Tupperwar
Video installation and booklet | 2010
Funded by the Women's Promotion Fund
The ritual of selling tupperware was a reason for occupation and gathering, a way of networking, a means of communication. What women gained in the 1950's out of this occupation was the chance to combine their (enforced) role as house-makers with gaining their own money -in a sociable way. Today Tupperware company still distributes its products through the same intimate method. Through an artistic approach, we re-introduced the »tupperware party« and the idea of meeting around tupperware in Weimar, either as an opportunity to offer new readings of the tupperware as object, open a dialogue and exchange experiences, or as social event.
Based on this idea, the group went around Weimar and collected tupperware door by door, using the same strategy as the tupperware ladies but inverting it: by going to people’s houses instead of them coming to ours and collecting tupperware instead of selling them. A total of 100 tupperware was collected.
All participants received later an invitation for the inauguration of the sculpture, where to their surprise, the only constructing material was the space represented by the collected items. After having calculated the volume of each container separately with a total sum of certain cubic meters, we transformed this sum into a surface of 5x5 meters. The space we had received through the containers was now given back to the participants as a stepping ground for meeting and socializing, as the ground for the final “social sculpture.