The Monument of Illegal workers (Budapest)
participatory project and installation 2011
This project is concentrating on a specific social situation at the heart of Budapest, the so-called ‘Meat Market’. Here, a group of men, migrated (semi) illegally mostly from the neighbour Romania, are selling their workforce to the interested ‘clients’. In the project I am interested in their ideas of how a monument dedicated to Illegal Workers would look like in their mind. This ‘imaginary exercise’ provides a site of possible reflection on their existence, and explores the idea of visibility/invisibility in post-socialist conditions. |
In the installation, the square appears as a wall drawing, providing a background for the imagined monuments, which presented a collages, complete with the transcribed dialogues conducted with the workers, during the project.
The collected ideas for monuments addressing the concrete needs of the workers - for example public fountain with drinking water, shelter and community placei. These ideas are all taken to be monuments and often incorporate elements of folk art, for example of their native Transylvania. |