Cordula Schieri, Marios Pavlou, Sophia Köhler, Tanja Hamester, Silvia Gardini, Carolina Cappelli, Nora Byrne
Dirty Care¹ is a transdisciplinary format by international FLINTA* artists that addresses the spectrum of protection. The term ‘Dirty Care’, as coined by Elsa Dorlin, describes a form of care arising from personal experiences of oppression and the consequent need for self-defence. In order to feel safe in society, FLINTA* often has to take up this form of care-work. ‘Dirty care’, therefore, means being nice and caring out of fear of being threatened or hurt. The artists will work with local collaborators to develop a format that deconstructs and reconstructs, (re)appropriates, and rethinks concepts of protection, transforming Lothringer 13 Halle into a space for intervention through sculpture, installation, and performance.
The installation Dirty Care serves as both a display and a stage set. Objects become props for performers and can be activated by visitors. This transdisciplinary merging of artistic practices is supported by performative interventions, workshops, and lecture-walks.
Cordula Schieri and Tanja Hamester combine their individual approaches to research and material in the fountain installation AMIABLE ACCUMULATION, reminiscent of public washhouses and spas. In this Dirty Care Spa, Cordula Schieri presents bronze sculptures surrounded by bubbling water fountains and the gentle scent of soap. Tanja Hamester develops her GESTURE OBJECTS in the form of usable soap sculptures made from imprints of "Story Carriers," objects that tell stories of FLINTA* individuals. Performers and visitors are invited to wash their hands with the soaps, reshaping the imprints.
Marios Pavlou's prints on bath ponchos explore Tarot archetypes. LIQUIDS~WHISPERS~TIDES stimulates thoughts about care rituals for bodies of water and habitats, connecting the mundane with the mystical and the personal with the collective.
NEOPHYT by Nora Byrne engages with awareness of the other as a form of self-defense through foraging invasive plants with dyeing properties. These plants color towels in the installation, and a lecture-walk invites participants to learn about invasive plants along the Isar River and around the Lothringer 13 Halle.
WISH MOPBP is a performance by Carolina Cappelli in collaboration with Michele Petrosino, based on a workshop with a local group of FLINTA* individuals over 50 where the performers activate Dirty Care 's exhibited works. The project examines invisible work, female roles in relation to protection concepts, and the reclamation of fear.
Silvia Gardini addresses corporate compliance systems and dependencies in the art world with the performance REACTIVE COMPLIANCE. She offers confidential consultations, making the reporting of abusive behavior a visible act of resistance.
The lecture-performance CONTAINER LECTURE by Sophia Köhler explores the phenomenon of storage and preservation. From the body to cabinets, bags, and milk cans, she questions the spatial dimensions of accumulation and collections.
BIRDS ON DISPLAY is a workshop by Cordula Schieri. Inspired by black bird stickers designed to prevent birds from colliding with glass, participants create luminous, colorful drawings on glass sheets with window colors.
Curated by Tanja Hamester.
¹ Care work is mostly undertaken by FLINTA* and marginalized groups. "Dirty care“ is a form of negative care work, a strategy of self-defence against the backdrop of experiences of violence. According to Elsa Dorlin, "dirty care" means being "constantly on guard", finding oneself in a state of constant alert and exhaustion. Dirty care providers become experts in relation to the dominant person, the "object roi" (royal object). Through a particularly good knowledge of the threat, dirty care providers can develop strategies to avoid violence: Care, attention and self-sacrificing caring. This gives the dominant person excessive, imperial power. The oppressed person knows the oppressor better than would ever be conceivable the other way round. This form of "fatigue", the energy-sapping attention work, can lead dirty care providers to the brink of complete self-denial, whereas the "object roi" can concentrate entirely on themselves. "They develop knowledge about the dominant, which constitutes an archive of the ways the dominant are phenomenally and ideologically all-powerful." By seeing themselves as "exclusive objects of attention and concern, rulers give themselves meaning, weight and space and thus reproduce the material conditions that ensure the continuation of their rule."
Cordula Schieri, starting from an egalitarian approach, addresses the visibility of FLINTA* in terms of payment, as well as equality in artistic work processes, questions of production and inequality in manufacturing processes. Cordula Schieri studied art history in Halle, graduated as a sculptor from the AdBK Munich and last year completed her Master of Fine Arts at the ZHdK Zurich.
Marios Pavlou is a multidisciplinary artist based in Cyprus. They graduated from the Athens School of Fine Arts in 2015 and completed postgraduate studies at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln in 2020. Their practice involves creating immersive visual outcomes, blending reality and fiction in performance, moving image, and writing to explore themes of identity, sexuality and gender.
Sophia Köhler studied with Stephan Dillemuth at the AdbK Munich, is part of the collective LeBlocccate, and is the artistic director of the project "Der Fahrende Raum" since 2022. Her work consists mainly of drawings, as well as performances and zines. In her lectures, she curates information from various research topics such as the female history of the Internet, obsessions and fandom, idleness, refusal, and slacking.
Tanja Hamester curates the exhibition Dirty Care from her artistic position. Her sculptural work is based on research that draws on strategies of cartography, archiving and critical social practice. Uncovering, deconstructing and reconstructing power structures and the concept of (un)learning are important to her work. In her performative installations, Hamester combines the theory of the imprint and the performativity of the trace. She completed her art studies at the AdBK Munich and earned a master's degree in medieval studies at the LMU Munich.
Silvia Gardini is a feminist visual artist, studying at the AdbK, and Senior Business Lawyer at an international law firm. Her research focuses on abuse of power and gender-based violence in the art context, her paintings on privilege and migration. She has given lectures and consultations at art academies throughout DE, IT and NL on the #metoo-movement in the arts. Board Member of art collective ENGAGEMENT ARTS NL.
Carolina Cappelli is an Italian performer, filmmaker and artistic gymnastic teacher. Her research involves the hybridization between workshops format, writing and performative and cinematographic practices. Strongly related to re-enactment as a primary tool of investigation, she often works between fiction and reality, dealing with the concept of presentation and representation. Her works are context-based, dealing with the breaking of expectations, failure and the need to blur the category of the spectator. At the moment, she’s investigating the construction of the role of women both as characters and spectators in Horror movies. For the exhibition Dirty Care she collaborates with Michele Petrosino, a performance artist based in Bologna. In recent years they have collaborated as performers with artists and collectives such as Bruce Nauman, Nico Vascellari, Societas, Kinkaleri. From 2022 they collaborate on interdisciplinary projects curating the creative process with a focus on participatory and workshop activities. In 2023 STILL presents at Fumi della Fornace together with Gaetano Palermo and is subsequently awarded the CosmoGiani prize.
Nora Byrne is a multidisciplinary artist working between the U.S. and Turkey with an MA in Museum & Gallery Practice from UCL Qatar and in Visual Art from Sabancı University. They use installation, research, drawing, painting and collage to create work aimed at exploring relationships between people, places, and plants, focused on urban ecologies.
