Maintenance is not a Metaphor. - Maintenance is not a Metaphor., Lena Wegmann
Maintenance is not a Metaphor. , Lena Wegmann
What happens when you clean, repair, and maintain your household? How do you feel about doing it for others? - The research Maintenance is not a metaphor emerged from informal conversations about working conditions with various colleagues and friends to make this topic their own: Is cleaning and taking care of domestic matters related to our modes of productivity, creativity and success? How do you perceive their connection?
Maintenance is not a metaphor conducts protocols, exercises, discussions, and interviews to challenge internalized and societal habits surrounding cleaning, repairing, disposing, and preserving.
Through queer, humorous, and performative elements, the project aims to create visibility and facilitate inclusive actions involving the neighborhood and residents of ZK/U. The collective focus is on fostering togetherness in public spaces, collective artistic processes, and emphasizing care work and maintenance. These participatory and performative formats, will be brought to the nearby neighborhood in Moabit by first building and then using a mobile maintenance machine.
Maintenance is not a metaphor is messing up with the normalized position of care takers, situates care and repair in the urban environment and reclaimes it as artistic and collective practice. It invited everyone to explore and take care for the ZK/U premises, gardens, and park surrounding the art and urbanism center.
This residency is part of the project „Take Care“ initiated by ZK/U, curated and executed by Lena Wegmann.
Funded by STIFTUNG KUNSTFONDS from the program of the Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM) NEUSTART KULTUR.