On The Verge

An Artistic Intervention in Public Space. // 2022

In the summer of 2022 we did our first in-situ artistic interventions in public space: 12 hours, 5 artists, 2 places, 1 collective. Konstanz - the place we all resided at that time - is whispering to us, asking us for a disruption of the space, to break with the tourist surface of this privileged landscape for the rich. 

We want to invite passengers to take part in our work processes, to interact with us, with our hands that weave with the natural landscape, and thereby to reflect what ‘space’ and ‘outside’ mean for artists. Where should the verb of art take place when cultural spaces in the cityscape are threatened, the importance of art crumbled under capitalist efficiency? 

She stands in front of a canvas that swings under a tree, a small hand mirror lies on the earthy floor under her skirt. She repeatedly looks at her reflection of the body part that has been pushed to the marge of patriarchy. The work will be called Flesh. Within its performative creation process, it explores the understanding of the hidden and the public, of the inside and outside; enlarging the visibility of flesh.

She kneels in front of her typewriter that is placed on a chair. For several hours she documents what is happening and describes those who pass by. The present thus flows continuously into the art and automatically braids the visitors into the happening and rewrites them as part of the collective process.

She performs at the edge of the forest while confronting herself with the medium of a mirror. Completely naked and exposed, she embarks on a search for the perception of the image and the body that results in a mirroring destruction – and detached body parts. As a final shot she is rearranging the fragments anew, redefining a collection of scattered selves.

We chose to work on the verge of the lake and the forest. Places of threshold, weaving water and land, forest and city, places of encounter. The promenade serves many tourists and residents as a weekend stroll, as an escape into the green, as moments of pause and reflection, as a place for conversation. With our intervention 'On the Verge' we want to make public space tangible, even occupy the public place, become visible and demand that momentary pause and create artistic exchange with us and the surrounding entities.