NO SUBJECT
- A CONVERSATION WITH WORKING PEOPLE

Region Leipzig/Halle, Shrinking Cities, GfzK Leipzig, 2005/06

In collaboration with three social organizations: Arbeiterwohlfahrt - AWO Leuna, Bildungsvereinigung ARBEITu. LEBEN e.V. Schkopau, Soziales Dienstleistungszentrum Merseburg, and with the participation of approx. 30 individuals 

No Subject was an archive of statements and artifacts (texts, video and audio documents, drawings, photos, objects) that reflected experiences of three groups of people related to the topics of work, unemployment and working class. The project was produced over a one-year period by means of creative workshops, meetings, and discussions with people on site in three social institutions in the former industrial region of Halle-Leipzig, a former DDR territory. Because all three localities were severely affected with recent deindustrialization processes, people on project sites were coping either with the consequences of or with the future prospects of unemployment. Beside working creatively in situ, the final installation work was shown within the Shrinking Cities – Interventions II exhibition in GfZK - Leipzig.

Read More

The title No Subject in English, and it is similar in German, is a play on words that can be understood in a range of meanings: No Title, No Matter, Non-Subjects. It alludes to powerlessness as much as to the absence of a subject in the sense of the absence of a working class. In that very year in which the project took place, the unemployment rate in Germany peaked to 4,9 million and 11,7 %, with the percentage of 20,6 in former East Germany, the highest it has been since the 1930s. Within the project, and by the means of participation and/or creative involvement of clients and users of the three social institutions, the project captured the historical moment in which also a new welfare system was introduced (Hartz 4).

For me back then, who migrated to Germany three years beforehand, the project was an opportunity to research into the transition to democracy/capitalism, and how it unfolded in the former DDR, as compared to Croatia and former Yugoslavia. The final installation piece as well as the research itself had been formally balancing between a social documentary and an exercise in visual anthropology. I focused on three social groups: former factory female workers in their 50s who were send to early retirement in 1990; a mixed group of unemployed persons aged 20-40; and young people aged 15-22 in vocational training after they dropped out of school. By portraying the individuals and their shared activities, the project delved into reflecting upon the three types of social institutions. The final installation depicted a specific East German social landscape, as it, divided in three parts, featured the three institutions and their clients.

The institutions involved were: Work and Life Training Association Schkopau (Bildungsvereinigung ARBEIT u. LEBEN e.V.), a continuing education center where unemployed and unskilled adolescents are given yet another chance to complete their education;Arbeiterwohlfahrt Social Center in Leuna, where a group of women who were forced into early retirement in the early 1990s gather together; and a Merseburg-based social service center for and run by the unemployed (Soziales Dienstleistungszentrum). In collaboration with the three social groups, a multimedia installation was created, consisting of video and audio documentation, photographs, written documents, manuscripts, drawings, objects and personal belongings, which displayed the authentic biographies of individuals against a background of socio-economic conditions and realities. The installation also featured three video i.e. audio documentaries, which I donated to the respective institutions at the end of the project. In addition to the experience of producing video documents and creating a space for exchange with and for the project protagonists, this project was for me very much about how to become a socially useful artist in the middle of somewhat depressing circumstances. My feeling of usefulness was strongest during a drawing workshops I held in Merseburg, when I implemented a new self-empowerment method.

The establishment of publicly and privately funded social organization SDZ - Soziales Dienstleistungszentrum Merseburg in 2005 was representative for a new type of social solidarity in Germany. This was the very first institution of its kind in the region; which enabled its employees, long-term unemployed people, to offer services to other unemployed, for €1 per hour or else for free. Involved were services such as the provision of breakfast and lunch, children’s playrooms, the exchange and sale of secondhand clothing and groceries, laundry, hairdressing and cosmetic services, help with job applications, and counseling on social issues. All the necessary equipment and goods were provided through donations from local companies.

When I contacted SDZ with the idea of making a video documentary, the employees did not want their activities to be recorded on camera, and in order to present the institution and their groundbreaking work, I created an audio documentary. Camera recording was not possible because some of the employees, sadly, felt ashamed. This led me to offer a free service of my own: a self-empowerment workshop on drawing self-portraits in large formats. There were thirteen participants in the workshop: SDZ employees and customers. For a week, we worked in a small room, in groups of up to three people at a time. Each person spent at least five, and some even nine hours drawing. The atmosphere in the workshop was quite special. We took photos regularly to document the process, and to show the participants their progress. Afterwards, none of the participants had any objection to those photos being published. They all happily took their drawings home, some visibly proud of their accomplishment.

This was the situation in which I articulated drawing large format self-portraits as empowerment method. When we are depressed, we tend to think and draw ourselves small. If someone can guide one to create a big drawing which will also physically resemble her*/him*self, the empowerment will take place. Bigger the drawing, stronger the resemblance, stronger the effect will be.

RELATED
GfzK, Kunstaspekte Shrinking Cities, Schrinking Cities  

CREDITS 
No Subject (In Conversation with Working People) was produced with workstipend of the project “Shrinking Cities / Schrumpfende Städte” and was shown in the exhibition "Schrumpfende Städte – Interventionen 2", Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, 2005-2006 Curators: Philipp Oswalt,Barbara Steiner,Walter Prigge,Nikolaus Kuhnert Photos: Kristina Leko, Marion Porten

GENRE&FORMATS: Project: participatory-documentary and communication art project; community project; oral history; project with specific social groups; multimedia exhibition (expanded documentary cinema). Artwork/s and artifacts: multimedia installations including video, audio and space installations, photographs, text-based works, documents, drawings, objects.

 

Next Project ︎