Clementines
Duration of performance: 3 x 2 hours
Galleri Seilduken
2015
The performance is inspired by the marigold flower markets in Kolkatta, India. Enormous amounts of marigold flowers are daily harvested to be sown into garlands used for decoration and festivities.
During two days I sit on the gallery floor, threading mandarin peel on a thread. The audience is invited to take a clementine in exchange that I get to keep the peel. Clementines are mostly eaten in Norway during the winter season. Like a lot of fruit and vegetables clementines are imported. During a few decades the amount of products imported to Norway has increased drastically. Norwegian labour and production is too costly so most of the products and the food comes from other places. Having someone selling flower garlands in the streets of Norway seems impossible. Do we loose something on the way? What happens when manual labour is eradicated from a society?
Sowing is part of our common history. It has been done all over the world for and is one of the first skills human kind learnt. In this performance I connect two very different contexts, the flower markets of Kolkatta and the gallery space in Norway, by executing the same action of threading organic material on a thread.
