Maja Bajević, Women at Work – Washing up (Trilogy), 2001
Maja Bajević
Women at Work – Washing up (Trilogy)

In her collective performances with other women, Maja Bajević (*1967, Bosnia-Herzegovina) relocates women’s handiwork – washing, stitching and sewing – to public space, transforming these arts into domestic practices of female knowledge and historical memory. Bajević’s performances and installations integrate biographical aspects from her own life while also reflecting the social changes brought about by the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s. The artist’s poetic imagery maps out political and social conflicts, the construction of power and identity and the relationship between loss and re-appropriation.

artist's website: majabajevic.com

Washing Up is also part of the trilogy Women at Work and features the artist and two other women in a Turkish bath in a performance that took place during the 7th Istanbul Biennal. In a symbolic act, the women continually wash pieces of cloth until they fall apart. Slogans from Tito, the president of former Yugoslavia, stitched into the cloth become less and less legible over the course of the performance.

Courtesy Maja Bajević & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich

Document media
Single channel video projection, colour, sound, 15:14 min

Issue date
2001

Tags
collectivity, conflict, craft, labour, private/public, post-communism