Double-screen video-installation GUESTures | GOSTIkulacije, is part of a series of works that stem from artist's long-term ethnographic, archival and historical research and interviews with the migrant worker women in Berlin, who were part of an organised mass labour migration, from the socialist Yugoslavia to West-Germany, in the late 1960s. 

Inspired by the principles of the verbatim theatre and its political potential, the video GUESTures | GOSTIkulacije was filmed with actress Adna Sablyich in artist's studio in London, basing her performance on audio-recordings of conversations between migrant workers and the artist. The resulting work both follows and subverts the impulse of the verbatim style to achieve a certain ‘ideal’ authenticity of expression through the use of documentary material. On two equally sized rectangular screens we can simultaneously follow two complexly linked contents; on one we see the artist creating the film-set, a kind of ‘fictional’ framework for the women’s stories, intervened occasionally by archival footage from German factories in which these women worked, whilst on the other we are solely focused on the actresses performance. The desired effect of the Brechtian ‘distancing’ of the narrative is additionally achieved through occasional subtle interventions by the artist herself, from significant pauses in the interpretation of the text, to the sudden inclusion of the artist’s voice replicating parts of the interview. Each part of the video, is as much a portrait as it is a space of experimentation with questions of voice, testimony and narrative; document/ary, performativity and the historical imaginary. 
 

Funded by the Arts Council England and SC Galerija Zagreb. Actress: Adna Sablyich; Sound: Manuele Mandolesi; Editor: Judy Price; Translation: Margareta Kern, Branislava Kuburovic, Suzi Kojakovic, Cherry Smyth and Ljiljana Winkler; Technical support: Marcus Kern; Mentors: Karen Mirza and Brad Butler.

Further project info here: http://guestworkerberlin.blogspot.com

GUESTures | GOSTIkulacije is screened as part of Counterpoint exhibition in London, and GUESTures solo exhibition at SC Galerija Zagreb. Please see information below.

Counterpoint [part of Platforma festival]
Rochelle School & Club Row, Arnold Circus, London E2 7ES  

29 November - 4 December 2011
Admission free. Opening times: 11am - 8pm (Tuesday - Saturday); 11am - 3.30pm (Sunday)
Opening on 28 November at 7pm.

1st December at 6pm: round table discussion with Oreet Ashery, TJ Demos and Margareta Kern.

Counterpoint is defined as the art of combining two or more dimensions - cultures, settings, homes, narratives, melodies etc - in such a way that they establish a harmonic relationship between them, even if mutually antagonistic or irreconcilable. The intention of Counterpoint is to explore Edward Said’s idea that through their simultaneous awareness of different realities, exiles, refugees and migrants can create a uniquely plural vision of society, questioning the notions of objective reality and suggesting new ways forward.

Further information: http://www.platforma.org.uk/events/counterpoint-multidisciplinary-event

Installation view of GOSTIkulacije | GUESTures at SC Galerija, Zagreb - for more installation images click here

GUESTures/GOSTIkulacije: solo exhibition
SC Galerija Zagreb
14th October - 29th October 2011

Izlozba GOSTIkulacije Margarete Kern su niz pazljivo insceniranih performativnih arhivskih intervencija napravljenih ‘po mjeri’ prostora Galerije studentskog centra u Zagrebu. Ova samostalna izlozba je u stvari najnovija postavka autoricina visegodisnjeg projekta pod nazivom GOSTI, niza instalacija pracenih razgovorima, svojevrsnog ‘putujuceg arhiva’ koji se razvija u stalnom i kompleksnom dijalogu s posjetiocima i sa ‘subjektima’ autoricinog paralelnog povijesnog i etnografskog istrazivanja organizirane masovne migracije radnika iz socijalisticke Jugoslavije u Zapadnu Njemacku kasnih sezdesetih i ranih sedamdesetih godina proslog vijeka. [1] Pitanja stvaranja arhiva onih koji su u sjeni, kako zvanicnoj povijesti, tako i medijskoj reprodukciji stvarnosti, blisko su vezana za autoricino propitivanje odnosa slike, naracije, etnografsko-umjetnickog istrazivanja i performansa.

Margareta Kern's solo exhibition GUESTures is a series of carefully staged performative archival interventions, installed specifically for the space of Gallery SC in Zagreb. This solo exhibition is the most recent installation of the artist's long-term project, a kind of 'travelling archive' which develops in constant and complex dialogue with the gallery visitors and with the 'subjects' of artist's paralel historical and ethnographic research into the mass labour migration of the workers from the socialist Yugoslavia to West Germany in the late 1960's and early 1970's. [1] Questions around the visibility of archives, of those in the shadows of official histories, are closely entwined with Kern's questionioning of the relationship of image, narrative and performance, and the position of an artist as ethnographer.

Saturday 15th October at 5pm: in-discussion Margareta Kern with Karen Mirza, artist and film-maker http://mirza-butler.net/ [audio of the conversation will be available on this web-site shortly]. Part of Border-less project.

[1] From the exhibition text by Branislava Kuburovic: 'GUESTures: Awakening the Space of Precarious Knowledge' - it can be read in full here http://guestworkerberlin.blogspot.com

15th September - 1st October 2011

'terms & conditions' - series of events at Iniva (London) on precarity of labour and migration:
Join workshops and discussions led by artist Margareta Kern and contributors from diverse fields:
Read the background to the project here.

Thu 15 September, 6:30-8.30pm
Talk and discussion: Who are the Migrant Workers Today? (mapping precarious labour)
With Dr Faiza Shaheen, economist, Kevin Ward, Professor of Human Geography, Latin
American Workers Association, and collective Precarious Workers Brigade

Sat 17 September, 3-5pm
Film screening: The Work They Say Is Mine
Screenings on the visibility of the labour of women and migrants, organised with Cinenova, a
distributor of film and video made by women. Cinenova working group members Melissa
Castagnetto and Marina Vishmidt will introduce the screening

Sat 24 September, 3-5.30pm
Talk and discussion: Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics and Everyday Dissent
With Dr Imogen Tyler, Sociology Senior Lecturer & Leverhulme Fellow, activist group No
Borders London, and artists Nada Prlja and Margareta Kern

Thurs 29 September, 6.30-8pm
Talk: Current Crises and the Rise of Xenophobia
With Ash Amin, Professor of Geography at Cambridge University

Sat 1 October, 3-4.30pm
Anti-Fascist self-learning workshop, through the Bishopsgate Institute's Archive
With the Aesthetics of Resistance reading group

Sat 1 October, 5-7pm, £6(£5 concessions)
Anti-Fascist Footprints guided walking tour
Led by David Rosenberg, teacher and educationalist, highlighting historical events in East
London

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