27.09.26
TRUST AS ARTISTIC PRACTICE
posted by Renate Helene SchweizerOn a tray with two cups, used tea bags, and the decision not to see my visitors as a danger to my art Today I received a message from the Rhineland-Palatinate State Representation in Berlin. My installation „DEMOKRATEA-TIME – Democracy as a Practice of Care, Dialogue, and Participation“ has now been installed there for the exhibition Zeitzeichen: Demokratie (Signs of the Times: Democracy). The message began with a sentence that made me very happy: „Your work is hanging very beautifully here in the State Representation and fits wonderfully into the spaces. It is very poetic." Then it was about a small tray. On this tray stand two teacups. To others, it may look like a small furnishing detail. For me, it belongs directly to the work. Tea has accompanied my art for many years. It stands for hospitality, for encounter, and for the moment when people sit together at a table. The officials of the State Representation pointed out to me that precisely this tray might not survive the duration of the exhibition unscathed. The State Representation is not a classical exhibition venue; therefore, it could not be guaranteed that the work would be protected from theft or accidental damage. The suggestion was to dismantle the tray after the opening and store it safely. I first asked whether the cups and the tray could be additionally secured and whether the installation was insured. Then came a question that stayed with me: „How do you feel about it if it gets damaged?" My answer came spontaneously: „I have trust in the visitors …" The curator's response: „Very nice. Thank you." This brief exchange opened something in me. Because suddenly I became aware again that trust has accompanied my work for a very long time. When Theory Meets Practice: Trust Is More Than a Word In art-theoretical texts, one often reads about „trust" as an abstract principle of participatory art. But what does that mean concretely when, as an artist, you face the decision of exposing a physical object to unpredictability? Theory speaks of trust as an attitude. Practice means: I leave the tray standing – even though I know it could break. Theory describes trust as an ethical category. Practice means: I entrust people with something that I myself have collected, sorted, and transformed over years. Theory formulates trust as a concept of relational aesthetics. Practice means: I consciously decide to relinquish control – not out of naivety, but out of conviction. This difference between a theoretical term and an experienceable action is essential to me. For it is only in the concrete situation that it becomes clear what trust really costs – and what it enables. People Do Not Come Only to Look at Art Since I began working with used tea bags in 2005/06, I have not simply seen the people who come to my exhibitions as viewers of a finished work of art. They bring something with them. Their memories. Their experiences. Their questions. Some look for a long time. Some tell stories. Some write. Some drink tea. Some knot. Some add something of their own. And sometimes the work changes as a result. My WELTENBÜRGERWELT 2005/06–∞ – An Ethics of Connectedness has grown out of such encounters. For me, the used tea bags are not simply an unusual material. Each tea bag already has something behind it. Someone poured water over it. Drank tea. Took out the bag. Put it down somewhere. Eventually, it was thrown away. I pick these things up again. I dry them, open them, separate paper, threads, labels, and other components from each other. I sort, connect, and process. From something consumed, something new emerges. But at some point, it is no longer just about the material. It is about the people who come into contact with it. A Work of Art Does Not Have to Be Untouchable Perhaps this does not correspond to the image we usually have of a work of art. Art is protected. It hangs on the wall. It stands behind glass. You are not allowed to touch it. There is a boundary between work and audience. My works have repeatedly crossed this boundary. They are sensitive. Some materials I have collected and processed over many years. Much cannot simply be replaced. But being sensitive does not mean, for me, having to shut oneself off from people. I do not want visitors standing in front of my art thinking: Don't touch anything. Don't do anything wrong. I could break something. I want to trust them with something. That does not mean that damage would be unimportant. It means that I do not want to replace trust with complete control. Of course, art sometimes needs protection. But protection and openness do not have to exclude each other. What a Single Knot Can Change This becomes particularly clear with the WeltenBürgerNetz (WorldCitizenNet). This net does not emerge solely through my hands. People collect used tea bags. They pass them on. They knot them together. They sign their contributions. A single tea bag is small. A single knot is small. A single action initially seems to have hardly any significance. But out of many small actions, a context emerges. People knot – the net grows. My principle is: „Without connection, no further growth." This is meant quite literally. A net grows only when new connections are made. But at the same time, it is about more than the physical growth of a work of art. It is about the question of what connects people with each other. About participation. About responsibility. And about the willingness to give something of one's own into a context whose outcome one cannot fully control. What Happens When We Trust Each Other with Something? This question accompanies my work. What happens when we do not first distrust people? When we trust them to handle a sensitive material carefully? When we trust them to contribute something of their own? When we do not predetermine what must emerge from an encounter? Then something can emerge that is not fully planifiable. Perhaps that is precisely the crucial point. Trust does not mean that nothing can happen. Trust means that we enter into a relationship, even though we cannot know everything in advance. This applies to people as well as to art. A work that is meant to enable participation cannot simultaneously control every action. It must leave a certain scope. That Is Why the Tray Stays I have decided to leave the tray with the two cups in the installation. Not because potential damage would be unimportant. But because trusting the visitors belongs to this work for me. Perhaps the tray will survive the entire exhibition unscathed. Perhaps something will happen. I do not know. And precisely this not-knowing belongs to it for me. For a work about encounter, care, dialogue, and participation cannot be based entirely on control. A completely controlled space would be a different space. And a completely controlled work of art would be a different kind of art. From Tea Bag to Human Being I have been working with used tea bags for many years. Sometimes this material was belittled or reduced to its origin: Tea bags. Waste. Handwork. But the longer I work with it, the less I am interested in the question of whether a material is initially regarded as „worthy of art." I am interested in something else: What are we willing to perceive in an inconspicuous thing? Its history. Its traces of use. Its vulnerability. Its relationships. Its possibilities. Perhaps this also applies to people. People, too, are sometimes categorized very quickly: according to their role, their function, their appearance, their origin, or according to the first impression they leave. Artistic work can enable a different view. It can take inconspicuous things seriously. It can make traces visible. It can establish connections. And it can create a space in which something can emerge that was not there before. A Connection Does Not Make Everything Equal The term „Ethics of Connectedness" did not emerge at the beginning of my work. It grew out of practice over time. Out of collecting. Out of sorting. Out of repairing. Out of connecting. Out of encounters with people. And out of the experience that connectedness does not mean that all parts become the same. A knot connects two ends. But it does not erase the two ends. A seam holds something together. But it does not have to make the breaking point invisible. Perhaps therein also lies something of my idea of community. Not that differences disappear. But that different things can be connected with each other. Trust Means: I Give Something Out of My Hands When I think back today on my various exhibitions of WELTENBÜRGERWELT, I remember not only the works. I remember people. People who stood in front of them for a long time. People who asked questions. People who drank tea. People who wrote or knotted. People who left something of themselves. I have repeatedly entrusted them with something. A material. A thread. A thought. A small part of the emerging work. And with it, also a piece of responsibility Perhaps that is precisely the meaning of my spontaneous sentence: „I have trust in the visitors." Today I would formulate it a bit more precisely: I trust the people who encounter my art. Not blindly. Not because nothing could happen. But because I believe that art needs a space in which people are not only viewed but are also allowed to contribute something themselves. For me, this is not an additional message of my art. It is part of its emergence. For me, trust is therefore not only a theme of my art. It is an action. A decision. And a prerequisite for a common work to be able to grow at all from many individual contributions. Perhaps that is the most beautiful connection between the small tray in Berlin and the large WeltenBürgerNetz: Both require not wanting to hold on to something completely. To give something out of one's hands. And to trust that connection is possible. Renate Helene Schweizer Artist Researcher | Ecology of the Social · Material Ethics · Cultural Archives · Social Sculpture WELTENBÜRGERWELT 2005/06–∞ –
