Woman Cleaning Tanks, Israel 2015
By Gitte Sætre (copyright)
After Sætre washed 'sin', linked to thoughts, words and actions in the highly religious country of Israel, she discovered that the act of cleaning was a study of penance. She concluded that it is easier to forgive in a religious worldview where regret and forgiveness go hand in hand. Through washing she asks if an act of cleaning can erase guilt, and if so, where does it bring us?
Where do responsibility lay, and what about personal and collective memory?
Can we leave things behind?
According to Hanna Arendt, we no longer live in a religious era. When Sætre washed shame ans sin in Norway, where faith has a significantly smaller significance in society, the questions changed to:.
Is there forgiveness in our Scandinavian public sphere?
Do the responsibility of making rites passages lay within the community or within the individual?
Do modern society have trouble to forgiving?
By Gitte Sætre (copyright)
After Sætre washed 'sin', linked to thoughts, words and actions in the highly religious country of Israel, she discovered that the act of cleaning was a study of penance. She concluded that it is easier to forgive in a religious worldview where regret and forgiveness go hand in hand. Through washing she asks if an act of cleaning can erase guilt, and if so, where does it bring us?
Where do responsibility lay, and what about personal and collective memory?
Can we leave things behind?
According to Hanna Arendt, we no longer live in a religious era. When Sætre washed shame ans sin in Norway, where faith has a significantly smaller significance in society, the questions changed to:.
Is there forgiveness in our Scandinavian public sphere?
Do the responsibility of making rites passages lay within the community or within the individual?
Do modern society have trouble to forgiving?
Woman Cleaning the news, Israel 2015
By Gitte Sætre (copyright)
Gitte Sætre collected and archived dust, dust and its connotations were her artistic strategy through her earlier work. In her series Woman Cleaning this is in many ways also the case. She uses the classic women position and the responsibility we all have for filling our shoes with our own weight and nature. This is the point of departure in Woman Cleaning.
The immanent woman washes sincerely and tries to create harmony and gain control of the world around her. The waste, the very essence of daily life, the symbol of our lives as human beings is talked about on a general basis and within a feministic discourse.
The performances are extending the private space and the act of caring. The woman moves out of her home, she travels out and into the geopolitical world.Because the world needs her, it needs her care and she is ready. Her task is, among other things, the teaching of extreme care; geopolitical care.
By Gitte Sætre (copyright)
Gitte Sætre collected and archived dust, dust and its connotations were her artistic strategy through her earlier work. In her series Woman Cleaning this is in many ways also the case. She uses the classic women position and the responsibility we all have for filling our shoes with our own weight and nature. This is the point of departure in Woman Cleaning.
The immanent woman washes sincerely and tries to create harmony and gain control of the world around her. The waste, the very essence of daily life, the symbol of our lives as human beings is talked about on a general basis and within a feministic discourse.
The performances are extending the private space and the act of caring. The woman moves out of her home, she travels out and into the geopolitical world.Because the world needs her, it needs her care and she is ready. Her task is, among other things, the teaching of extreme care; geopolitical care.
Woman Cleaning the rocks at Masada fortress, Israel 2015
By Gitte Sætre (copyright)
With a strong and clear voice the gesture of cleaning turns visible choices taken and where choices can lead us.
Withholding an intrinsic willingness to say something about our society. Several layers are to be found as she attention fully washes, not stubborn or self-esteeming. She tries to understand together with us what is going on. The artist urge/ desire to see reality as something essential. The viewer are willingly following her engagement and together we observe without misplaced projection of compassion. Simply because we finally understand that grief or indifference, misplaced compassion is neither moral nor artistic useful.
By Gitte Sætre (copyright)
With a strong and clear voice the gesture of cleaning turns visible choices taken and where choices can lead us.
Withholding an intrinsic willingness to say something about our society. Several layers are to be found as she attention fully washes, not stubborn or self-esteeming. She tries to understand together with us what is going on. The artist urge/ desire to see reality as something essential. The viewer are willingly following her engagement and together we observe without misplaced projection of compassion. Simply because we finally understand that grief or indifference, misplaced compassion is neither moral nor artistic useful.
