Wood, felt, embroidered labels; dimensions variable; edition of 3 + 2 AP
Bataille (meaning ‘battle’ in French) is an interactive installation that explores the empowering and transformative nature of language. Written in French, words are taken from protest banners, placards, and slogans of insurrection; each word representing an entire statement or a specific fight for minority voices. The mottos of freedom, resistance, utopia, and justice are embroidered onto clothing labels that visitors can freely re-compose on the board, take away, or pin to their clothes, so that they too become message-bearers of political poetry. As with much of Rivane Neuenschwander’s practice, the work is imbued with influences from her native Brazil. Here she combines the poetic tradition of repente, an oral form of improvised poetry, with concrete poetry. ‘Repente’ is called to mind as participants improvise and use words to transform an urban environment into a theater of transgression and everyday political protest. Whilst there is a subtle ideological tone in the piece, at its core lies the idea that language can be freed from the constraints of syntax and, as the concrete poets believed, language should be considered as a ‘sensitive object.’
