Woman Cleaning Law and Order, 2015
This performance deals with an issue that occupied my mind and still do. Drug addicts, beggars and the prostitutes. What to do with the dark sides of society? This performance is commenting on this, and a specific situation where the police in my hometown criminalized drug addicts only for being in the city center. The back drop to the story is that the municipal of Bergen closed the park (Nygårdsparken) which used to be the addicts place for social encounter and business. After being kicked out of the park, due to the wish of neighbors and politicians to get the park cleaned up, the addicts moved downtown. They gathered outside the church (Korskirken). A district where a hub of organizations known to execute tolerance and care for all citizens are located. After quite a few complaints from businesses and people that felt intruded, the police in Bergen launched a campaign to remove them from the area. This campaign has never been approved by the jurisdiction. In many ways you can say that the police took the law in their own hands and started to remove this segment of the city’s population from the city center. More or less every hour uniformed police arrived and told them to leave. Handing out maps showing where they were not allowed to stay. If they were registered on site again, the police issue high fines and if they were registered time and time again they were put to jail. This is why I decided to perform this gesture exactly at this location at this time in history where se that looks upon addicts as criminals.
This performance deals with an issue that occupied my mind and still do. Drug addicts, beggars and the prostitutes. What to do with the dark sides of society? This performance is commenting on this, and a specific situation where the police in my hometown criminalized drug addicts only for being in the city center. The back drop to the story is that the municipal of Bergen closed the park (Nygårdsparken) which used to be the addicts place for social encounter and business. After being kicked out of the park, due to the wish of neighbors and politicians to get the park cleaned up, the addicts moved downtown. They gathered outside the church (Korskirken). A district where a hub of organizations known to execute tolerance and care for all citizens are located. After quite a few complaints from businesses and people that felt intruded, the police in Bergen launched a campaign to remove them from the area. This campaign has never been approved by the jurisdiction. In many ways you can say that the police took the law in their own hands and started to remove this segment of the city’s population from the city center. More or less every hour uniformed police arrived and told them to leave. Handing out maps showing where they were not allowed to stay. If they were registered on site again, the police issue high fines and if they were registered time and time again they were put to jail. This is why I decided to perform this gesture exactly at this location at this time in history where se that looks upon addicts as criminals.
