THE BEGGARTIST | WEIMAR 2003

About This Project

– The little shop of my belly, or breast extension [Mein Bauchladen]

Experimental, ephemeral, public, performative action, lasting 3 hours. Materials: carton, textiles, and other articles, Final product: objects (box, etc.), as well as photographic and video documentation material. Place & year: Weimar-Germany Christmas 2003.

Keywords : employment, performativity, public space, object

After settling in a new city I felt that in order to get in touch with its inhabitants I had to take an action in the city public space. I borrowed the identity of the beggar, only for a few hours, but not for money or for reasons of covering needs and basic survival goods, but for reasons of artistic and aesthetic necessity. During the action I stood in front of the train station, holding as an extension of my chest – and by extension of my emotional center – an empty, white container: a box hanging in front of my chest called “Mein Bauchladen” (My Belly-Shop). I stood for several hours in front of the Weimarer central train station during the Christmas day. I asked passers-by who were curious to find out what I was doing there and what was the content of my container, to give me one of their personal items. My purpose, metaphorically, was to fill my container with emotions from the place. After many failed attempts and fruitless conversations with passers-by, I collected some items characteristic of the city, such as a commemorative card with the portrait and a poem by Goethe -Weimar is the city where the German theatre was born and is considered one of the most important cultural centers of Germany, where the great personalities of the German intelligentsia Goethe and Schiller lived- as well as a sticker for the student strike against the new, for the time, educational laws. Slowly, I started to get tuned with the whole scenery. The whole action lasted just a few hours.