Central & Eastern European Diasporic (CEED) Feminisms Reading Group

Join us in reading Join us in reading ‘Night Cleaning at the Bank: Sanja Iveković’s Screen Tests for Invisible Women’, Thinking Art. Materialisms, Labors, Forms, CRMEP Books' by Klara Kemp-Welch (2020).

The readings will start at 15.00 sharp, so please join us at 14.30 for some tea and biscuits before we start!

Abstract: Sanja Iveković has dedicated a filmic portrait to the “invisible” women of the Erste Campus, those workers who clean the offices in the early morning and evening and staff the cafeterias and kitchens. In keeping with her feminist approach, the artist investigates just why the Erste Campus cleaning women’s physical labor is invisible. She explores the situation of the company’s exclusively immigrant cleaning personnel, the working conditions they encounter, the effects of the building’s modern architecture, the Erste Campus workplace philosophy on their work, and the compatibility of their jobs with their private lives. To accomplish this, Iveković accompanied these women on the job with her camera over an extended period of time. She also conducted numerous interviews—not just with these women, but also with Erste Group’s CEO, with employee representatives, with activists, with the women’s supervisors, and with the architects who designed the Erste Campus. Some of the findings from this “field research” are shown in combination with portraits of these women on monitors installed at various locations throughout the building. In their film segments, these women also recite poems of their own selection that were written by Croatian author Aida Bagić in their respective native tongues. These texts revolve around migrant experiences, the quest for personal life plans, yearnings, disillusionment, and the hope for a better life. Sanja Iveković thus supports the potential of self-empowerment: her artistic project lends these women a voice and makes them visible agents of a working process.

No prior reading is required, as we will read together aloud during the session – one person and one paragraph at a time. There is also no need for any prior knowledge on the topic. Copies of the text will be provided on the day.

There is an option to join online - please email us at events@feministlibrary.co.uk to let us know you would like to join remotely.

The Library Hall is wheelchair accessible. If you have any other access requirements, email us and we'll do our best to accomodate!

*The readings are drawn from a bibliography compiled as part of a project run by Cell Project Space and the Feminist Duration Reading Group in 2023-2024, with support from the British Art Network.