n°1 Reconstruction
Initiative by Saša Karalić – for the return of the workers’ memorial on Plainpalais in Geneva.
The first project of ‘La taupinière’ on the Plaine de Plainpalais in Geneva, initiated by the artist Saša Karalić, proposes the rebuilding of a fictive memorial for the contemporary working class. It uses the real and actual political facts concerning the current workers affairs in Switzerland and presents them in form of ‘the learning piece’ – six transparencies mounted in six light windows. The car with megaphone will announce the project beforehand and serve as a part of the installation during the opening.
‘Reconstruction of the workers’ memorial’ is the project that questions the way the history is represented and frozen in monuments and memorials and the way they are used for the political propaganda purposes.
The contemporary political and social affairs are nowadays not based and conducted in a tactile reality but in a porous sphere of mass communication and negotiation. The contemporary memorial for the workers should be, therefore, reconstructed out of modes and codes of the contemporary communication and not out of bricks and stones. Similar to the political strategies through history, this project uses the contemporary workers’ rights as a propaganda tool but this time in the name of art – a contemporary form of art for the workers.
The memorial is installed at ‘La taupinière’ from 08 February – 22 March 2008.
Saša Karalić (1970, Banjaluka, BiH) lives and works in Amsterdam. After his studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam and a postgraduate programme at the Royal College of Fine Arts, Stockholm, he works as an artist and is curator of projects like ‘National Pride’, Art et Amicitiae, Amsterdam (2007) or ‘The Last Day of Socialism’, Gallery Meneer de Wit, Amsterdam (2006). He is teacher in multimedia at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.
