195 cubic centimetres

Cage homes are holding 195 cubic centimetres. The cages are inspired by the cage homes that can be found in Hong Kong, yet they also represent how many others face substandard living conditions about which nobody wants to talk. An example is how people from Eastern Europe live who travel for work to Western Europe.

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Description:

Four cages are built into a small room as home for three performers that stay over three days in these for 6 hours a day. They cook or perform day-to-day  activities. They do not talk to each other. The audience is able to see them through one-way mirrors build into a dividing wall or they can enter the room and find themselves in the middle of the installation.

^{Click on any of the images to enlarge}

Idea:

Gather all your things, the ones that you care about – No, the ones that are useful, are the most important ones. Take them.
Now imagine that nobody will see you anymore – if they see you, they will try with the best intention to shove you under the carpet.

Inspired by substandard living conditions, this performative installation raises awareness about how different housing can be. Some people are forced into living in very small spaces, they have to live in cage-like homes at a very high cost.
How much space does a person need for living and when the space
becomes so small that it shifts into being dehumanizing?
Where is the threshold point when privacy and even safety do not
exist anymore?

For us, space is a fixed system of relationships and an area of experience. We create spaces for ourselves in which we feel safe and in which we stay and move every day. We experience it only when we move in it, and with each of our movements time passes.

The performative installation and photographic exhibition 30 Cubic Centimeters was shown on 05 –09.02.2020 as part of the “Empty spaces – what are we living for?” project.

For this exhibition, a big empty house was made available for seven artists before being refurbished. The artists dealt with our daily actions and rituals, with our needs and ways of life and the spaces we create for ourselves and traces we leave behind. With their works they filled the void and interwove the seemingly abandoned space anew.

Performers: Salmo Albatal, Isabelle Finou, Eunbi Oh

Links:

• Video on Vimeo
• Photographic exhibition 30 Cubic Centimeters

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