and Belgium. Her oeuvre covers experimental film/video art, performance/theater, music/sound art, installation, and cyber art.She had several solo exhibitions and took part in numerous art events internationally, such as 60th Berlinale, 2010, International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2011 (IFFR), Images Festival, 2012 (Canada), 43rd Tampere Film Festival, 2013 (Finland), Venize Biennale, 2015 and 2017, Asian Art Top Show, 2010 (China), 1st ASEAN Biennial, 2013 (China), Wuzhen Theatre Festival, 2016 (China), Creative China Festival at La Mama Experimental theater, 2019 (The USA)

*(Editorial comment) As of april 17, 2020 the offical number of casualties in Wuhan rised for about 50%, from 2.567 to almost 3.900.

This is a contribution by invitation, to Tanja Ostojić’s Misplaced Women? project. Edited and first published by: Tanja Ostojić at the Misplaced Women? Project blog, April 5, 2020.

Please see Tan Tan’s March 8, 2018 performance contribution to the Misplaced Women? project

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Austria, busstop, Romania, Story, Telciu, Vienna, VisibilityOfMigrantWomen

Alexandra Tatar’s Story

In Bus-stations, Stories, Telciu on May 22, 2019 at 4:57 pm

I wish the Misplaced Women? Workshop in Telciu (Transylvania, Romania) lasted longer. I wish it would have lasted at least two days longer…

“Misplaced Women?” Workshop led by Tanja Ostojić in the frame of Telciu Summer School, Romania, 2018. Photo: Manuela Boatcă

As I was thinking along these lines it made me realise that what I was actually looking for was not more hours to collectively embracement of the topic of displacement, but I was actually rather longing to take part in all the other conversations, the previous Misplaced project workshops as well as the ones to come… The conversations related to getting people started and acknowledging their experiences — this is precisely where the strength of the Misplaced Women? project lays for me. Needless to say, I found many of those conversations, performances and individual contributions to the Projects online platform, which I perceive as an established community, where one can always return to, revisit and share with. Ever since I left Telciu, I carried on the conversations on displacement within myself, re-thinking my previous migration experiences and artistic work — continuing basically the discussions started at the workshop till today. 😊

Tanja Ostojic’s workshop in the frame of Telciu Summer School happened on August 15, 2018. That is an ultra-religious holiday in Romania. (You can get a glimpse of it here). Thinking about the context of Romania — one of the most religious EU member states — made me think about the religious discourse in relation to women’s body as another type of displacement. The elderly women — who interfered with our workshop — coming back to Telciu with the regional evening train was actually returning from the monastery where women crawl on their knees and elbows nine times around the church for the Holy Mary holiday. They say they do that for the sake of forgiveness and having one wish come true. Weather god is more merciful than the EU is debatable, but the chances of getting one wish come true are certainly higher.

I’ve been exposed to violence of religious believes upon women body at the course of my first migration experience to Vienna. Coming here to study in 2011, at first I lived with two other Romanian women whom I got to know through migrant friend’s network, and they were able to offer me a room in their apartment. We were basically three independent migrant women living together, at least I thought so. Apparently, I happened to be ‘too independent’, meaning that going out at night and meeting ‘foreign’ men (although: ‘does he have a car?’ they would ask) was too much liberty in the eyes of god, and I was told I have to move out one evening, after only two weeks of living together, on the basis of my ‘lifestyle’, after going out twice. I left the same evening, putting all my belongings in two big garbage bags, and calling the ‘guy which owns a car’. Sometimes I wonder how many trash bags would I need in order to put in all my belongings now…

Besides being a violent experience, it is also a sort of a privilege, I encountered through my migration, that I’m only now able to contextualise better. Being a ‘girl’ from the East in Vienna, brings with itself certain ‘readings’ of oneself… Like for example when I got the ‘residence’ permit based on a written paper which stated that I get a small financial support from my family each month for my studies (‘small’ in Austria, but being a huge sum in Romania; as a matter of fact my family could not afford to cover any of that), the authorities perceived me the same way the bank officers did. The one who issued me a credit card as I looked like a ‘Girl from the East meets men from the West’ story; although my finances would not entitle me for one. She just told me to ‘make sure’ the money is on my account on the date they book it (all that was missing was a wink). Of course, I needed a credit card, becoming a part in the cycle of ‘permanent debt’ that maintaining of a certain way of visibility requires. It was actually easier to get a credit card then a health insurance, as I actually needed to pay for the latter, and this was not possible in the first years of my stay.

The first travels between Austria and Romania, after moving here, I did by bus. The travel was 10-11 hour, all night long. One had to change a bus at midnight in Budapest. And the bus going to Romania would actually stop behind the bus station, and one was supposed to wait for the bus (which would hopefully come) on a dark street corner. I remember one time right there, a young foreign student was waiting for another bus which was to bring his girlfriend from Poland to Budapest and was getting pretty anxious as the bus was late. He asked if he could use my phone to call his girlfriend. And although I understood his concerns, I was unable to borrow my phone, as I was travelling without any money (what my Austrian boyfriend never understood, as he could not grasp the concept of not having money after paying for a ticket), and the little credit I had on the phone was my only safe net in case something went wrong. I have often thought about those precarious times, and now after the workshop and seeing the Misplaced project performances at bus stops, and the solidarity between migrants, I thought of weather I was a selfish person, deciding I was not being able to help, prioritising myself that time. Both buses (the one bringing his girlfriend and the one taking me to Romania) arrived shortly after, but the question stayed open with me until this day.

Theas are my thoughts after the workshop, that I am very grateful to have taken part in, and it will definitely inform my thinking and artistic practice to come. I think marking displacement experiences by performing them, writing about them, telling about them, let us not forget nor ignore, and more importantly enable us to understand, acknowledge and act in solidarity.

Text by Alexandra Tatar

Edited and first published by Tanja Ostojic 2018/19 on the Misplaced Women? blog

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Alexandra Tatar is an artist born in Romania, currently living in Vienna. She is a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, on the topic of post-soviet subjectivities. She received MA in Visual Arts from the same faculty in 2016 with MA thesis: The [physical] [impossibility] of [women] in the [world] of [someone] [living] with Ashley Hans Scheirl. In her art practice she explores communicational codes and conventions of mainstream culture and their influence on the construction of imagery and identities.

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The “Misplaced Women?” Workshop led by Tanja Ostojić took place on August 15, 2018, in the frame of Telciu Summer School, in Telciu, Romania. Workshop participants included: Manuela Boatcă, Laura Covaci, Iulia Dinescu, Veronica Enusca, Iulia Ilie, Adina Marinescu, Alina Marincea, Simion Septimiu Mihai, Alise Monica Marinescu, Bogdan Popa, Veda Popovici, Alexandra Tatar.

Please visit this link to experience More about the Telciu itinerary of the workshop:

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#doinggender, #genderqueer, #intersectional, #KunstinÖffentlichenRaumTirol, #LiFu, #misplacedwomen, #nonbinary, #Transphobie, Austria, Innsbruck, Tirol, Tyriol

Doing Gender Contribution by Li Fu

In Innsbruck, Performances, Stories, Workshops on February 18, 2019 at 10:44 am

Doing Gender 8102.50.3*

60 min Performance von Li Fu

Universität Innsbruck

Beschreibung und konzeptionelle Einbettung

„’Doing gender’ zielt darauf ab, Geschlecht bzw. Geschlechterzugehörigkeit nicht als Eigenschaft oder Merkmal von Individuen zu betrachten, sondern jene sozialen Prozesse in den Blick zu nehmen, in denen ‘Geschlecht’ als sozial folgenreiche Unterscheidung hervorgebracht und reproduziert wird.“(*1)

Der Körper wird exponiert und in verschiedenen Schritten wird versucht die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in einzelnen Bausteinen zu zerlegen wie auch wieder herzustellen und diese somit nachvollziehbar zu machen. Da die Herstellung von Geschlecht „eine gebündelte Vielfalt sozial gesteuerter Tätigkeiten auf der Ebene der Wahrnehmung, der Interaktion und der Alltagspolitik [umfasst], welche bestimmte Handlungen mit der Bedeutung versehen, Ausdruck weiblicher oder männlicher ‘Natur’ zu sein“ (*2), betritt die Person in einem ersten Schritt in einem Poncho den Raum. Der Schnitt des Ponchos hebt keine Körperpartien besonders hervor und versucht somit beim Gegenüber keine gezielte Konstruktion von Geschlecht zu generieren. Daher wird es möglich in einem inneren Prozess zu sehen, welche Kategorien von Geschlecht die Betrachter*innen der Performance dem Subjekt auf dem Laufsteg von vornherein zuschreiben.

Der Campus Innrain bot sich als Ort des Oszillierens zwischen Theorie und Praxis besonders für das Aufzeigen des iterativen Prozesses der Konstruktion-Dekonstruktion-Rekonstruktion-Dekonstruktion an.

Der Raum wurde in zwei Ebenen eingeteilt: dem fiktional privaten hinteren Bereich, der aus einer gläsernen Decke besteht, die Einblick in die Bibliothek gewährt; aus einer Fensterfront, die zum Spiegel umfunktioniert wird; aus Sitzgelegenheiten, die den ‘privaten Bereich’ umrahmen und damit abgrenzen, aber gleichzeitig auch als Interaktionsort mit dem Außen genutzt werden können und dem vorderen öffentlichen Bereich, in welchem das in Anthrazit gehaltene und langgezogene Gitter als Laufsteg umfunktioniert wird.

Li Fu: “Doing Gender 8102.50.3*”, University of Innsbruck, “Misplaced Women?” Project Workshop, Art in Public Space Tyrol, 2018. Photo: Daniel Jarosch. Copyright: Tanja Ostojic

Auf der Schwelle zwischen dem öffentlichen und privaten Bereich wird ein Merkmal (symbolisch dargestellt durch den Nagellack) als schmerzhafter Befreiungsakt von vorgefertigten Kategorien von Geschlecht entfernt. Dabei liegt der Nagellack wie eine zweite Haut auf dem Körper und lässt sich nur mühsam und in einem sich ständig wiederholenden Akt und in Wechselwirkung mit einem dem Körper externen Hilfsmittel (Nagellackentferner) sukzessive entfernen.

Im privaten Bereich werden dann Hilfsmittel aus dem Koffer gezielt benutzt, um ‘Männlichkeit’ herzustellen.

Li Fu: “Doing Gender 8102.50.3*”, University of Innsbruck, “Misplaced Women?” Project Workshop, Kunst in Öffentlichen Raum Tirol, 2018. Photo: Daniel Jarosch. Copyright: Tanja Ostojic

Haltungen werden im Spiegel geübt und gezielte Kleidungsstücke und Accessoires sollen der Konstruktion behilflich sein.

Anhand überspitzt ‘typischer’ Verhaltensweisen (aggressiv – lässiges umstoßen des Mülleimers – Handeln im sozialen Raum) wird ‘Männlichkeit’ performiert, wie auch anhand der Haltung, des Ganges, der Mimik und Gestik, das Tun, das in der sozialen Situation verankert ist und das in der virtuellen oder realen Gegenwart anderer vollzogen wird, von denen wir annehmen, dass sie sich daran orientieren“(*3), die Konstruktionselemente sichtbar werden lässt.

Im privaten Bereich setzt sich nun das Subjekt mit dem eben Hergestellten Schicht für Schicht auseinander und übt sich in ‘männlich betroffener Schweigsamkeit’.

Nun wird an das Subjekt in einer Interaktion ein alternatives Handlungs- und Zuschreibungsangebot von Außen [Performance assistance by Pippa Chase] herangetragen. Dies operiert mit sozial anerkannten Bildern, denen auch eine gewisse Zugehörigkeit und Solidarität innewohnen.

‘Frau’/ Freundin’ macht ‘Frau’/ Freundin’ die Nägel und sucht aus dem Koffer ein ‘passendes’ Kleidungsstück für sie aus.

‘Frau’ rasiert sich die Beine und cremt sich ein. Schicht um Schicht wird der performative Akt vollzogen. Die Konstruktion ‘der Weiblichkeit’ wirkt im Spiegelbild verzerrt.

Die Inszenierung von ‘der Weiblichkeit’.

Im privaten Bereich setzt sich nun das Subjekt mit dem eben Hergestellten Schicht für Schicht auseinander und übt sich im ‘weiblichen Ausbruch’ – lautes Weinen und ‘hysterisches’ Anklagen: (Wer bin ich? [im privaten Raum])

Schicht für Schicht wird ein ‘Dazwischen’ konstruiert und erhebt zum ersten Mal die Stimme im öffentlichen Raum erhoben.

„Es ist nicht ER. Es ist nicht SIE. Es gibt auch ein ‘DAZWISCHEN’. Wer das nicht checken will, soll sich einfach verpissen. Daran stört mich nicht mal die fehlende Empathie, sondern die in so vielen Ländern herrschende Transphobie.“(*4)

Vorbereitungsphase: ca. eine Stunde am Vorabend.

Text: Li Fu

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Fußnoten:

Gildemeister 2004, S. 132
West/Zimmermann 1987, S.14
West/Zimmermann 1987, S.14 zitiert nach Übersetzung in Gildemeister/Wetterer 1992, S. 237 In: Gildemeister 2004, S.132
Auszug aus einem Hip Hop Text von Li Fu
Siehe dazu Weber 2011

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Literaturverzeichnis:

Gildemeister, Regine (2004): Doing Gender. Soziale Praktiken der Geschlechterunterscheidung.

In: Becker, Ruth/Kortendiek, Beate (Hg): Handbuch Frauen und Geschlechterforschung. Theorie, Methoden, Empirie.

VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: Wiesbaden, S. 132-140.

Weber, Max (2011): Wissenschaft als Beruf. Duncker & Humblot: Berlin.

West, Candance/ Zimmerman, Don H. (1987): ‘Doing Gender’ zitiert nach Gildemeister, Regine/ Wetterer, Angelika (1992): Wie Geschlechter gemacht werden. Die soziale Konstruktion von Zweigeschlechtlichkeit und ihre Reifizierung in der Frauenforschung. In: Knapp, Gudrun-Axeli/ Wetterer, Angelika (Hg.): Tradition Brüche. Entwicklung feministischer Theorie. Kore: Freiburg In: Gildemeister, Regine (2004): Doing Gender. Soziale Praktiken der Geschlechterunterscheidung. In: Becker, Ruth/ Kortendiek, Beate (Hg): Handbuch Frauen und Geschlechterforschung. Theorie, Methoden, Empirie. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: Wiesbaden, S. 132-140.

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Zur Person: Einfälle einer* Dilettant*in (*5)

Li Fu interessiert sich für das Politische im Alltäglichen und gesellschaftliche Entwicklungstendenzen der Gegenwart. Besonders die Konstruktion des Alltags und die Betrachtung der Bausteine, anhand welchen Wirklichkeiten konstruiert werden, liegen hierbei im Fokus. In D.I.Y. -Manier wird anhand unterschiedlicher Performances der Versuch unternommen theoretische Konzepte in den Alltag zu überführen.

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Edited and first published by Tanja Ostojic on the “Misplaced Women?” Blog 2018/19

This Performance has been released in the frame of: “Misplaced Women?” Workshop by Tanja Ostojic, May 2018, Art in Public Space Tyrol /Kunst in Öffentlichen Raum Tirol, Austria.

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Please visit as well other contributions and posts from the same workshops:

Review by Tanja Ostojic: Misplaced Women? @ Art-In-Public-Space Tyrol, Innsbruck

Code Contribution by Li Fu

Open Call for participants for the “Misplaced Women?” performance workshop in the public space with Tanja Ostojić, in Innsbruck, May 11-13 2018, with a presentation in Die Bäckerei

Offene Ausschreibung zur Teilnahme an der “Misplaced Women?” Performance-Kunst-Werkstatt im öffentlichen Raum mit Tanja Ostojić vom 11–13 Mai 2018 in Innsbruck mit einer Aufführung in Die Bäckerei

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Art in Public Space, Australia, Berlin, Berlin-Weißensee, displacement, identity, interventions, LADY GABY, misplaced, public space, Romania, women

Misplaced Women? Contribution by LADY GABY in Berlin-Weißensee

In Berlin, Stories, Workshops on December 27, 2018 at 11:31 pm

In the frame of Tanja Ostojić´s Misplaced Women? workshop, January 22–24, 2018, hosted by Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz and Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee, the following performance interventions have been developed and performed for the first time:

On Janaury 23.2018 in and around the neighbourhood of Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin-Weißensee:

LADY GABY, Mad Kate and Tatiana Bogacheva

Mapping around Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz

Were feeling placed within misplacement, creating a range of public space performance interventions:

We went around for 2 hours looking for places and things we felt comfortable with and a longing for, marking them with pink wool and intervening as displaced female characters: statue of liberty, maid, queen and the migrant. Site specific sounds and recorded conversations have been added too as well as a whole array of misplaced found objects.

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Misplaced Women?

Written Contribution by Gaby Bila-Günther aka LADY GABY

My whole life I have felt misplaced and displaced, as I migrated from one continent to another to find a new home and a new nationality. As a child, I grew up in Transylvania, in Romania during the communist regime. As my father defected to Australia in 1980, my mother and I followed him two years later. Thats when my history of misplacement began, first with my fathers defection, as I felt I didn’t belong in that society any longer. My mother who was born in Greece due to the civil war there in the 1950’s was forced as a child to live as a refugee in Romania, being a noncitizen, and I felt like one too, after my father defected and we prepared to follow him. I was kicked out of the pioneers organisation and our phones and home were under surveillance.

Marked Bench — “Misplaced Women?” interventions by LADY GABY, Mad Kate and Tatiana Bogacheva, Berlin Weißensee, 23.1.2018.

As a young teenager in Australia, in the 80s, I felt more misplaced than ever, as most of the people there had no idea where or what Romania was. I felt like I didn’t belong there neither as nobody could find my country of origin on the map. I felt insignificant, invisible, most of my time as a teenager; however I wanted to belong and be noticed.

When I came to Berlin, in 1989 at the time of the Wall falling down, my displacement manifested itself in the fact that I was illegal for three years and couldn’t speak the language either, however as an artist I began to find my feet and work with the theme of misplacement and identity. Berlin, the city where I found MY feet, MY words and made up MY mind about the world around ME.

Since 1994, my work has been about misplacement, identity, gender relations, social decline and domestic mapping. I often perform in spaces where as an artist or as a woman I am not supposed to be: men’s toilets, elevators, laundrettes, public spaces, public transport, etc. Through my performances in those spaces, I belong, I show that I exist and I demand attention and recognition.. I HAVE A VOICE!

During the Misplaced Women? interventions in the frame of the Berlin workshop lead by Tanja Ostojić, I chose to walk around the area of Weißenssee, as I felt misplaced inside the village-like atmosphere of that neighbourhood. However the streets, the houses and that environment gave me a familiar sense, as it reminded me of communist Romania where I GREW UP and reminiscent of the old post Wall East Berlin. So I looked for places I felt were displaced and marked them with a strand of pink wool, and did a whole range of public interventions at those places. Old communist statues, old bike wheels, an old fountain in the middle of a busy round-about, gallery and on a boat sculpture outside the Brotfabrik. During our walk some of us from the workshop including Mad Kate, Sajan Mani and Tatiana Bogacheva recorded sounds that we detected as misplaced on the streets of the neighbourhood such as construction sites on a quiet small street. The whole time I carried a suitcase with me containing misplaced objects for no reason inside, which I opened and displayed during the interventions. I transformed into several misplaced FEMAIL and FEMINIST characters besides myself: The ARTIST, The CLEANING MAID and The STATUE OF LIBERTY, all identities I can relate to as a woman, illegal worker, migrant and a refugee.

“Misplaced Women?” interventions by LADY GABY, Berlin Weißensee, 23.1.2018. Photo: Sajan Mani

with sajan, liberty — “Misplaced Women?” interventions by LADY GABY, Berlin Weißensee, 23.1.2018.

Through those actions of marking misplaced objects, recording of the misplaced sounds, and doing public interventions around sculptures and objects that reminded me of home, gave me a sense of belonging, comfort and familiarity, reminiscing the times and moments in my life when I felt secure and grounded. The places reminded me of my family migration that was carried out along side with the lack of identity and legality of living in a strange land, as well as my transformation from a young woman into a confident present artist.

Participation in the Misplaced Women? workshop really helped me strengthened my public intervention performances and try out new ways of domestic mapping. The interactions with the other participating performers and artists helped me indeed to achieve this as well and push new boundaries regarding performing in public. The walks in the neighbourhood of Berlin-Weißenssee, opened my eyes and inspired new ideas and concepts for the projects. New collaborations where born, for instance I performed with mirrors on the Berlin trains together with 5 other women artists from the project. That intervention, holding mirrors, empowered me and my presence.

Text written by Gaby Bila-Günther

Edited and first published by Tanja Ostojić, 2018 on the Misplaced Women? project blog

Photos of the public interventions and marking of the misplaced objects by Sajan Mani, Mad Kate and Tatiana Bogacheva

This series of interventions by Lady Gaby have been developed and realised in the frame of “Misplaced Women?” workshop by Tanja Ostojić hosted by Kunsthalle Berlin Weißenssee, January 2018.

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About the author:

Gaby Bila-Günther aka LADY GABY, originally from Romania, arrived to Berlin via Melbourne where she would regularly perform in public. She published her spoken-word, poetry, short stories and nonfiction articles online, on CD compilations, in journals, magazines and literature anthologies internationally.

She has performed, curated and showed text based, collages and video works internationally. In 2000 in Melbourne, Australia, she launched her self-published book Validate & Travel on a ‘moving tram’ and in 2002 her own spoken word filled with ambient techno beats debut CD, Off the Main, with music producer ZOG. In 2003 in Berlin together with fellow writer Jessica Falzoi she formed the Poets’ Party while in Melbourne she was part of Urban ART and Flush artist groups. In Melbourne together with her partner Teo Gunther they ran the performance and live music warehouse space, CBI PRODS, where underground techno parties, CD launches and various performance art events took place from 1995 till 2002.

For more information please visit:

Spoken word and sounds by various musicians

Spoken word and performance show

Word Bank Radioshow

Spoken word and beats with guest musicians

Lady Gaby’s artist run space