Page 28 - PIP

There are many other examples of the Catch 22 phenomenon, and they appear on a regular basis in many countries all over the world. The bureaucratic mechanism counts on people’s exhaustion and quitting. The starting point was an A4 format piece of paper which is a primary tool in bureaucracy.
The first part, the Temporary Exposition performance, starts without audience, by placing A4 papers onto the floor, piece by piece, until an A4 format is filled up on a large scale (10 m x 12 m). From above, it looks like one giant A4 paper, which gradually dissolves once we start to walk on it. This process takes one hour and requires extreme patience, precision and concentration. Over time, both performers and audience become immersed in a deep meditative state. This work is to me a reflection on the issue of our legal existence and on all the lives that are or are not considered as valid and verified by a piece of paper. Placing papers on the floor can be understood both as a construction of our legal personhood and as an act of resistance against the bureaucratic system. During the entire performance, performance artist Julie Jaffrennou stands on a tall pillar made of stacked A4 paper with her hair tied to a structure on the ceiling, her body suspended between the ceiling and the paper. Her durational act of standing in a space “in between” refers to the hopelessness and despair one can endure when captured for years in the Catch 22 situation. Which is the case of many immigrants today...
Placing papers on the floor as a separate durational installation/performance, which I titled later A4, was something I performed years later, for the first time as part of Lange Nacht der Bibliotheken during my MA studies in choreography in 2011. The audience was watching from the fifth floor as my colleagues and I were setting up the papers on the first floor. Once we filled in the big A4 square, we started to walk on it, and we also invited the audience to join us in the dissolving process of the A4 white surface. Whereas 'Temporary Exposition' focused more on the impossibility of battling the bureaucratic mechanism, 'A4' had an optimistic turn, as people were given agency to change the situation.
In 'Which Club?' there was also a strong call for change, but more through direct confrontation. In 'A4', I would say I took more of a buddhist approach to the problem. It’s by making changes within ourselves and our minds that we can gain the power to overcome the most difficult situations in life.
However, the bureaucratic apparatus is radical because it creates a situation in which no one is responsible for anything. If one happens to find oneself in the position of a victim, there is no one to blame. The bureaucratic system simply doesn’t see a human being behind the paper. Making a change in a system that grinds everything it gets hold of is something to consider seriously. That is why it is important to me both as a person and as an artist not to empower the systems, but to take things into my own hands. To take responsibility, to gain integrity and power over my own life in the face of bureaucracy. This might seem a simple and obvious thing, but when you’re invisible in the country where you live, because you don’t possess the required papers, you don’t feel like you can take a stand on anything. After 25 years in Germany, I was granted German citizenship, just this year, and for the first time I feel that because I can vote, I can really stand for my rights and for the rights of others.
I.S.:Your entire process of becoming an
independent artist is a reflection of your thematic preoccupations, the performative apparatus of your works, and the essential principles of your company.
J.L.V.: Absolutely. The bureaucracy issues made me realise the importance of public versus private. Even the very name of the company points to how the public affects the private person. Hannah Arendt’s work 'Vita Activa' supported my thoughts about bureaucratic structures and the public and private person. This served as an ideological background with which we laid the foundations of the company.
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