Damaris Lipke & Anetta Küchler-Mocny, 2006/15
Menschenrechte – human rights – work in progress
Anetta Küchler-Mocny & Damaris Lipke, 2006/15
Video documentation of a performance
Technique: Video on monitor
Prologue: „We are currently experiencing one of the largest refugee movements since the Second World War. Millions of people are being forced to leave their homes and flee due to war, persecution and extreme poverty. When these people come to us in Europe and Germany, it is the responsibility of the EU and its member states to help and ensure that these people have a decent existence. In Germany, this task arises from Article 1 of the Basic Law, which states that „Human dignity is inviolable. It is the duty of all state authorities to respect and protect it.
The performance by artists Damaris Lipke and Anetta Küchler-Mocny also draws attention to the violation of human rights. Through their art, they approach the problem in a new way“ (Quote: Christoph Strässer, Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the Federal Foreign Office, Member of the Bundestag for Münster).
Anetta Küchler-Mocny and Damaris Lipke deal artistically with the topic of human rights in various performance formats. The two artists have known each other since their studies at the Kunstakademie Münster and have been working on various joint projects since 2003.
Similar to the concepts of the „Center for Political Beauty“ (a group of now over 100 action artists under the direction of Philipp Ruch), the artists develop an arc of confrontational interaction before our eyes. The protagonists sit opposite each other at the table and take turns pushing the book on human rights towards each other. Gradually, the pages are torn out and metaphorically scattered into the world with increasing speed, initially folded as paper airplanes, later only crumpled. At the end, the artists leave the room, the floor of which is littered with pages of the Charter of Human Rights and the book, which is not destroyed but appears to have been freed of its contents.
Videostills: Menschenrechte 2006/15