
Through Semmelweis's introduction of hygiene practices, birthing people are given the opportunity to survive. The fatal connection between death, the morticians table, and life, the birthing chambers, is broken. And yet the cycle continues, the clinic is no longer operational, dead in one sense, but rebirthed in another now opening its gates to Art. Traces of the Semmelweis institutions medical past haunt the building. The history and context inform our deconstruction of it. We do this by tracing the rooms decomposition, sourcing materials for sculptural art works from pieces left behind, using the motifs of a Doctors hands, dirt, grime and documenting the construction of the space its self. We use the language of the archive in the loosest sense in order to present our collective memory of this room in the Semmelweis Clinic.
Each Artist dominates a surface, they entangle between. We cling to the space, ease it into a white cube, a construct in itself. Broken pieces carefully documented, reconstructed and presented again. Untouched pink fleisch-berg becomes a dusty emulsion: We cloak the room in white, the transition is complete, it will continue to change long after our bodies leave the building. Only the meandering steps visitors etch upon the ground are witnesses to the time spent investigating the hospital canteen.
what rolls around comes
backwards too
a naked doorway
researches its old
room tucked in
what was dirt now turns
to grime
half beats scatter then selves
forming neatly in a line
theres handmade rubbish
tangled up in this mixed
up place and carefully tucked
away behind MDF
chipboard dreamy motivation,
tiny toys thrown down cracks
in recognition of the new addition
nervous farther twiderling thumbs,
grandmother to be,
carefully folding
and empty oral B
cowgummi
pitted plater placenta
Handmade rubbish, tangled up and
carefully tucked behind MDF
chipboard, the retired semmelweis clinic becomes a site to explore
medical and artistic histories of cleanliness
deconstructing a room, easing it into a white cube
once sterile, now brown water flows freely
dirt welcome
The cycle continues
The construct
Deconstruct
Die construct
Special thanks to: Josi, Can, Kevin, Marcus, Niki, Uma, Francis, Valeria, Davide, Julia, Oli & Uli