Spatial Planning and Organisation
Video, 9:01 min, 2002
The action in this film takes place in the half-constructed shell of an unfinished building, once planned to have been a hotel. This technologically obsolete skeleton, made from prefabricated concrete and steel elements and reminiscent of the remains of modern socialist construction chic, is a structure that determines the behavior of a group of girls dressed as chambermaids. They run up and down the stairs, rushing to and from non-existent rooms, making beds and lying down to sleep. They continue their activities even when a group of workers appear on the scene to dismantle the building. The shots of the dismantling overlap with the sequences showing the young women continuing to repeat their activities, as if in a hypnotic trance.
Artists' Bio:
Alicja Karska and Aleksandra Went create installations, photographic series, artists’ books, videos, films, and public art projects. Many of their works address the issue of memory and the reclaiming for culture of the forgotten and the ignored. Karska and Went document zones of contemporary visuality that are gradually disappearing, cultural phenomena from the fringes of urban spaces and the peripheries of today’s imagination. They construct their dialogue with the past in a manner different from the dominant historical narratives, often exploiting images of latent or disregarded memory.