- Venue
- New Life Berlin Festival
- Location
'Flash Job', EuroGida supermarket, Neukölln, 10.30am, Thursday 12th June
'Flash Job Campaign Presentation', 220 Greifwalder Str., 2-4pm, Sunday 15th June
The Flash Job Campaign (FJC) began with a flurry of controversy as the project was held up to the light by Open Dialogues writers and FJC participants in search of ethical transparency. After this initial hype, the importance of following up this project seems dauntingly clear. Luckily for me – and anyone interested in reading about the project – the weight of responsibility is shared by the detailed blogs that the Catalysts have been writing, soon to be followed by further documentation on the FJC site (www.wooloo.org/flashjob). But have some sides of this story been overlooked?
The basic premise of the project is that Catalysts Рa range of artists and people working in community/social settings who have applied to participate Рgo out into Neuk̦lln, known as Berlin's "roughest area" and find an employer who needs a few hours' casual work to be completed. To finalise the deal, the Catalyst must find a teenager who is willing to take on this one-off job in exchange for a small wage.
Curious to see the embodiment of these ideas, something more tangible than the doubts I've been reading and the reports I've been hearing, I decided to go along to witness a Flash Job myself. Heading out to Neukölln early on Thursday morning, I meet Lucia Baruelli, one of the Catalysts, who has found a three-hour job stacking shelves at a Turkish supermarket for 16 year old Dragan. We wait for him outside the front of the shop, alongside the rows of shiny tomatoes and oranges. Fifteen minutes after the job was due to start, Dragan hasn't arrived. One of the shop workers comes out to offer us some freshly cut watermelon and I gratefully take a slice. Fifteen more minutes and Lucia calls Dragan. His sister tells her that Dragan has had to go to his internship today, although he thought he would be able to take the morning off. Clearly disappointed, Lucia tells the shop-keeper that his worker won't be coming. He shrugs and speaks a few words of German, then continues to stack packages on the shelf. As we walk away Lucia translates his response: "I could see it in his eyes that he wasn't going to come; he was Yugoslavian. When Germans say yes, they mean yes. When Yugoslavs or Turks say yes, they mean no."
If "unsuccessful" Flash Jobs lead to the perpetuation of prejudices held about other nationalities, and even one's own nationality, can this project be justified? And even if the jobs prove to be "successful", does an action this brief really have the potential to challenge such attitudes and encourage more trusting relationships in the future? Many similar questions have already been raised by this project and as Kathryn Fischer (http://www.wooloo.org/opendialoguesblog/s3Blog.php#ANC_545) points out, ‘Flash Jobs will not be able to offer firm answers to the controversial questions that it raises, but part of its power lies in its ability to raise them at all'.
Still hoping for some solid answers, at least about how many jobs have taken place, I take a seat at the final project presentation on Sunday and listen to examples described by Per Traasdahl, the artist who initiated this project, and several of the Catalysts. Three Flash Jobs have been completed: one teenager helped to disassemble a market trader's stall, and another two helped an elderly woman with some gardening. The third job was undertaken in Traasdahl's neighbour's studio. As each story is told, the personal journeys of each of the Catalysts make for some very interesting listening, and reflect the intensive thought and engagement that has been required of them during this project.
Fedele, who travelled from New York to participate, having at first been particularly aware of the number of women wearing headscarves in Berlin in comparison to in his home city, later took an interest in the representation of these women in the media, and the levels of interaction between the Turkish community and other Berlin communities. He has even interviewed a local advertising agency about why the Turkish community was underrepresented in one of its campaigns.
It's clear that to all the Catalysts, the value of this project has been in the interactions they have undertaken. Fedele tells us, "You don't need to solve people's problems, just listen to them." And although I still have my doubts about the repercussions of these interventions, I can see that they do create openings in cross-community, cross-cultural communication, through the "unusual" instigation of conversation, and through the ongoing documentation and discussion around the project.
However, the voices that are noticeably absent during the presentation are those of the young people and the employers. Although we see them briefly in video clips, we don't hear their thoughts on the Flash Job. Is this silence an indication that the project has been too firmly focused on the role of the artist and his/her processes? Of course, it is the artist's prerogative to decide where the focus of his/her work will lie, but if that work so closely intervenes in the lives of others, incorporating and depending on their actions, surely their voices need to emerge before the discussion around this experiment progresses. Without this, isn't there a danger that they might be seen as faceless "guinea pigs", subjected to these artists' experiments but uninvolved in the development of further stages of the enquiry?
This criticism extends to the New Life Berlin festival as a whole. As Charlotte A. Morgan writes (http://www.wooloo.org/opendialoguesblog/s3Blog.php#ANC_628), ‘the festival's curators have outlined their intentions as being to create a more inward gaze towards the relations of the art world, rather than to engage in the locality of Berlin…However, the festival places participation at its core, a process with public engagement embedded in its ideals…Can we engage an international community without acknowledging localised publics, or presenting to them our ideals?'. Whilst there is certainly merit in exploring trends within an international artistic community, when work so clearly – even riskily – impacts on a local community, its representatives should have a place in reflecting on the project. As the Flash Job presentation concludes, I can see how this project has addressed the festival themes, ‘Transnational Communities' and ‘Participation and Intervention', but I am left wondering whether the potential implications and weight of ‘Artistic Social Responsibility' have been significantly overlooked.
Eleanor Hadley Kershaw is a writer and arts facilitator, currently based in Brussels delivering communications for IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts. Contact [email protected]
This text was developed as part of the Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin critical writing initiative http://www.wooloo.org/opendialoguesblog/
Please only reproduce this text with permission from the author and [email protected]
