Zagreb Milkmaids on Your Right-Hand-Side

Kristina Leko, 2002/03
20' DV
Single-channel video installation / Single-channel video installation expanded with an object installation (edition of 5)
Dialoges in Croatian, English subtitles, on-screen texts in English

Collection/s: TBA21 – Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary


Context

This video work is part of the Cheese and Cream project by Kristina Leko. It was a long-term research, documentary and activist project that resulted in a series of artworks, artifacts, happenings, and actions in progress from 2002 to 2013, dedicated to the support and protection of Zagreb's dairy women. The project was realized in cooperation with the NGO BLOK - Local Base for Culture Refreshment, Zagreb.

Synopsis

One after another we see flash portraits of the dairy women on a farmers‘ marketplace and their short video statements. The women were filmed while selling their homemade fresh cheese and cream. We see their faces, their hands, details of their outfits and their products. We see footage of them offering their goods and talking to their customers, packing the goods, receiving money, etc. Some of them briefly address the audience and talk about their personal situation. They complain about their working and living conditions, about the recession, about the fact that they have no one to help them, no one to take over their work and their job. In the first video projection, between the video sequences showing the dairy women, a series of short on-screen texts explain the tradition and importance of the dairy women for the city of Zagreb, as well as their current position, which is threatened by the upcoming EU legislation. After 10 minutes of the video, the camera moves to an indoor market hall and continues to film the dairy women there. Most of the women we see in the video are old; they often appear to be too old to work. The video is structured to gradually emphasize the fact that the age of the women is high and to suggest that the dairy women may be dying out. By the end of the video, we have seen 112 milkmaids in 20 minutes. The work ends with the on-screen text: "This was an attempt to ensure that each milkmaid would be remembered." The artwork provides an insight into the situation of the dairy women, but also into a broader political and economic context of Croatian society. It also documents aesthetic and ethnographic aspects of the endangered profession of the dairy women.

Note on display: Depending on the context of the presentation, this video work was/has been exhibited together with a selection of objects and artifacts from the Cheese and Cream project, such as: The Book of Requests for the 22nd Century, a work in progress since 2002, The Collection of Dishtowels of the Zagreb Dairywomen, a collection of objects, 2003, 448 Questionnaires, an object (a collection of documents), 2003, and others. From 2002 to 2006, The Book of Requests for the 22nd Century was included in project presentations and exhibition displays to give the audience the opportunity to sign the Declaration on the Zagreb Dairywomen and thus symbolically support the initiative to protect these women and their agency as cultural heritage.

Next Project ︎