Two artists created some interesting work for the Manifesta 7 art festival, reviewed over at We Make Money Not Art. Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson’s pieces are a response to the “dense history of women-labour in the Rovereto area”, where the festival was held.

First up, Uterus Flags!

The flags were strung up in the town, and you can see more of them on the artists’ blog. I am somewhat ambivilent about uterus-based art, but this does make quite an impact.

Uterus Flags is a new version of a work exhibited earlier in various European cities. The flags, in 9 different color combinations, inspired by heraldry and party-flags, bear the silhouette of the female sexual organs; uterus, falopian tubes, ovaries and vagina. Exhibited in the streets of Rovereto, celebrating in the urban public space, the flags become a part of the city´s architecture and life throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The second piece of work was called “caregivers”, part documentary, part music video, shows women migrants from Ukraine and Romania, who work providing care to elderly people in the area.

We found the article, describing the recent and rapidly growing phenomenon of Ukrainian women migrating to Italy to work as caregivers, on the internet. The writer is a young Italian-American journalist Davide Berretta. We commissioned the composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir to write music to the article. She wrote the music for a soprano, women choir and an oboe. The music is recorded in Iceland and performed by the soprano Ingibjörg Guðjónsdóttir, the oboe player Matthías Nardeau and the Women Choir of Garðabær.

Posted by Jess McCabe on 3 September 2008, at 3:54 PM | Comments (4)