new relationships between workers and their environments.
Marvelous Guests: A Manifesto for Action
The clothes dryer is turning. Slowly, the contents rotate 360 degrees clockwise. And then again. For ten minutes, or until another coin is inserted. Such is the elegant monotony of a laundromat, as each machine perfects its movements over set intervals. Next to the wall of dryers, a ballet dancer performs a stretching sequence. Extending an ankle and rotating the foot. First clockwise, 360 degrees, over and over. Then again.
Marvelous Guests lends new working conditions and meanings to several trades by inviting professionals to conduct their business in unusual locations. As a guest. Each encounter will produce its own forms of communication on location. We see the relationship between guest and host as dynamic, and not without friction as each adjusts to the other. Much like an oyster, our guest is perhaps the catalyst who needs a host in order to make a pearl. An irritant at first, a persistent question, but ultimately, we hope, a marvelous new relationship evolves.
By taking activities out of their familiar environment, we see them for their physical essence. A new place affords us all – the workers, the environment, the spectators – a chance to see something beautiful, poetic, possibly absurd, precious or powerful. At the same time, the environment offers a new context for the worker to recognize the implications of what occurs rather unremarkably on any other given day. We challenge each of you to be a guest or host.
an ongoing project initiated in collaboration with Juliane Stiegele
https://vimeo.com/user3491319/albums
Creston Sit-n-Spin Laundry, Grand Rapids, MI hosting Amanda Kaley, Hannah and Therese Rosenberg.
