Disgusted, but still very hungry
3 hours per day
30-09 until 02-10-2021
Nails Project Room,
Part of D-C Open, Düsseldorf and Cologne Open Gallery Weekend,
Düsseldorf, Germany
Performative Installation focusing on industrial fishing and the problem of overfishing. This project was curated by Maren Knapp. This project was made possible with the support of the Mayor’s Office in Flingern, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Description:
Disgusted, but still very hungry is a performantive installation in which the performers activate the installative circumstance by representing a cycle of industrial fishing, from the nets to the table within modern life society. Bait silicone fish are placed in a building form of a boat. The performers are also placed in the boat, dressed in oversized fish costumes. One at a time, the performers get up from the boat, take off the fish costume and go in a second room, where they are replacing another performer that is sat at a table. The performer sitting at a table is blowing into a dark soup made from the silicone fish, but never getting to eat it.
At the same time, another performer is shredding plastic and nets with a help of a shredding machine. She is collecting the shredded plastic and feeding the performers sat at the table in the second room of the gallery, through an opening on an attached stomach that is placed that a sack on each of the perform- ers sat at the table.
The performance ends when there is no more plastic that can be shredded. The installation can be seen afterwards, throughout, with the remains of the performance and the artifacts created through the actions of the performance.
Click on any of the images to enlarge
Idea:
The exploitation of natural resources follows a capitalist logic, which is so efficient because we as con- sumers are part of it. Rarely, however, are we aware of the destructive cycles into which we are fitted.
In her performative installation Disgusted, but still very hungry , the artist Cristiana Cott Negoescu addresses the far-reaching ecological and social consequences of industrial fishing and fish farming. Using an installative, performatively activated setting of processual interconnected stations, the artist simulates problematic aspects of overfishing , industrialized fishing and fish farming. In her works, Cris- tiana, deals intensively with the systemic flaws of capitalist consumer society. Her performative settings create chains of action that establish a connection in between her work and the audience. Through her interactive script, Cristiana’s works reveal exemplarily mechanisms of commercial exploitation. In this invisible area, which is nevertheless an integral part of our consumer society, Disgusted, but still very hungry is settled. Larger-than-life fish, played by performers, exist a feed factory here, where they process their own species . With the simulation of a dinner table at the end of the production process, the boundaries between humans and animals become blurred.
The hierarchy of who eats whom here dissolves. Cristiana describes industrial fishing and farming as
a “system that eats itself.” She drastically questions the conviction that fish farming is a more re- source-saving option but an option nevertheless. What Disgusted, but still very hungry re-enacts in is the usually overlooked fact that fish farming depends on bycatch from, which is disastrous for the marine ecosystem, but can eventually be recycled as feed for the farmed fish. The artist thus indirectly raises the question of whether we as consumers do not bear responsibility for the existence of this exploitative system. Fish farming stands here as an example of all those systems whose costs and consequences for others are ignored simply because it is cheap and convenient. Cristiana’s installative performances often seem unnecessarily uncomfortable. But they address issues and mechanisms that, if we were fully aware of them, would be even more unpleasant. The creation of such situations, which seem awkward from the outside, is an aesthetic means for her to make the viewer think. Disgusted, but still very hungry copies a cycle that seems absurd, but continues to run because we think there is no way out. Although these performances seem to be interwoven in their own world, they finally help to understand a part of the “bigger picture” that was previously inaccessible.
(“Idea” text: Marina Sammeck)
Performers: Luca Calaras,Saskia Tamara Kaiser, Nadine Karl, Emma Rüther, Qijia You
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